Chapter Text
Ser Waymar Royce was on his knees.
His longsword had shivered and shattered into a hundred brittle pieces, each shard scattering like a rain of hungry needles. He was bleeding from his eyes and cheek, his fingers, and his throat. The snow was cold on his bent knees. He heard them walking closer, slowly, mockingly. He heard the deathly silence and the cold butchery of his brothers. He could almost feel their icy blades.
He felt a presence in front of him, silent and cold.
Waymar waited for his end, yet it did not come. He opened his ruined eyes and faintly saw, through blood, the watcher looking away. South, the thing stared and south, they all turned to look.
He felt his life ebbing away.
Cold. Why is it so cold? The dying knight thought to himself. Winter in the Mountains of Vale had been harsh, and half a year in the Night’s Watch had given him time to know the snow. This was different, the cold chill of death.
As his vision blurred, he heard them screeching in anger or fear. Waymar closed his eyes. As he lay dying in the white snow, blemished by his blood, he felt warm. It felt like his mother’s embrace.
Faintly, at the back of his mind, he heard the sound of gentle wind and flowing waters. He remembered stone, the mountains, and the rocky hills of the Vale. He remembered the old weirwood tree in Runestone and how its bleeding eyes seemed to peer at him.
Once, as a child, he had been unnerved but never admitted it. Now, he found comfort in it. Are the Old Gods here? Waymar thought to himself, gurgling out a bloodied chuckle. In his mind’s eye, he saw a bear charging with a pack of wolves. A pair of daggers stealing away the night. A wraith, obscured by smoke, hunting monsters. A hummingbird chirped in a garden of bright flowers and an eagle flew over a land of sand, the sun at its back. A great hulking beast stalked the wild lands and fire danced around dragons.
He saw an old clearing of trees and stone and rivers, and a figure with seven faces, a beast of the sea and a beast of fire. The clearing was soon filled with new arrivals. Doves and eagles and owls, wolves and ravens and bears. Coins glimmered, a hunter snarled, a lady smiled and a twin-tailed comet burnt above.
Ser Waymar Royce died with a shivered gasp, an audience to something greater.
Notes:
Welcome, welcome.
As mentioned, this story will be about the arrival of several characters, that are the player characters in a Warhammer Fantasy/DND game that I am running. One of my players is writing a brilliant story that is a narrative expansion of the campaign. If my fic is something you'll enjoy, that one will be for you too.
Here: Erstes Licht: A Self-Indulgent Five Year Plan to Avert the End Times
Chapter Text
He woke with a gasp.
The hardened Kossar leapt up, one hand flying to his axe. It was there, on his right hip as ever. The steel bear head on its pommel snarled silently, a reaffirming sight. His pistol was holstered on the left, and a heavy kite shield was strapped to his back, the crowned bear of Kislev proudly emblazoned on it.
Where am I? Andrei thought to himself, confused.
He found himself at the edge of some quiet forest. Past it, he saw rolling green plains, vast wilderness and pine-covered hills. The air was cold and clear, and he breathed deeply.
He was reminded of home, of wintry Kislev with its empty steppes and cold snow.
This is not the Motherland. Andrei accepted solemnly, but it was not the Empire either. After months in the southern Empire, he had grown used to its land, weather and people. This was not the Empire. It was not the dark canopy of Ostland, the hills of Talabecland, or the fertile plains of Reikland’s south.
He looked around for his companions and found naught but twigs and leaves.
Was he in a dream? Andrei rubbed his long, coarse beard. He was not.
The veteran frowned in thought as he checked through his supplies.
He remembered them walking through the streets of Altdorf, finally crossing its great bridge and finding themselves passing through the Colleges of Magic. After that…
His hands inspected his equipment first. His axe and shield were unblemished, and his pistol was clean and oiled. He faintly remembered doing that just recently.
His armour was on. A suit of heavy scalemail, along with armoured boots, greaves, pauldrons and his helmet. Patting and inspecting his pouches, he found enough gunpowder and rounds for another twelve shots, a filled waterskin, and a tinderbox. His amulet of Ursun hung from his neck, the snarling bear a source of comfort.
His stomach growled.
Andrei glanced about, a smile tugging at his lips, hidden behind a thick beard. Almost an eternity ago, he had been an angry child, tagging along with the hunters of his tribe. How long has it been since he had hunted in a forest like this?
He turned, heading deeper into the woods. He could figure out wherever he was when his stomach was filled. He walked through the quiet forest carefully, keeping his hand on his axe. His heavy boots crunched deeply into the twigs and dried leaves. His mind wandered as he walked.
Where were his companions? How did he end up here? Was it the Imperial Wizards?
He stopped.
There was rowdy laughter ahead. Several men. He heard the crackling of a campfire before he saw it. If he were a thief like Gunther, he would have snuck around to get a closer look. His armour clinked loudly as he walked, reminding him of the futility of stealth for him. He could almost hear the Imperial boy groan in annoyance.
Three rough men stopped to look at him, a young terrified girl held in one of their grasp. He had encountered many bandits, brigands and deserters in his time, both in Kislev and in the Empire. He had fought the savage and primitive Norscans, and remembered those howling tribesmen
These men were neither of those. Somehow, they seemed even rougher and desperate. Their faces were hardened and stained, almost permanently, with mud and grime. Their teeth were rotting or had fallen out. They were clad in dirty furs and some old leathers. Two of them clutched at their wooden spears while the third grabbed a crude bow.
Andrei peered at the spears. Their tips were not of metal but rather just sharpened wood. The girl sat frozen but stared at him with pitiful, teary eyes.
Andrei sighed, finding the whole ordeal painfully familiar.
He spoke in broken Reikspiel. “It. Be okay.”
The men and the girl stared at him for a quiet moment, confused. The three, then, laughed, glancing at each other and gesturing at him while speaking in a tongue he did not understand. It was not the flowery Tilean that Lorenzo occasionally used in his songs or the quick Estalian that Lucia would bark out when irritated. Not the Reikspiel of the Empire either. Andrei mused, as he took another step.
An arrow flew at him and bounced off the metal scales of his armour. He stared at the men, who gaped at him.
And then, he charged. His left hand swiftly grabbed onto his shield while the other clutched his axe.
Archer in the middle, behind the campfire. Girl to his left. Spearmen on the right and left.
His steel boots crushed the small campfire under them as he slammed his steel shield against the archer. The weight of a fully grown, and burly, man in heavy armour behind a great shield charging crashed against the wild man. He heard, and felt, bones cracking as the man flew a few feet, crashing against the ground roughly.
To his right, he saw the spearman charging at him. Behind him, he heard the same. The girl backed up in a panic, moving to hide behind a tree.
A wooden spear was thrusted at his face. He hooked it with his axe, wrenching it to the side as he smashed the metal edge against the man’s jaw and watched dispassionately as rotting teeth soared through the air. He brought his axe down, the sharp steel cleaving his skull.
Swiftly wrenching the axe out and turning around, he blocked the spear thrust with his shield and hacked savagely at the man’s left arm with his axe. The fur-clad savage cried out in pain, but was silenced when his throat was opened by another swing.
By now, the bowman was slowly stumbling to his feet. Calmly striding over, Andrei crushed the man’s fingers underneath his steel boots. Placing the edge of his axe against his throat, he stared as the man begged.
He did not understand the words but he knew when someone was begging for their lives. He had seen enough war to know. At the sound of footsteps, Andrei turned his head stiffly.
The girl from before, she could not be more than fourteen, stood a few feet away. She stared at the pleading man with empty eyes. He locked eyes with her and she gave him a long, solemn look. He nodded.
He turned towards her as the man fell, clutching at his throat, bleeding and dying.
Wiping his bloodied axe against the furs of one of the spearmen, he glanced at the camp. The pitiful campfire burnt away, dying in the cold morning. Three logs surrounded the camp, where they had been sitting. He saw a few casks of wine bottles, some already opened, and a dead rabbit.
There was a symbol on the casks, one that the girl stared mournfully at. He sighed once more, having seen scenes like this play out too often. He took a seat on one of the logs. He pointed at one of the bottles and to himself, raising an eyebrow at the girl. She blinked in shock and confusion, before nodding slowly.
Taking it and swiftly removing the stopper, he took a long gulp. Hmm. Not bad. It was cool, yet burned slightly as it went down his throat. There was a long silence as he finished the wine. He stopped.
Briefly, Andrei prayed that he could find Kvas here.
He turned to look at the girl who sat on the log to his left. She seemed to alternate between staring quietly into the fire and glancing nervously at him.
“Andrei,” he pointed to himself. She stared at him for a few seconds before recognition sparked in her eyes. “Jeyne.” The girl pointed to himself and said quietly.
“Ogon,” he muttered in Kislevarin while gesturing at the fire. She nodded. “Fire.”
This went on for the better part of an hour, the two exchanging words from their respective tongues, as he skillfully skinned the rabbit and prepared it to cook.
As he sharpened a pair of sticks to skewer the meat, he gestured around with a raised eyebrow.
Jeyne looked confused. He repeated the process.
“I was on the way to Wintertown with my father. We were headed there from White Harbour with a fresh stock of wine,” She stopped, and let out a pained sob, covering her face with her hands.
Andrei only recognised ‘wine’ but gave her a respectful silence, turning to glance at the roasting meat. He stared into the fire for a long moment before standing up with a groan.
He walked over to Jeyne. By now, her tears had halted, and she stared at the fire. Blinking her swollen eyes, she accepted a skewer from him. The young girl nibbled at the meat as he opened another bottle.
Once again, language would prove to be an enemy he could not defeat easily. After more than half a year in the Empire, he had finally grasped the basics of Reikspiel and now…
If only the bard is here. Andrei grumbled in his mind.
Something struck him. Grabbing a long stick, Andrei knelt and started to draw. It took him a few agonising minutes and he could hardly understand it himself but the girl was sharp. She stood behind him, watching curiously at the rough map of the Old World on the ground. She turned to look at him, an expression of utter bewilderment.
Andrei stared back and sighed. Villagers usually did not know what the larger world looked like beyond their village. Problem for later. Andrei thought, resigned.
It was close to midday now, he reckoned. He stood, and then sat. Where do I go?
Jeyne stared at him curiously. He stood again, stuffing two of the bottles into his belt, and broke the sharp end of the wooden spears, storing it as well. He took a step. She stood and followed.
Andrei gave her a confused look, and she stared at him like a lost bear cub. He nodded awkwardly at her and continued walking, the girl following silently behind. Here and there, she pointed and he turned, following her instructions. Before long, he was following behind her.
“Tree,” she pointed out. “Derevo.” He responded in his tongue.
“Snow,” she observed. “Sneg.” He smiled, staring at the snow.
The snow was growing thicker, and the trees less so. They walked through knee-high snow, the midday sun embracing them warmly. The path was a rough one, of mud and dirt.
“Ostanovka!” He hissed. Halt, it meant. The girl halted at the foreign word.
Ahead, he saw a large shaggy grey wolf growling at a great stag by a bridge. A few feet away, by an old tree, six small pups mewled in panic. As the stag charged at the wolf, he heard a twig break.
He turned to give Jeyne, in the midst of backing up, an annoyed glance.
The stag turned in the middle of its furious charge, heading for them instead. What manner of beast is this? Andrei pondered as he drew his pistol.
The quiet forest came alive with gunpowder’s roar. The lead round had punched through the stag’s head, slaying it instantly but momentum carried it forward. He moved to the side smoothly, letting the creature crash down on the rough path.
Holstering his pistol and drawing his axe in one swift action, he turned to face the great wolf only to see it staring at him with curious yellow eyes. It was huge, larger than even a pony. A direwolf. He remembered the name. They were rare in Kislev, often dying to the snow leopards and the bears, but he knew their names.
Jeyne whimpered in fear behind him, just like the wolf pups. The girl shook like a leaf as she stared at him, and the gun in his hand, with fear and confusion.
Wolf and man stared at each other for what felt like an eternity until it was broken by the sound of horses.
By the bridge, he saw two mounted men, both young and confused. They looked no older than fifteen. One was fair, with auburn hair that blazed and blue eyes that observed the scene carefully. The other was more slender, with solemn grey eyes and dark hair.
The two glanced at each other and nodded, some unspoken communication concluded.
The solemn boy, for that was what they were, turned and rode the other way in a hurry while the other one slowly approached.
Jeyne’s eyes widened and she bowed, performing some strange gesture with her hand and bending her knees.
“M’lord.” She mumbled.
Some prince? Andrei wondered as he inclined his head. Once, he had seen the Tzar from far during a great battle against the Northmen. He had drawn his glacial blade and thousands of Kossars saluted as one. A Tzar, this boy did not seem.
He spoke with Jeyne gently, with words he did not comprehend.
“What is your name?” He asked, not unkindly.
“Jeyne, m’lord.”
“Why are you here? And…who is this?” The boy’s brows furrowed.
“I was on the road with me pa, headed to Wintertown, m’lord. Wildlings attacked us, they killed him,” She closed her eyes, and her body shivered. “They took me to their camp and…” Jeyne glanced at him.
“He saved me. Speaks some strange tongue but he saved me, m’lord.”
Andrei understood the word ‘wildlings’. She had pointed at the three bodies and repeated it to him thrice.
Before they could continue, he saw a group of riders turning in. A grim man led them, his long brown hair stirring in the wind. His closely trimmed beard was fleck with white and his grey eyes were like stone. Next to him, he saw the boy from earlier. There were others with them. A lean youth, older than the others by a few years, glanced amused. A younger boy, maybe six or seven, with a shock of red hair and blue eyes. Half a dozen men in leather and mail, swords at their hips.
Over their heads flapped a banner, a grey direwolf racing across an ice-white field.
Ulricans? Andrei wondered.
He saw the lord, for he could be no other, staring at him with an undiscernible look.
Then, his eyes flickered to the direwolf.
“What in the seven hells is it?” The lean youth asked.
The solemn boy responded, vaguely annoyed. “That’s a direwolf.” They converse more but Andrei ignored them, watching as the wolf trodded over to the grim lord.
“A sign from the Old Gods.” Jeyne whispered in awe. He turned to look at her, still clueless.
The pups, by now, were stirring and pawing their way to their mother, each one swaying this way and that way. One of them, dark grey and the largest, went over to the boy who had remained with them. He watched the young lad bent over to pick the pup up. It nuzzled against him, searching for milk and whimpering.
The men, and boys, were talking. For a moment, they seemed to have forgotten about him and the girl. He saw the youngest boy hold onto a wolf, crying out as the older youth drew a dagger.
They’re talking about the wolves. Andrei realised. The mother direwolf tilted her head at the lord, who glanced back at her, some mirth in his grey eyes. The wolf advanced, and the skittish horse took a step back but the lord calmed it down. He watched as the man slowly extended his hand. The wolf smelled it, and licked it, bumping her head softly against the palm.
Eventually, he saw them gathering the pups, the mother resting her great bulk on the ground. Then, they turned to look at him.
The lord nudged his horse and soon Andrei found himself facing off with the stark, grey man.
“Who are you?” The man asked.
Andrei turned to Jeyne, who seemed terrified to speak but gathered her strength.
She, first, explained to the lord what she had mentioned. The man’s eyes softened and there was less caution as he turned back to Andrei.
“This is Lord Stark, Warden of the North and Lord of Winterfell.” Jeyne whispered to him and he understood half the words.
“He wants to know who you are and why you are here.”
Andrei turned back to the lord. There was a questioning look in his eyes.
“Andrei. Andrei Yeltska. Kossar from Kislev.” He answered in Kislevarin.
The Stark men glanced at each other in confusion. “Is that an Essosi language?” One of them asked another.
Lord Stark stared at him for a while and sighed. Rubbing his eyes tiredly, he gestured for Andrei to follow, muttering something about a master.
Without spare horses, the two had to walk behind the mounted men, who all slowed to match their pace. Jeyne seemed overwhelmed, glancing about with wide eyes.
“Winterfell.” He spoke, testing the word on his tongue. Jeyne turned to look at him. Zima upala. Winter fall?
She understood his question but struggled with the words. She placed her hands together and stretched them out far and wide. “Big. The seat of House Stark.”
Big. He understood. Some kind of castle then?
He spent the journey conversing quietly with the young girl, who grew more confident as she spoke. Speaking seemed to help her forget. Before long, the auburn-haired lad came to them.
“You’re a soldier, then, stranger? Could almost confuse you for a Mormont with the bear and the beard.” He chuckled.
Andrei looked at him, confused. The boy hummed in thought and pointed at one of the men-at-arms. Ah. Andrei nodded, patting his axe. The lad grinned. “Robb Stark.” He pointed out the others in the group. “Jon.” The solemn, grey-eyed boy nodded at him. Looks like Lord Stark. Andrei thought.
“Theon.” The lean youth smirked back at him.
“My brother, Bran,” The young boy stopped playing with his pup and waved shyly.
Robb turned to the girl. “Killed three Wildlings by himself, you say?”
She nodded, looking at the ground. “How was it?” He questioned with a grin, he saw Jon looking at the conversation curiously.
Jeyne spoke softly at first but grew more animated as she did, the boys laughing and cheering.
Andrei had his eyes fixed on something else.
A large castle loomed ahead, tall and ancient. Strong grey walls with snow-capped towers and the banner of the direwolf flew high above.
Lord Stark turned to look at him. “Winterfell,” he said quietly and proudly.
Andrei was not looking at that.
His whole life, he had known Mannslieb, the great white moon, and Morrslieb, the ominous green moon. Across his travels in the Empire of Man, he had heard many whispering about the moons. And on Geheimnistag… He shook his head and focused.
The journey had been long. A few hours had passed on the road in a swift blur. Midday had given way to evening and the sun was on the cusp of setting.
Far away in the sky, he could see a single moon. A single white orb. He blinked, rubbing his eyes to be sure. The moon sat distant and mocking. As they rode through the great gates of Winterfell, Andrei clenched his fists tightly.
Where am I? Andrei thought with mounting dread.
Notes:
Right. The North is the northernmost kingdom in Westeros. It is a cold and hard land, ruled by grim, hardy men. The winter here is harsh. The land is relatively undeveloped and the population is not the highest, yet it is also the largest kingdom. Stretches of empty, cold land dominate the North.
Kislev, meanwhile, is Tzarist Russia and Eastern Europe smashed into one. Cold, snows, bears, vodka. Perfect for our Kossar.
Speaking of, meet Andrei Yeltska. A hardened Ungol Kossar, who deserted the Kislevite army after one too many battles. Thereafter, he wandered the Empire as a mercenary before meeting the party and travelling with them. More will be touched on that later, his backstory too :)
Andrei is 38 and a burly man. Look up the images of the Kislevite Armoured Kossars to get an image in your head. Language of course will be a big problem for him (and the rest) but especially him.
Next up, our resident thief...
Chapter Text
The smell of shit greeted him as he stirred awake.
What? He thought blearily.
Fuck. He jumped, suddenly sharp and aware.
He was in a filthy alleyway. Empty glass bottles, puddles of vomit, and all manner of trash littered the place. Briefly, he wondered if it had all been a dream and he was back in Nuln, back in the slums of the Faulestadt.
Then, the smell hit him again and Gunther knew it was no dream.
Or a really vivid nightmare. He snarked to himself, checking his coin pouches and his daggers. There it was, he stared hungrily. Thirty-eight gold crowns, seven silver shillings, and nine brass pennies. Caressing his pouches, he stashed them back in the safe spot that an old fence had taught.
He remembered the words and the slimy voice. Everyone stares at the belt but no one checks under it.
His pistol was strapped to the back of his hip, his case of lockpicks and coil of wire in one pouch. Under his dark leather, he felt both the ‘reclaimed’ ruby necklace and that tribal bone necklace. On his left thumb was the white ring he had bought from the Halfling merchant back in Blutroch. Under the right light, the small gem seemed to swirl with dancing white light.
Buying a ring with me own money. Gunther scoffed to himself. If someone had told him that just a year ago, he would have laughed at them, and wondered if they would be daft enough to be an easy mark.
Wrapping his dark grey cloak around him tighter, he stepped out of the alleyway.
Instantly, the smell seemed to intensify. The stench was horrible. The Faulestadt had been bad enough, with all the tannery and dyemakers in one district. Here, the stink of pigsties and stables and tanners mated with the sour smell of winesinks and cheap whorehouses and unwashed bodies to birth some horrific scent.
He gagged, covering his mouth with one hand.
Bad idea. He thought as he saw a pair of shady men glancing over at him. They’ll know I’m not from here.
He stiffened, coughed, and walked. Hiding his grimace, he continued.
Where in Altdorf am I? Weren’t we just walking by the Colleges? Did we get jumped? Where are the rest?
His head spun from the smell and the crowd and the neverending questions.
He turned as he reached a bend in the road, and froze.
What. He thought dumbly as he stared.
There was a grand, red keep on a high stony hill. On the other end of the city, he saw a grand cathedral, almost as grand as the Temple of Sigmar in Altdorf’s Domplatz.
This was not Altdorf.
Almost drunkenly, he stumbled and turned. Far behind him, a crumbling and massive building loomed darkly, a huge domed castle reclaimed by time.
Where am I? Gunther screamed in his head as he moved to the sidewalk, letting the crowd pass by. There was an overwhelming sense of wrongness and he could not quite figure it out.
Then it kicked in.
A good thief and criminal always kept their ears open, and listened in to what people were talking about. Even after fleeing Nuln, he had always continued that instinctively.
Growing up in a cosmopolitan city, he heard many, many languages. Even if he could not speak them, he could recognise them, especially after spending so much time with his companions. Harsh Kislevarin, flowery Tilean, aggressive Estalian, pompous Bretonnian, even the confusing Arabyan tongue.
The people around him did not speak any of that. He saw an eyeless beggar pleading with words he did not comprehend, a mother nagging her children in a tongue completely foreign to him.
He gulped. He needed to find the rest. They have to be somewhere in the city right?
He glanced about the massive city, not even being able to spot the walls. He breathed in and out, and in again. Alright, I-
He felt a hand brush against his belt and he spun, clutching at the wrist of some young boy. The lad struggled, twisting and turning. Behind a mop of messy brown hair, fearful eyes stared panicked at him. He could not be more than ten.
Gunther stared at him, placed one hand on the pommel of his dagger, and gave him a meaningful look. As the urchin scampered away, Gunther stared at him for a long moment.
Pushing his thoughts aside, he continued on. He knew he could find Andrei at a tavern. Lorenzo was where the music was, and Lucia would not be far behind. As for Folke, Gunther shrugged to himself, he would know when the guns started singing.
He nodded to himself. The taverns were a good place to start. His head still swelled with questions.
How did I get here? Magic? Lorenzo’s songs? Ranald? Where is ‘here’? It’s not Altdorf, not Nuln for sure. Magritta? Can’t be.
“Apologies.” Gunther mumbled, bumping into some lost merchant. He smirked as he played with the silver coin in his hand. On one side, there were three faces, a crowned king in the middle. On the other side, a stag. He could not read the words on the coin, however.
The old familiar routine was cathartic for him. It helped to keep his restless fingers busy and his mind distracted. By the time he found a tavern, he had four more of those silver coins and fourteen copper coins, engraved with stars and crowns and skulls.
He found those symbols oddly familiar. The coins in the Empire varied in appearance based on the city they were minted in. Back in Nuln, the coins bore great cannons and guns in honour of the Imperial Gunnery School. Comparing them to his own coins, he found them to be of roughly equal weight.
As he stepped into the inn, the room went silent and rough men turned to stare at him.
Come on, mate. You’ve fought Orcs and Beastmen and more. They’re nothing. Walking with a confidence he did not fully feel, he strolled towards the bar. In seconds, the inn returned to normal, quiet mutterings and conversations filling the room.
He slapped a copper, the one with a star, on the counter. The grumpy old innkeeper glared back, before giving him a dirty mug of stale beer. He stared down at it.
Copper star for a mug of piss. Gunther grumbled to himself. Now, he needed to know the rates. How much greater was one of the silvers?
Fishing one of the silver stags, he decided he would call it such from now on, he flashed it to the innkeeper, whose eyes widened slightly. Gunther rubbed his belly, and nodded at one of the cleaner wine bottles on the shelf. Would it get me food and a bottle of wine?
A minute later, the innkeeper placed a bowl of stew and a clean wooden goblet of some wine. He sniffed at the wine. It did not smell grotesque. Taking a careful sip, he hummed in thought. Not too bad. Had better though.
He stared at the stew in disdain, disappointment, and disgust. It was a thick brown sludge, a few chunks of undiscernable meat floating in it.
In the Reikland, one could get a good, hearty meal and a mug of good ale for a silver shilling. Either the currency here meant less, or he was shortchanged.
He was willing to bet money on the latter. He cleared his throat. The innkeeper glanced back, raising one irritated eyebrow. Gunther met his stare and held out his hand. Sighing in defeat, the old man fished in his pouch before handing over five copper stars.
Gunther smirked, and his smug grin never left his face even as he strolled out of the inn. Then, he remembered. Right. Gotta find the others.
He found himself staring at that grand temple.
Atop a hill, a plaza of white marble surrounded a grand temple.
Now, if I were a bard that is supposedly touched by the gods, where would I go? Gunther wondered, sardonically.
It was a long walk there, but he spied a wide street that would guide him there. The street spilt the slums he was in away from the buildings in the shadow of that red castle. Like the Empire’s rivers. He thought idly to himself.
The walk took close to two hours, he reckoned, but it was all rather productive. The thieves were not as skilled as the ones back home, and certainly not as good as him. Twice, he felt the crooks trying to snatch his money. Twice, he led them on a wild chase before they lost track of him. Then, he walked past them and snatched a coin from their pouch.
Sniggering to himself, Gunther thought about the food he could get at a better tavern.
Wonder if they have pretzels her-
Then, he was pulled into an alleyway.
The thug’s breath stank and his teeth were yellow like piss. “Thought you were clever huh?”
Gunther had no idea what he was saying. Pinned against the wall, he found himself staring at the man’s bloodshot eyes. He spat in them. The thug cried out, letting him go. He fell smoothly, bending his knees to absorb the shock.
Gunther kicked the thug between his legs, his leather shoe bringing the man to his knees. He took his dagger and saw the thug’s eyes widen in fear. He seemed to plead. Gunther snorted and turned the dagger around, slamming the pommel against his temple.
He fell limply. Prick. Gunther spat on his face again and bent down to take his coin purse. Three copper stars. He stared at the man with disbelief. In pity, he briefly considered leaving him with one of his coins.
In the end, he left him with another glob of spit.
Throat’s getting dry. He thought to himself.
He patted himself down, making sure everything was where it should be. Coin, necklaces, ring, daggers, pistol. Right, time to go.
Stepping out of an alleyway for the second time, he continued walking.
Gunther realised, with horror, that he had begun to grow accustomed to the stench.
Nothing could stop him now, he thought.
He passed by merchants and whores, mercenaries and squires. He was now on that street he spied earlier, rubbing shoulders and stealing coins from all sorts.
He spied a cart, a fat baker’s boy pushing it and shouting loudly. Piping hot pies sat warm and fragrant on the cart. His mouth watered. Gunther stepped towards the cart, waving down the boy.
He pointed at one of the pies. The large lad grabbed it gently and handed it to him. “Three stars.” He said, not that Gunther understood. The boy stared at him, confused, before repeating himself and raising three fingers.
Ah. Gunther fished out the three stars he had rightfully taken from the thug and handed it to the boy. As the fat lad took the coins and continued on, Gunther munched on his new snack.
The thug’s money had been worth it. The crust was flaky and warm, and there was a generous filling of fish and carrots inside. Gunther devoured the hot pie like he was an Ogre with a Goblin, inching ever closer to the great temple on the hill.
He stopped when he noticed a strange pit in an alleyway. A group of men gathered around a pit, surrounded by wooden stakes, and cheered or roared insults. It was a mockery of a gladiator’s pit and Gunther had seen one before.
A rat pit. He groaned in his head. It was a sad sight truly, broken men utterly bored with their lives throwing money at bets between fighting rats. He shook his head but stopped when he heard a grand commotion.
He was near the center of the city, he wagered. A large square, he saw, one crowded with people. More than the hustle and bustle of a city, he saw a progression of men and women. Guards and servants, maids and ladies. Someone important was leaving the city.
Moving his way through the crowd, and resisting the urge to lighten some pockets, he circled around and found a good spot atop some old statue to stare at the line of wagons and riders.
He saw a great fat man with a wild and thick beard, a crown on his head. The fat king was dressed in black and gold, a stag emblazoned on his doublet, bulging with his belly. A king? Immediately, he thought of the Bretonnians.
Next to him rode two figures who could not be more different. One was a dashing knight with long, blonde hair. He reminded Gunther of the Bretonnian Knights once again, with their pompous smiles. A halfling rode on a pony next to him. Wait. That’s not a halfling.
A haughty young blonde in fine robes pouted on a white horse behind them, a scarred and darkly armoured man with a hound’s helm by his side. He thought of Lucia and her armour, emblazoned with Myrmidia’s scriptures. The brat reminded him of the haughty and rich students back home. Ranald be good, I’ll snatch a gold from him. Gunther sniffed.
A magnificent wheelhouse was behind them. It was a work of art, of fine wood that he could not name and elegant engravings he did not understand.
A window opened, and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen smiled at the crowd. He saw luscious gold locks and a gold crown, and thought of the vain Countess Emmanuelle back in Nuln. He had seen her once, when she had walked through the streets earlier in her reign. Her smile was fake, but this queen’s one was faker.
He watched the procession leave, heading towards one of the distant gates. Once again, he found himself pondering just exactly where he was.
The thought lingered heavy on his head as he made the walk up the high hill to the grand cathedral. Even in his leathers, he was exhausted and drenched in sweat by the time he arrived at the top. Briefly, he thought of Andrei and Lucia in their heavy, clinking armour and snorted in amusement.
By now, the sun was setting but he paid it no mind. He walked past some priest preaching. Idly, he turned to look. The priest was dressed in a simple robe and held a book with a seven-pointed star on it. He did not recognise the symbol but shrugged. There must have been hundreds of gods in the Old World Pantheon after all.
He joined the stream of devout men and pious women flocking to the temple. Passing through towering doors and floors of marble and a hall of lamps, he found himself in a cavernous temple, with seven broad aisles meeting before the dome.
There were seven statues here. The first, he picked randomly, was a grim hooded figure turned away from the believers, a handful of candles at its base, mere raindrops compared to the blazes at the other statues. Gunther smiled. Morr.
Gunther grinned widely. Now, he knew. He must be in the Border Princes, that wild land claimed and disputed by a thousand pitiful princes. That explained the city and the coinage and the language. He must be in some city yet undiscovered and noticed by the Empire. How he got here… He could figure that out later.
The other statues supported this.
A gentle maiden smiled. Shallya.
An aged mother stood, stern and warm. Rhya.
An old crone, blinded and holding a lamp. Verena.
A smith, a hammer in his hands. One of the merchant gods.
An armoured warrior, holding swords in his hand. Some bastardised version of Ulric, eh? Wonder what Folke would say.
Lastly, a bearded man, with a pair of scales in his hand. Maybe those old gods of law that Lorenzo mentioned?
He spent what felt like an eternity in there, walking over to each statue and giving a short prayer. He did not quite know what to say. He had never prayed much but this just felt right. Besides, it won’t hurt. Gunther thought to himself.
It was night when he stepped out of the temple.
He stopped to breathe in the cool night air, and found himself retching over the side of the street. “Right.” He coughed to himself.
He started to walk, whistling smugly to himself. All was well. He just had to figure out a way to get a horse and he could ride back to the Empire. Maybe he could hire a coach?
He stretched his arms above him, closing his eyes in enjoyment. He felt his bones crack. Ah. He groaned in satisfaction.
He opened his eyes.
A single moon greeted him. It seemed to hang in the night sky mockingly, a single eye of light amidst the sea of dark. Where’s the other? Gunther thought, frozen. The coins, the languages, the city, the king, the gods. It was all wrong.
Where the hell am I? Gunther screamed in his head.
Notes:
Gunther, oh, Gunther.
Welcome to King’s Landing, the capital city of Westeros. It is a large and stinky place, cramped with half a million people. It is here that the King sits on the Iron Throne, and rules his Seven Kingdoms. Though, nowadays, King Robert does more drinking than ruling.
Our thief is the youngest of the party (20), having fled Nuln in the dead of night after a failed heist. Snarky, snide and self-serving (for the most part). A lovable rogue, really.
Next, we'll meet the other war veteran of the party...
Chapter Text
He opened his eyes coldly and quickly.
Instantly, he knew something was wrong. He was lying on a patch of cool grass, in some clearing surrounded by oak trees. The wind blew gently, but Folke rose harshly, like a dead man rising from the grave.
He turned sharply, keeping his hand on his pistol as he did. He saw no one but he did not let his guard down. He spared a moment to glance at himself.
His brace of throwing knives, all four of them, were still strapped to his chest. The Dwarfen axe, Skullcrusher , sat on his right hip. Not too far away, within easy reach, his pistol slept in its holster at the back of his hip. He felt the familiar presence of his rifle, Spitfire Four, and his lips twitched slightly.
His pouches were with him and untouched. Thirty-six rounds for his rifle, fifteen for his pistol, and enough gunpowder for both. His cleaning kit was there, cloth and oil and tweezers. Within another pouch, he found a tinderbox and a small green potion. His waterskin hung heavy, and so did the ivory horn.
He allowed himself another moment, staring at the horn for a second.
Focus. He reminded himself. He took a deep breath. Clean, cool air entered his lungs. All around him, he heard the sound of nature. It was an idyllic place, a calm clearing with grand trees and chirping birds. Folke placed his hand on his axe, unease gripping his heart.
He remembered crossing the great bridge in Altdorf with his companions, and observing the famed Colleges of Magic they passed by.
He remembered old conversations around campfires, before and after battles. It was rare for Imperial Wizards to attach themselves to their battles, so when one did, the men talked. He remembered young Wilburg exclaiming in shock at the Bright Wizard’s fiery spells, and how quiet Gerwin smiled slightly in satisfaction when a Celestial Wizard called forth a storm on Nordland’s shores, ending the Norscan raid before it could begin in earnest.
He remembered them talking about the Colleges of Magic in Altdorf, and how they seemed to bleed magic out onto the city around. He had never paid much attention to those talk but now…
Slowly and carefully, Folke inspected his surroundings. The treeline was not a thick one, utterly unlike the dark terrors of the Reikwald Forest. He closed his eyes, and listened.
Taal will show you the way. The wild will speak to you. Just listen. His father had said, sagely, to him when he was but a boy, tagging along on his hunt with wide eyes.
The wild spoke to him. As the world quietened, he heard the sound of a great, rushing river. He hoped it would be the River Reik.
Once again, the gods did not answer his prayers. As he exited the clearing, he saw a river, a giant snake of water that split into three tributaries. Close to it, he saw a long, winding road of dried dirt and mud. On it, men rode this way and the other, though they seemed like ants from here. In the distance, he spied a coaching inn, three stories tall and a chimney belching out smoke.
He stared at the sight, burning it to memory while thinking hard.
Bretonnia? He knew little of that backwater land. He heard the disparaging remarks from soldiers and thought of what the bard had mentioned. He, and Lucia, had traveled through that realm and had few praises to sing.
This river did not resemble any of the Empire’s great rivers. Across his campaigns with the State Troops, he had marched along and past them. The River Reik, wide and grand. The broad and slow River Talabec, the blue and foaming River Aver, and the well-defended River Stir.
Folke turned, entering deeper into the forest.
He had no food on him. Judging by the sun, it was late morning. He had his coin pouch with him but found little desire to enter a tavern. He moved to unsling his rifle but stopped.
He knew not where he was. He remembered the strict, tyrannical rulership of the Bretonnian knights over their fiefdoms that the bard had mentioned once. They would not take kindly to a foreign poacher on their lands. He kept his hands free and loose while he stalked along the forest.
He spotted wild berries and mushrooms but found them foreign. Unlike the ones in the Empire . He thought, deciding to leave them untouched.
He continued on. Soon enough, he saw the telltale tracks of a deer. Folke crouched, and peered at the trail, rubbing the mud with his gloved hands.
Fresh. He thought as he drew a throwing knife. He followed it silently. Soon, he came to a small stream and saw a hart drinking from the water, lapping greedily. The hart had its head bent low and did not notice him.
Folke flipped the knife in his hand and judged the distance. The cold blade soared through the silent forest air, sharp steel biting viciously through the hart’s neck. For a moment, it whined in pain. Then, a Dwarfen axe ended its misery.
Wiping the hot blood away from his face, he began to drag the cadaver back to the clearing.
Methodically, he went through the motions. He gathered twigs and dried leaves, and surrounded them with a ring of pebbles. He lit a match and tossed it into the pile. As the fire slowly started, he drew his skinning knife and got to bloody, messy work. The hart’s lifeless eyes seemed to stare at him as he skinned the beast, Folke ignored it.
Cutting chunks of meat out, he skewered them on sharpened sticks and left them to cook. He stared into the fire. The flames danced, orange tendrils flickering here and there.
Once, he had sat around campfires with his fellow soldiers. That time was long gone. Still, this one was too quiet. He had, strangely, grown accustomed to the sound of a lute being played, daggers being sharpened, scriptures being recited.
He halted himself before he could dredge up more memories, turning his attention to the meat. Hard, tasteless. Could be worse.
As he finished his meal, he took a sip from his waterskin, thinking as he drank. If he were in Bretonnia, he would need to head towards the Grey Mountains, and cross one of the mountain passes to the Empire.
Folke glanced to the east, and found a towering range of mountains, long spines of stone that jutted to the sky.
They seemed more like the World’s Edge Mountain to him.
He closed his eyes and thought of the Empire as he remembered from the maps. Sylvania? No. The sun was too bright.
Folke clenched his fists. Taking a deep breath, he released them. Old Isenbert’s voice rang in his head. Up! Get up! His former captain’s words were strong and he instinctively stood up. Kicking mud over the fire, he left.
He headed towards the road, letting a wagon of curious merchants pass by.
He walked for what felt like hours. He passed by a handful of travellers, merchants and a few mercenaries.
All eyes had drifted to him. No, the rifle. He realised. They gave him a look of confusion and bewilderment, but none came to speak to him.
Have they not seen guns before? Even the most illiterate farmer in the Empire knew what a gun was, and he doubted that the merchants and mercenaries would be as clueless. He remembered hearing from passing Nordland Mariners on the Bretonnian Navy, and how they had been filled to the brim with cannons. Where am I?
He stopped by the side of the road, resting by a large tree. The road was empty now. He grabbed his rifle, and went through the familiar motions of dismantling it. He did it every night, cleaning and oiling it. In seventeen seconds, the rifle was neatly disassembled into its parts.
He spent a few minutes staring.
He needed a backpack, he concluded.
Folke sighed and reassembled the rifle, strapping it to his back.
He kept close to the east-most fork from the river as he walked. The fork had a murky green colour to it, and Folke avoided drinking from it. Before long, he found a shallow ford, where the river flowed low. He crossed it and marched straight. He knew not where he was going but following the rivers should guide him to civilisation.
The green fork would have been a poor guide, he had realised. Few settlements could be found following it, for who would wish to drink from swampy water?
Soon, he came across the next fork. The severity of his face lightened slightly. The fork was blue. The water was pure and clean, and it flowed gently.
Stopping to drink, he noticed a small farmstead just downstream.
A single wooden hut stood lonely, surrounded by a sea of crops, enclosed within a thin fence of wood and thatch. He saw a farmer, a man in his forties maybe, harvesting carrots and cabbage. A girl, perhaps six, stood beside him, holding a woven basket that the man filled with the crops, giggling and talking.
The laughter died when he arrived.
The father stood tall, clutching his hoe tightly, the rusty steel close to his chest. The girl clung close to her father, cleaning his dirty trousers and staring at him with fear.
The farmer spoke.
Folke stared at him silently in response. He did not recognise that tongue. He opened his mouth, and no words came out. He stared at the man and his daughter. If the bard was here, he could rely on him to talk but he was not.
Folke closed his mouth and turned, walking away. Then, he heard the man hesitantly call out. The farmer gave him a confused smile and gestured to the house. Folke raised his brow and the man nodded.
He approached them slowly, making sure to keep his hands from his weapons. He saw the girl’s eyes widen as he approached, staring at his many knives. He gave her a stiff nod and she blinked owlishly at him. She was a scrawny child, with long brown hair stained with mud, and brown eyes that peered at him.
The farmer and his daughter sat on a wooden bench across from him. A frail, old table was between them, with a cast iron pot on it. The farmer removed the lid, and the fragrant smell of a thick rabbit stew greeted him. Folke watched as the farmer scooped a bowlful of stew, giving it to his daughter with a warm grin. Then, he did the same, passing it to Folke with a hesitant smile.
Folke took it and paused, nodding at the farmer. The farmer took a bowl for himself and clasped his hands together in prayer, and spoke. Folke did not understand the words but he did not need to. He stared at the stew, letting the farmer speak.
A minute later, the farmer spoke once more, gesturing to the stew with a grateful smile. Folke ate it quickly, scooping up the thick stew hungrily with the wooden spoon. Rabbit meat. He noted. It was good.
The farmer watched him with amusement and glanced at his daughter. He spoke again, gesturing to his daughter and the pot. Folke understood, and nodded at the little girl once more. She smiled slightly and shyly, covering her mouth.
“Folke.” He said, quietly, pointing to himself. They deserved as much for the kindness they had given. The two stared at him for a few seconds before recognition spread across their faces. The farmer smiled proudly at his daughter. “Sally.” He said with a parent’s pride and then pointed at himself. “Alf.”
As Alf cleared away the bowls, Sally glanced at him now and then, her chocolate brown eyes peering at him. Folke felt something burning in him. He stepped out of the house, taking a deep breath.
Leaning against the wall, he stared at the farm. It was a small stretch of crops, a few dozen carrots, cabbages, onions and beetroot.
The farms back in Kiepford had been no larger, just a few small slots of crops within the walls, tired farmers cultivating what little food they could from the barren soil. As a boy, he would watch the farmers sometimes, a youthful melancholy as he watched the farmers labour back-breakingly.
Now, he stared with empty eyes at this farm.
The door opened behind him. The farmer moved to stand beside him, placing his hands at his hip, glancing at his farm proudly. They stood in silence for some time before Alf broke it, asking him a question.
His eyes were glued to Folke’s rifle. Not knowing how to respond, Folke shrugged. “Gewehr.” He said, Reikspiel for rifle.
Alf looked at him with confusion in his eyes but shrugged. After a few minutes, the farmer had a sudden look of realisation. Alf pointed at the farm and spoke a single word. “Farm.”
Folke blinked, and his lips twitched slightly. “Bauernhof.” He responded.
They continued this for close to an hour. Soon, both men knew that Sally was listening from behind the door, her shadow stretching across the dirt. The farmer smiled at him and spoke.
With a bashful smile, the girl stepped out. She joined their conversation, offering a new word here and there or pointing out something for her father to speak the name of.
They spoke long, and Folke learnt much from the two.
Then, the peace was shattered by a scream. Sally stared frightfully at a frothing hound, the beast rushing down the path at them.
It was just a dog, but scarred and vicious. He saw the farmer move immediately, grabbing his hoe.
The weapon was too heavy and slow and blunt, Folke deduced in a second. Perhaps if Alf was lucky, he could smash the dog’s skull in but if he could not, he would die, and then his daughter with him.
Folke acted on instinct.
Avoiding his guns, he drew a knife and in one smooth motion, threw it at the hound’s eye. It penetrated deeply, the rabid dog instantly dying, crashing limply against the ground.
All was silent, then the girl looked at him, awe in her eyes. The farmer dropped his hoe, and scooped his daughter up in a hug. He reached over to embrace Folke but he backed up, the farmer giving him a sheepish smile.
As Alf sent his daughter back into the house, Folke walked over to the dead hound. It resembled the hunting hounds back home, the kind that hunters would bring with them on their hunts. Folke grabbed the cadaver with a scowl, dragging it far away from the farm. It can rot somewhere else.
When he returned, he expected the door to be closed. Instead, Alf had found an old bedroll and left it on the floor. The tired farmer sat at the bench. “Sleep. Night.” The farmer said, words that they had taught him.
Folke stared at him for a second and the bedroll, and nodded. Alf gave him a smile, and left for his room.
He took a seat on the bench. A bedroll with a roof over his head and a hearth closeby? It was practically a tavern’s rest compared to being on campaign.
He could not go to sleep yet. His head still spun with thoughts and questions.
Am I in Bretonnia? Why?
He unslung his rifle from his shoulder, skilled hands working away at the weapon. First, he calmly disassembled Spitfire, using an old cloth and tweezers to clean out any dust or grime that had gathered inside the gun.
I should find a town, and a map.
Then, he took the small oil container and dripped a few drops within the barrel, wiping and spreading it with a stained cloth.
Need to know the local language more.
He let out a breath, rolling his tense shoulders. Then, he heard the sound of footsteps, heavy and angry.
He stared at his disassembled rifle for a moment. Too late. He cursed and stood, grabbing a throwing knife. He moved to a window, and saw a man with a bow glancing at the door. Then, the figure, cloaked in the darkness of the night, strolled over to the farm. Folke silently leapt out of the window, keeping himself low and unseen.
The hunter, he realised, noticed the patch of blood where the hound had died and stood suddenly. He started heading for the door. Folke stood up, startling the hunter who immediately grabbed his bow and nocked an arrow.
The hunter yelled out a question, and Folke recognised the word ‘dog’. He grimaced.
The man seemed agitated, pointing and gesturing with his bow.
Any louder and he would wake up the farmer and his daughter, Folke thought, glancing at the man who turned to look at the house. The two were at a stalemate, the hunter with his bow pointed at Folke, and he had his knife ready to throw.
Then, the hunter’s face twisted in further fury. He saw the slightest twitch in the man’s jaw and the beginning of movement in his shoulder. About to loose. Folke thought, and so he ducked to the side.
The arrow soared through the cool night air, flying far and soaring out of sight. Folke tossed his knife, and it flew straight and true, impaling deep in the hunter’s throat. The hunter dropped his bow, his hands rushing for his throat.
Folke leapt at the man like a wolf in the night, pulling out the knife. Blood flowed from the man’s throat, like the rushing rivers of this land. In the dark of night, Folke stared dispassionately into the man’s eyes as the hunter’s leather jerkin flooded with his blood. The man fell to his knees, and Folke slashed his throat.
Cleaning his knife on the back of the man’s jerkin, the only part of his top still clean, Folke dragged the man’s corpse to where he had tossed his dead hound. Returning to the farmer’s shed to grab a shovel, he began the slow, laborious process of burying the man and his hound.
Just like the hart, the man’s eyes seemed to stare at him. Just with the hart, Folke ignored him. The shovel bit into the dirt like a hungry beast and lifted another chunk with it, swelling the growing mount of mud next to it. He tossed the hunter inside the grave, and left his dog on top of him. He took the bow, however.
Folke stared coldly at the bodies as he buried them with dirt and mud. The hunter’s eyes were black and flinty like coal, not unlike his own. With another shove of mud, the hunter’s face was covered, his eyes obscured from the moonlight.
Now, kind brown eyes seemed to stare at him.
Why did you kill him? A voice seemed to ask him.
He ignored the voice. Nightmares would come for him tonight, he thought.
The ground was smoothened now, and six feet under, a man and his dog lay quietly forever.
Folke turned and left, clutching the shovel tightly. It was a short walk back to the farmer’s house.
His body was drenched in sweat, a sensation he was familiar with. On the march, they could go days without showering. His hands were stained with blood, however, and he suddenly realised how that would look to the farmer and the daughter. He turned once more, heading for the river.
For a brief moment, a part of him wondered how they might react if they knew. Would they praise and thank him for saving them? Would the girl scream in terror like when she had seen that rabid beast, now that there was another one at her doorsteps? Would the father grab his farming tools to protect his daughter from another mad creature?
Folke stopped at the river. He submerged his hands into the cool, clean water and watched as the blood from his hands polluted the stream, clouding and choking it with red.
He moved to dunk his head under the water. Then, in the dark, he saw the moon’s reflection on the water. The single white moon lurking in the sky on a cloudless night.
Folke slowly looked up, and stared at the single white moon in the sky for what felt like an eternity.
Notes:
The Riverlands. The most central realm in Westeros, dominated by rivers and plains. It is a rather fertile land, and its rivers foster agriculture and trade well. Folke is somewhere between the Green and Blue Folk right now.
Folke Eiser is a former Nordlander State Trooper of the Second Handgunner Company who was supposed to be retired with his family until tragedy struck. Now, he is a quiet and vicious bounty hunter, more a dead man walking. Our Folke player had to step away from the party since she was going overseas, so in our campaign, Folke parted ways with the party. Here, moving forward, there will not be anymore POV chapters for Folke, but he sure will have a presence.
Next, our (possibly) divinely-touched bard arrives in a land perfect for song and art...
Chapter Text
A raven cawed.
He saw the raven, three dark eyes staring at him, perched on an old, white tree. In the night sky, a single moon shone lightly down on them.
How strange. Lorenzo thought. Where is that baleful green moon?
The raven tilted its head, peering at him curiously. Who are you? It seemed to ask. Why are you here? It demanded.
I do not know. Lorenzo answered in his head. The raven huffed, and flew away.
Lorenzo flew with it, feeling himself soaring through the sky.
He flew over a great expanse of rugged hills and ancient trees, where wild men clashed with beasts and death. He glimpsed a titanic wall, taller than even Luccini’s magnificent walls, manned by hungry crows. He soared past them, and over vast plains of cold, where wolves welcomed a bear.
Green lands and rolling hills gave way to muddy swamps and great rivers of blue and red and green. He saw grand bridges and castles, and a haunting wraith stalking the fields.
The raven cawed at him and turned. Follow closely. An aged voice commanded.
He saw mountains of stone, where falcons dived and died, and mountains of gold, where a pride of lions stared over the land. He bore witness to a rich, beautiful land of wind-swept fields and idyllic rivers where hummingbirds sang and stared at a storm-wrecked land where stags pranced and fought.
They flew over a grand city, with a keep of blood and shadows dancing in every street. He saw a new shadow emerge from one of its alleyways. Far south, he saw an eagle swoop down on a sun-burnt desert of snakes.
To the east. The three-eyed raven cawed. They flew over nine cities, soaring over the heads of titans and goats, elephants and tigers. Under them, a great grass sea sprawled, and he saw three dragons dancing in the sky, burning harpies and breaking chains.
To the nor- The raven screeched in pain as a one-eyed crow crashed into it, pecking violently. The raven fell, and he saw the crow stare at him, a single blue eye glinting maliciously. It came at him, but was forced to turn when a flock of doves came pecking at it.
He saw the three-eyed raven flying back in pain, slow and laboriously. Its eyes were now bleeding.
NORTH. A voice echoed in his head, and he came awake.
Lorenzo blinked, taking in the sights around him.
Tilea? The bard thought in wonder. For a moment, he felt as if he was back home in lush, beautiful Tilea.
He was lying in the middle of a field of bright flowers, roses and lilies and violets and dozens more. Birds of all colours chirped from trees of all kinds, tall and verdant and magnificent. Not too far away, he saw a well-maintained road. A calm and serene river was behind it, vaguely reminding him of the Empire’s own grand rivers. Past it, fertile farmland stretched on as far as his eyes could see.
He felt like he was in a painting, staring in awe at a white castle in the distance.
He rose slowly, patting his white silks and red cloth, as his gold locks danced in the wind. His lute was still strapped to his back, he felt, touching the brown instrument.
Lorenzo looked around him, expecting to find Lucia and the others.
The wind blew gently. He closed his eyes and listened, and heard naught but chirping and the river’s flow. He opened his eyes, heading for the road.
It was not a paved road, like the ones that connected the Tilean city-states or even the Imperial roads but it was well-maintained, far from the dirt mess of Bretonnia.
Where is this? Lorenzo thought curiously. Tilea. His eyes and heart sang to him temptingly but something felt wrong, like a discordant tune.
“Lucia?” Lorenzo called out in Tilean. The birds chirped in response. There were no doves, eagles or owls among them.
“Gunther?” He called out in Reikspiel, expecting the thief to emerge from the shadows or a nearby bush. “Skok?” He called out in amusement and despair, hoping to hear an Ogre charging through the treeline.
Last he remembered, he was in Altdorf. Hmm. Lorenzo hummed in thought, staring at the castle in the distance. There were no castles in the Empire, only cities of trade and forts where cannons sang. This one reminded him of the castles of Bretonnia but its beauty outshined them, a sun to a candle.
On a broad verdant hill, it sat. Three rings of white stone surrounded it, each one rising in height. Between the middle and the outer wall, a briar labyrinth. Even from here, he could see thousands of flowers and hundreds of men. Instantly, he knew that he would write a song for this castle, once he knew its name.
Spellbound, he walked along the road, heading for the white castle.
Lorenzo hummed, singing songs in his head. A lullaby of Shallya, gentle and soothing. A ballad of Ranald, fast and playful. A hymn of Taal, wild and wordless. A shanty of Manann, crude and rowdy. Time passed in a blur when he sang, and each step brought him closer to the castle. Excitement bloomed in his heart when he approached.
Before long, he reached the gates. It was not as tall as Altdorf’s giant gates but it was truly magnificent. The portcullis was open but bored guards in green and gold stopped him. They spoke to him.
Lorenzo froze.
He blinked. He prided himself in knowing multiple languages. How else could he call himself a bard?
Aside from flowery Tilean, he spoke three other languages well. The Empire’s Reikspiel, fast Estalian and Bretonnian. He even knew a few words in the tongues of the Dwarfs and the Elves, and had started learning Kislevarin from the Kossar.
He did not recognise their tongue.
His mind raced, and he spoke instinctively. Tilean, he used, for it was what he was truly comfortable with.
“Lorenzo,” he gestured to himself, flashing a charming smile. “Just a wandering bard. I saw the beauty of this grand castle from afar and had to see it close.”
The guard blinked in confusion and stared hard at him. He was a middle-aged man, and had the hard look of a soldier. A sword hung from his hip, its pommel was a gold rose, glinting in the sun.
“Braavosi, huh?” The guard rubbed his coarse stubble. “You’re in luck. The Lady Margaery put out a call for more bards in the court last week. In you go.” The guard waved him in.
Lorenzo smiled like he understood, and walked in.
He was now past the first ring of walls, and found himself on a straight white path to the second gate. A row of neat pine trees sat on either side of him, and beyond them, the green maze of shrubbery.
His emerald eyes observed the sea of plants, a tune in his mind.
He shook his head. He had to focus for now. This is not Bretonnia. Where then? I am not in the Empire anymore. Where are the others, I wonder?
He walked through the second gate, and stopped once more.
From far away, the endless flowers had seemed impressive enough but here?
This is wonderful! Lorenzo thought in wonder. He needed to learn poetry soon, for song alone could not capture such beauty. The fragrant aroma of thousands of bright flowers was heavenly, and he lost track of time as he stood there and inhaled the flowers.
I am definitely not in the Empire. Lorenzo concluded to himself.
Flowers had been a rarity in Imperial lands. This was an idyllic place, where art and song thrived, he knew. For a moment, he stood still, not wanting to break the peace.
Then, Lorenzo sighed serenely.
He could return later. He needed to know more about where he was. The language that the guards spoke lingered in his mind and he furiously dug through his memory, trying to recollect any knowledge he had of it. He had none.
He approached the third gate. This one was closed, the iron portcullis shutting him out. A knight glanced down at him from the parapet. He was clad in fine plate, a tabard of green with a gold rose adorned him. He tilted his head curiously at Lorenzo, eyeing his lute and nodding in recognition.
The knight barked out an order in the same tongue as the guards, and he saw guardsmen moving to open the portcullis.
I am in luck. Lorenzo realised. They are wanting bards. He smiled.
A finer one had never come from Tilea.
The portcullis rose and Lorenzo entered. He followed the white, marble stairs, his fine shoes clicking and clacking. Ahead, the grand doors were opened. The many buildings in the keep were covered with ivy, grapes and climbing roses. Each building seemed carved from marble, and from each tower fluttered a banner. A gold rose on a field of green.
On the high table of honour sat a few notable figures. A fat and jovial man with curly brown hair laughed and sang along from the lord’s seat, not noticing his wine dripping on his green doublet. To his right sat a man around Lorenzo’s age, brown-haired and mild. There was a cane leaning against his chair.
To his left, a fair and beautiful maiden smiled sweetly at the court. She was like the golden roses on her fine dress. Her brown hair curled past her shoulders and large brown eyes peered intelligently at the court. Lorenzo’s eyes were drawn, in particular, to her dress. Fine silk and lace adorned with pearls and gold, it was elegant and lavish yet tasteful.
Beside her was, perhaps, the second oldest woman Lorenzo had ever seen. Her gown was green and white, with gold thorns creeping across the green. A wizened crone, she was small and wrinkled but there was a hard look in her eyes. Eyes that were staring at him. She noticed me. Lorenzo pondered, bowing slightly at the matriarch. She snorted, dismissing him.
Lorenzo found a seat at the edge of the hall, in a dark corner that Gunther would be proud of. Here, he could see the hall fully. He grabbed a gold goblet, engraved with emeralds, and smiled kindly as a serving girl filled it with drink. White, it was but in the right light, it seemed gold.
He took a sip.
Lorenzo felt his whole body shiver. When have I ever drank such a vintage? He thought in wonder. Which heaven am I in? Lorenzo pondered, not for the first time.
Was this his reward by the Gods for his dedications to them?
Was he in paradise? He wished his companions were here to enjoy this feast. He closed his eyes and envisioned his friends here. He could see Lucia sitting by him, snatching at the meat and gulping down the alcohol, refusing to smile at the taste.
He could see Andrei drinking from the barrel of this exquisite wine, drinking like a man dying of thirst. He envisioned Folke sitting where he sat, relaxing slightly at the fine food and drink. He could hear Gunther cackling as he pried the emeralds from the goblet. And our Ogre friend… Lorenzo chuckled.
Then, he heard an awful note played wrongly on a lute.
Which paradise would have bards as awful as this? Lorenzo frowned. They were singing a rowdy tune poorly. He saw the fair maiden put on a forced smile.
He saw a broad feasting hall, rows of tables and long benches. Each was made of fine wood of mahogany and oak, each engraved with gold carvings that seemed to be of flowers and animals
Food and drink lined the tables and he saw well over a hundred men laughing and talking and singing. Roast pigs and turkeys sat on large platters, baskets of eggs and bread, wheels of cheese and bowls of fruits. A dozen different kinds of pastries and cakes sat, jam and filling of red and green. Small barrels of wine flowed freely.
A dozen hearths warmed the hall and no one noticed another bard enter, for there were already a score of entertainers. Singers and pipers, fiddlers and harpers. Lorenzo frowned. Some of them could, at best, be described as screamers rather than singers.
The elderly matriarch seemed terribly amused, her spotted hands covering her toothless mouth. Here and there, he heard laughter hidden behind polite coughing.
Don’t do it. He heard Lucia’s voice in his head.
Just stay hidden, mate. It’s not that hard. Gunther snarked at him in his mind.
Apologies, friends. Lorenzo thought, his pride as a Tilean bard was at stake.
He unslung his lute. The others had their weapons, mace and axe, daggers and guns. All he needed was this. Briefly, he thought back to the Cathayan captain who had given him the lute. He wondered how the man was doing as he walked.
Once again, he was a youth in Luccini’s docks. He closed his eyes as he walked, and almost smelled the salt of the sea. The Seasinger, the dock workers and sailors had called him and cheered that name everytime he sang.
This gold court of roses would hear the sea’s song.
The old woman had her eyes on him and watched him like a hawk. He strummed a note, loud and playful, and the screamer halted in his poor attempt at song before continuing.
He strummed another note, wild and untamed, and the man in front of him turned, annoyed. Lorenzo ignored him, strumming a third note, angelic and fair. The hall went quiet.
He stood in front of the high table and felt the weight of their stares. Lorenzo smiled, and gave a slight bow. The young man and maiden stared at him curiously while the old woman had not even blinked. She stared at him, hard and cold, as if encountering a troublesome puzzle. The jovial lord smiled and gestured for him to continue.
Lorenzo breathed, letting the warm air fill his lungs. Then, he sang. He sang in Tilean, for a good song transcended the petty barriers of Men’s languages.
“In the shimmering dawn by the azure sea, Luccini awakens, a jewel free!”
The bard before him stared in shock, his mouth agape. Lorenzo’s eyes were closed in thought, thinking of home. The beautiful sea was there, sparkling in the morning sun, calling out for the sailors to return. The bells rang, and sailors laughed and cursed and shouted as ships sailed.
“Luccini, O, Luccini, with your streets of gold so fine! Where the masks tell no lies, and the stars in twilight shine!”
Women swooned and sighed, clutching at the arms of their lovers. He saw naught but the narrow streets of Luccini, the stained glass windows and the marble statues. He stood before the great Acropolis and Palazzo, and the Temple of Lucan and Luccina with its golden doors.
“The scent of the sea, mixed with spices and wine. In the streets of Luccini, where fortunes align. With the whispers of sailors and tales of the bold. Every corner a story, every brick a gold!”
He remembered fondly his first time entering the city, and the smell of a dozen spices and a hundred wines. Who would he be if not for the city? The younger man at the high table smiled softly, leaning against his ornate chair and closing his eyes. The fair maiden had a slight blush on her face, her brown eyes staring at him in wonder.
“In the heart of the south where the warm winds blow, Tilea stands proud, with its valleys aglow. From the shores of the sea to the mountains so high, a land full of promise beneath the wide sky.”
Lorenzo thought of the majestic beauty of Tilea, of its lush fields and graceful rivers, of the sprawling hills and the tranquil coast. It was a land of promise and love, a land of wonder and beauty. It was home. The notes were soft and pretty, bringing the ladies to tears and men to close their eyes, envisioning a paradise.
“So here’s to the land where our hearts find their way. To Tilea, dear Tilea, forever we’ll stay. In the sun and the storm, our love will not fade, for the spirit of Tilea will never be swayed.”
Lorenzo strummed a few final notes and opened his eyes. The fat lord’s face was conflicted, a smile and a frown warring across his face. The old woman seemed like she had seen a ghost, her face paling and her eyes seemed far away. He blinked.
Then, the young maiden rose from her gold chair of roses and clapped, and with her came the thunderous applause of the hall.
Men and women rose, clapping and cheering. He saw the young man adding his applause softly while the lord’s face gave way to a smile once more. The old woman remained sitting, her beady eyes staring at him, scrutinising.
Lorenzo bowed deeply, a performer’s bow for an appreciating crowd.
Then, the young man spoke in Classical Tilean. “Braavos’ bards are truly a wonder.” He praised softly.
Lorenzo’s eyes widened. He had only heard one man speak that tongue, a scholar so old he seemed frailer than the ancient books in his hands. It was a dead language, as dead as the fallen empire that had once ruled Tilea thousands of years ago.
Lorenzo had only learned it briefly. No songs could be sung with a dead language, he had thought in his youth. It was only when he was older did he truly appreciate the art of language. He had been fortunate to find a book covering Classical Tilean, or Classical Reman, in Magritta. He remembered Lucia hovering behind him, eager to leave, as he bartered with the shopkeeper. The book had been a worthy purchase.
Aware of the eyes on him, Lorenzo spoke in response, slightly haltingly.
“This bard thanks you, lord.”
The matriarch muttered something to the man, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
“In honour of your magnificent performance, we would be delighted to have you join us at our table…” The man trailed off.
“Lorenzo.” He replied in kind. “Lorenzo Voceleste. The Seasinger.” He said, smiling.
“Be welcomed to Highgarden, Seasinger.”
Lorenzo stepped up to the raised dais, feeling the envious eyes of every other bard in the hall as he approached the empty chair to the man’s right. Reserved for the bard that caught their eye. Lorenzo realised.
If Lucia were here, she would have rolled her eyes. He sat gently, marvelling at how comfortable the seat was. It was a chair for lords. He felt his weary feet and back soothe. “Willas Tyrell.” The man extended a hand, giving him a kind smile. Lorenzo accepted it graciously. He introduced the table.
“My father, Lord Mace Tyrell, Lord of the Reach. My sister, Margaery and our grandmother, Lady Olenna. They call her the Queen of Thorns.” Lord Mace laughed jovially while Margaery smiled sweetly. He could not see the Queen of Thorn’s face.
“What brings a bard from Braavos so far from home?” Willas questioned, curiously but courteously. Lorenzo smiled in return. “Why do bards leave home?” Lorenzo replied with a question of his own.
Willas laughed. Lorenzo noticed a book on his lap, hidden from view by the raised table. “History of the East.” Willas continued, noticing his eyes. “A fine read for Essosi history, if dry. You’re a man of books?”
“A good bard keeps his mind open.”
“Well said!” Willas replied. “Few lords bother much to read. They prefer to have their letters read to them by their maesters. A shame really. So much knowledge out there in the world, and so few are willing to reach out and grab it.”
Braavos? Lorenzo thought, confused. He had never heard of a House Tyrell either.
“The plague of men’s minds is just as dreadful as one on their bodies.” Lorenzo said with a smile, he was from Braavos now, he supposed. He needed to learn more. “Do you receive few men from Braavos here, lord?” He knew Willas would speak on ‘here’.
“Some traders maybe but it is rare. The Reach is on the wrong side of the Narrow Sea for them to come frequently.”
The Narrow Sea? Lorenzo thought of all the seas surrounding the Old World and beyond. He had never heard of that. The Reach must be the name for this region. He had never heard of that either, nor saw its name on any books.
“A shame.” Lorenzo continued smoothly. “More of my countrymen should see Highgarden’s beauty.” Willas accepted the praise graciously. “Someday, I would like to see Braavos. Reading about the canals is one thing, but to ride in those boats and see the Titan for myself?”
Lorenzo knew the implications. What is Braavos like? Willas Tyrell asked without asking. The bard smiled. He was enjoying himself. When was the last time he spoke to another Luccinian? This young lord spoke like one, shrewd and intelligent.
On and on, the two men spoke. One, the heir to one of the richest and most powerful kingdoms in Westeros. The other, a bard far from home. They conversed for hours about art and song, debated about politics and history that Lorenzo pretended to know, and argued over economics and food.
Gradually, men left the hall in flocks and streams. Lady Margaery excused herself politely, smiling gently at them. Lord Mace laughed and clapped both of them on the back. Only the Queen of Thorns remained, sitting silently and listening. For a moment, Lorenzo glanced up at the fine glass ceiling and saw only one moon. He smiled tightly, ignoring the pounding in his head, and continued talking.
Notes:
Bit of a doozy huh?
Right so some important context. Tilea is basically Renaissance Italy. Tilean, therefore, is just Italian. Classical Tilean/Reman is actually just Latin.
I took some creative liberty surrounding the Braavosi language. We know that Braavos is heavily inspired by Venice so I just made it so that the Braavosi language is akin to Classical Tilean, or some version of it.
Lorenzo is the most eccentric member of the party. A bard in his early twenties, in bright flamboyant colours. Mystery surrounds him and the possible magic he can work through his songs. Is he divinely touched, magically inclined or just insane and lucky? Who knows!
Lastly, the last member of our party, a former Estalian bandit...
Chapter Text
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Lucia opened her eyes. A cave, she found herself in, dry and dark. She rose, drawing her mace. Her shield was still strapped to her back and her armour was a heavy but reassuring weight.
She glanced about, a few tendrils of sunlight illuminating the tight cave. It was a dusty place, and a dead red snake was beside her. Something had shredded it viciously, its innards spread about messily. For a moment, her eyes lingered on it.
Then, she moved on.
How did I get here? She thought to herself. “Lorenzo!” She barked out in harsh Estalian. It echoed and rang throughout the empty cave.
Drip. Another drop of muddy water fell, a few feet away from the snake. She glanced up, and then down. Her mind raced. A cave? Near a river.
There was a single, narrow path leading out. As she walked, she checked herself. She was clad in her full plate; a heavy chestplate and helmet, thick pauldrons and greaves, armoured gauntlets and boots. Her trusty, flanged mace was clutched tightly in her hand while the full steel kite shield rested on her back.
She had her waterskin on her left hip, the hard leather contained full. An Estalian dagger hung from the right. The holy scriptures waxed onto her armour were unblemished, each decree from Myrmidia pushing her forward.
She stepped out of the cave and an empty, arid land greeted her. The air was hot and dry, the soil barren. A rocky wasteland of hills and sandy plains laid bare before her disbelieving eyes. The burning sun was rising to the east and to the west, she saw an endless stretch of red and white sands. Far away, she saw towering red mountains baking in the sun.
The air was so hot that it seemed to shimmer. Instantly, sweat flowed from her body. She stood there, mouth agape. Estalia.
Somehow, she was back in Estalia. Dry, barren Estalia with its rocky hills and harsh deserts. Desolate, craggy grey mounts of rocks stood as silent sentinels, like a retinue of honour guards. Crowns of brown bramble and green, thorny cacti joined them, a silent crow.
How? She faltered in her step.
Where were her companions? How was she back here? She only remembered passing by those Imperial Colleges…
For a long, silent moment, Lucia stood there, baking in the sun.
Then, she found her breath. She breathed in lightly, and exhaled harshly. Any Estalian worth their salt knew how to avoid inhaling the desert sand. Unknowing travellers who dared to brave the dry lands away from the ports, occasionally, would collapse dead after a few days, their lungs full of sand and dust.
She placed her mace back in the leather hoop where it hung. She greeted the blazing sun like an old friend, spreading her hands out and closing her eyes. She recalled the holy symbols of Myrmidia, reciting them in her mind.
The eagle.
The lion.
The spear and the shield.
The sun .
Her eyes snapped open. She knew not where the others were but she would find them. She marched, like a woman on a pilgrimage. She climbed atop a tall mount of yellowed stone, her armour clanking as she did. After the better part of an hour, she stood and watched the land.
Far to the south, she saw a great murky river, like the green veins of a dead giant. She knew of no river in Estalia that looked like this. Her eyes followed the trail of the river, and saw a great settlement to the east, two towers, one thin and the other domed, rising high.
Was I wrong? Lucia wondered. Had she found herself even further south? Was she in distant Araby or even the Land of the Dead? Did the Imperials’ magis send her here or was it a sign from her goddess?
She stood staring at the settlement, studying the desert road that would guide her there. Then, she turned and climbed carefully down. She was no stranger to these rough terrain. In Magritta, she had climbed the buildings and red roofs often. In Estalia, rocky cliffs made for excellent vantage points to overlook rich roads. She stopped.
I was careless. She thought as she stared at the mounted man observing her. He saw me up there.
The man had, perhaps, a year or two over her. An aquiline nose rested on a clean-shaven face. He was dressed in a long garb of dark purple and white. Thick silver hair flowed smoothly down to his collar, parted by a streak of midnight black. Dark purple eyes stared at her angrily.
An ornate longsword was sheathed on his left hip, adorned with purple gems, and the man had his hand on the blade. He spoke harshly, barking out a question.
Arabyan? She thought. No. She had seen and heard the Arabyan traders and sailors in Magritta’s ports. This was no Arabyan. The man was as pretty as a Tilean but his eyes were cruel like an Orc’s.
For a moment, she wondered what tongue this was. Lorenzo would know. She surmised. His black horse stepped forward, nudged by its malicious rider. He repeated himself, slowly, dangerously.
She did not answer. She could not. Briefly, she wondered if Lorenzo could talk this man down. Then, remembering that Bretonnian knight, she had an answer. Some men were simply too stubborn.
This one certainly was. Not deigning to repeat himself for the third time, he drew his sword, the fine steel almost shining in the desert sun. She drew her mace in response.
If she knew their language, she might have shouted that she was not a bandit, not anymore at least. It was too late however and the only tongue that would be spoken now would be violence.
Myrmidia forgive me. Watch over me in this battle and the next. Lucia prayed silently in her mind as she drew her shield, raising it instinctively. The black mount started with a trod, its hooves sending sand soaring. Then, it sped up, growing into a gallop as it charged at her.
The blade rose, reflecting the sun, and it fell upon her shield. For a split second, the world froze around them. Then, momentum carried the rider forward. She turned, keeping her shield raised.
He wheeled his stallion around expertly, murderous rage in his violet eyes. He charged once more.
This time, he thrusted the tip of his blade at her, like a lance. Once, a different knight had done the same trick, and she fell for it, deflecting it with her mace and overextending her reach.
This time, she stepped to the side, letting the sword pass by uselessly. She heard the man growl in fury. For the third time, he turned, preparing for a final charge, his eyes glinting with malice. The horse? She wondered. She could dodge his blow and smash the horse’s legs. Honour, dignity. Those words rang in her head.
The rider raised his blade for one last time as he came. In a blur, she parried it with her shield and slammed the tip of her mace into his side with so much force that the man went flying from his mount.
Like a battering ram. She idly noted, seeing the man hold his ribs in pain. His sword was on the burning sands, just a few feet from her. Lucia sent her mace back into its leather loop, and slung her shield on her back. Then, she knelt, taking and inspecting the sword. She stepped close to the fallen man, who glared at her angrily.
She pointed the tip of the blade at his throat. For a long, silent moment, olive eyes met violet. Then, he spoke two words and slowly raised his hands.
She raised her knee, and broke the fine sword on it, snapping it in two as the man’s eyes bulged in shock and fury. She tossed the broken sword onto the sand, and mounted the black horse. It neighed and buckled slightly under the weight of her steel but held firm.
A courser. She realised. A stallion meant for speed, rather than a powerful warhorse or a stout beast of burden. Still, it would do.
Leaving the man behind in the sands, she rode down the road she had spotted, heading for that settlement she had observed. He would have to fight for his survival, as she did. She checked the saddlebags, and found waterskins and food. Jerky, dates and dried fish. Hardy food that could survive the desert heat.
A glass bottle of red wine stood out amidst the six waterskins. Uncorking the bottle, she took a whiff of the red.
She blinked. She was no connoisseur of vintages like Lorenzo, or even a routine friend of the drink like Andrei but she could tell this was leagues above regular tavern ale. It was as dark as blood, and smelled strong and sour with a tinge of sweetness. She took a sip, and felt like her throat was burning.
Corking the bottle and placing it, gently, back in the saddlebag, she continued with her journey. She ripped off the elegant purple cloth around the horse’s body. It was the same colour as the man’s dressing, and no doubt marked the horse as his. Never get caught with things that aren’t yours. A thief had told her once. Now, it was hers.
It would be a long one, she thought, made faster by the purchase she had made with steel. She thought of the man. Had he thought her a common bandit? What kind of bandit would be idiotic enough to stand in the middle of a sweltering desert in full plate? Malice, she concluded.
She had seen men like that before. Cruel, angry men who thirsted for blood, not in the way the undead lurkers craved but in the way that violent, vicious men did. They wanted to spill it, to hack and slash with swords, to rip and shred with axes, to stab and slice with daggers.
Their eyes always look the same. She thought to herself. Like hungry rats.
She shook herself out of her thoughts, grabbing a handful of dates and jerky. She chewed on them, keeping a careful watch around her. She had no one to watch her back, no hunter to scout ahead, no thief to glance about furtively. She felt alone.
Usually, travel was made lighter and faster with Lorenzo’s songs, the bard humming and singing about nothing and everything. Here, all she heard was the desert’s harsh whispers.
You will die here. The arid kingdom told her. Your skin will peel, your flesh will burn, your bones will bake.
Try me. Lucia thought, stubbornly. She was of the sun.
Here, Myrmidia’s light shone on her. She relished in the heat and the sand on her soles. She was alone, she lamented, but she was at home.
Hours seemed to pass by in a blur, she knew, for the midday sun burnt even hotter than the morning rays. Then, like a mirage, the city revealed itself and Lucia stopped, staring at it for minutes unblinkingly.
Three winding walls surrounded the castle and between each, she saw narrow streets and alleyways. She saw two great towers. One was tall and thin, like a spear of stone jutting into the sky. The other was shorter, but great and domed, four smaller towers surrounding it like the rays of a stone sun.
There was a large ugly building emerging from the side, like a ship had sailed forth from the palace and froze in the heat, becoming part of the castle. She rode, spellbound, towards this grand seat. There were small settlements in its shadow, mud-brick shops and windowless hovels pressed closely to the wall.
She ignored their gawking as she approached the gates. Banners fluttered above the sandy walls. Each one displayed, proudly, a golden spear piercing a red sun on a field of sunset orange.
Lucia smiled. Her lady was with her. The sun and the spear. Myrmidians govern this place . Lucia thought.
The portcullis stood shut as she approached. Two guards in leathers, clutching spears, peered at her from atop the sandy walls.
“I am a pilgrim!” Lucia shouted in Estalian. “Myrmidia is my lady!” She spoke, gesturing at the scriptures waxed upon her armour.
The guards stared at her, confused.
“Traveller. Estalia. Myrmidia.” She shouted in a jumbled Reikspiel, hoping they would understand. Myrmidia did not answer her prayers. If only Lorenzo was here. Lucia cursed.
The guards shouted a question at the same time as the man she took the horse from. She did not reply, she could not. She could feel their eyes on her armour, and her mace, and the scriptures.
Then, a miracle happened. The two guards, bored and tired, shrugged at each other and opened the portcullis. She thanked Myrmidia in her mind, and nodded gratefully at the guards.
She stepped into the city.
Miles of narrow streets and noisy bazaars stretched on, each person a grain of sand, each building a jut of stone or cacti. She was in the desert once more, and she felt her throat dry and constricted.
Suddenly, she remembered her coinpouch, heavy with Imperial coins. Could she even use them here? Gold Crowns, Silver Shillings and Brass Pennies. Where am I? She asked herself once more, glancing at the crowd around her.
The men and women here were lithe and dark, and most of them had smooth olive skin and long black hair. She could almost fit in, if not for her second skin, the one of metal. Here and there, she saw some who were darker, their skins burnt by the sun, while others were fair and blonde.
The people here laughed easily, and talked, and cursed, and japed, and flirted with each other right there in the streets. Yet, she saw men with spears strapped to their backs, and women with daggers on their hips. This was a people for whom violence came easy, she noted with familiarity. Estalia, and Magritta, were much the same.
Their clothes were loose, layered robes of silk and satin and linen, with jewellry galore. There were men in armour too and she observed them curiously. Leather and scales enameled, inlaid with brandished copper, shining silver and red gold. Spears were common, and small, round metal shields.
She walked past an open inn, the locals gathered around tables and chairs scattered messily in the open. The food was red and burnt her nose, and brought her home. Chillies and peppers and red wine.
Everything about this land burnt hot with passion, from the sun and the sands, to the food and the people.
She stepped past a brothel, she knew from the sounds. A pillowhouse, some of the Imperials called it, where ladies of the night tempted men. Why? She pondered on the needless layer. A brothel is a brothel. A whore is a whore.
A sickly face appeared in her mind. She wished she could dissipate it, like a cloud of gunsmoke, with a wave of her hands like she had seen the others do.
There was a sign, carved crudely on a wooden board. Two suns, a spear rising between them. She stared at it for a long moment.
Then, the red silks obscuring the entrance were pushed aside.
A man stepped out, his lover wrapped around him.
A tall, slender man, with a sharp nose and black eyes that stared at her like a viper. Long, lustrous black hair flowed freely, receding from his brow in a widow’s peak. The woman was exotic and sensuous, like an Arabyan dancer. Olive skin greeted her, as did long black hair and a sultry smile.
The two stopped. They were sweaty and there was a wild, satisfied look in their eyes. Those eyes stared at her with curiosity and intrigue. The man spoke in the same tongue as did the guards and that rider. She stared back, shaking her head in confusion.
He repeated himself in a different language, one that sounded vaguely like Tilean.
Lucia’s eyes widened fractionally. The words were wrong, and the pronunciations different but she heard some resemblance to Lorenzo’s flowery Tilean. She shook her head once more. Once more, he spoke. This time, he used a different tongue, a queer-sounding language if she had ever heard one.
The woman pressed her lips together in thought while the man smiled. He gestured to the inside of the brothel, and she bristled in fury.
His smile did not drop, but the man let his hands down, bowing slightly in apology. He spoke once more, in the first tongue he used, sounding sincere and apologetic.
Lucia turned to look at the brothel’s signboard. The crude sun and spear seemed to stare back. She would take that as a sign, she decided. She dismounted, tying the horse’s reins to a wooden post.
She stepped in, expecting to crinkle her nose at foul odours. Instead, the whorehouse smelled of exotic, spicy perfumes and incense, coloured smoke wafting sensually into the air while red silks sprawled across the room like rivers.
The common room was one of luxury and excess. Slaanesh’s kingdom. Lucia thought with disgust, silently muttering a prayer to Myrmidia. Half-naked women lounged on white silk pillows, pretty and tantalising, drinking wine as red as blood that dripped onto their skins. He saw a group of men, boys, Lucia corrected. They gawked and blushed, handing a bulging pouch to an old madame.
The two led him to a private room, quiet and dark. A few red candles provided some light, as did a single stained glass window depicting a red sun. There was the smell of incense in the room but it was not as strong as it was outside. A circular table of dark wood sat in the middle, a platter of wine and goblets on it.
The man gestured for her to sit, as they did.
Lucia sat slowly and carefully. Her back was to the door and exposed. She gripped the steel handle of her mace tightly, violence swelled underneath her skin, waiting to be unleashed. Her eyes flickered to the left and the right. Would there be a crossbowman hidden behind that divider? Would guards stream in from the door suddenly, spears pointed at her?
The woman poured her a goblet of red wine, strong and sour. She waited for them to drink before she did. The man scratched his cheek in thought.
“Oberyn,” he said softly, pointing to himself. “Ellaria,” he said next, gesturing at the exotic woman who smiled at her.
Lucia stared at the red in her goblet for a moment.
“Veronique,” she replied.
She was reluctant to speak more but the two pried the words from her like snakes. The man rolled open a map and placed it on the table, setting it with their goblets. Lucia stared at it.
Then, she barked in laughter.
Laughter that slowly died as the two stared at her with genuine confusion. She looked down at the map again. She did not understand the words but it did not matter. Nothing about this made sense anyways. Was she in some unexplored part of the world? Was this fabled Lumbria?
The man pointed a finger at the southern tip of the western continent. A parched realm of sand. “Dorne.” He said, pride in his voice.
Lucia repeated the word, testing it in the air. “Estalia.” She said in her native tongue, pointing at the sea to the west of the continent. Then, she dragged her finger further west, past the map’s edge and off the table, pointing at the window and the setting sun. They followed her finger, utter shock and disbelief in their eyes.
She followed their eyes to the sunset, where a rising moon greeted her.
Lucia stared at the moon.
There and then, she knew that she would not find Estalia here.
Notes:
Dorne is a land of sand and mountains where the people are fiery and passionate and fierce.
Estalia is a land of sand and mountains where the people are fierce and passionate and fiery.
Hmmmmm. Anyways, Lucia arrives. She is a year older than Lorenzo and a former bandit leader back home in Estalia. Her gang fell apart and she nearly died fighting in the aftermath. Lorenzo found her bleeding out and saved her. Since then, the two have been travelling together. With that, all members of our party have arrived!
Next: An interlude chapter with Catelyn Stark
Chapter Text
Catelyn found her husband beneath the weirwood, seated on a moss-covered stone. The greatsword Ice was across his lap, and he was cleaning the blade in those waters black as night. A thousand years of humus lay thick upon the godswood floor, swallowing the sound of her feet, but the red eyes of the weirwood seemed to follow her as she came. “Ned,” she called softly.
He lifted his head to look at her. “Catelyn,” he said. His voice was distant and formal. “Where are the children?”
He would always ask her that. “In the kitchen, arguing about names for the wolf pups.” She spread her cloak on the forest floor and sat beside the pool, her back to the weirwood. She could feel the eyes watching her, but she did her best to ignore them. “Robb and Theon are arguing over what to call the mother wolf. Horrible names.” She smiled.
“Arya is already in love, and Sansa is charmed and gracious, but Rickon is not quite sure.”
“Is he afraid?” Ned asked.
“A little,” she admitted. “He is only three.” Ned frowned. “He must learn to face his fears. He will not be three forever. And winter is coming.”
“Yes,” Catelyn agreed. The words gave her a chill, as they always did. The Stark words. Every noble house had its words. Family mottoes, touchstones, prayers of sorts, they boasted of honor and glory, promised loyalty and truth, swore faith and courage.
All but the Starks. Winter is coming, said the Stark words. Not for the first time, she reflected on what strange people these northerners were.
“The man died well, I’ll give him that,” Ned said. He had a swatch of oiled leather in one hand. He ran it lightly up the greatsword as he spoke, polishing the metal to a dark glow. “I was glad for Bran’s sake. You would have been proud of Bran.”
“I am always proud of Bran,” Catelyn replied, watching the sword as he stroked it. She could see the rippling deep within the steel, where the metal had been folded back on itself a hundred times in the forging. Catelyn had no love for swords, but she could not deny that Ice had its own beauty.
It had been forged in Valyria, before the Doom had come to the old Freehold, when the ironsmiths had worked their metal with spells as well as hammers. Four hundred years old it was, and as sharp as the day it was forged. The name it bore was older still, a legacy from the age of heroes, when the Starks were Kings in the North.
“He was the fourth this year,” Ned said grimly. “The poor man was half-mad. Something had put a fear in him so deep that my words could not reach him.” He sighed. “Ben writes that the strength of the Night’s Watch is down below a thousand. It’s not only desertions. They are losing men on rangings as well.”
“Is it the wildlings?” she asked.
“Who else?” Ned lifted Ice, looked down the cool steel length of it. “That strange man. Andrei Yeltska.” He said the name slowly. “Fought and killed three of them in the Wolfswood. A few miles from Winterfell.” His face was grim.
“And it will only grow worse. The day may come when I will have no choice but to call the banners and ride north to deal with this King-beyond-the-Wall for good and all.”
“Beyond the Wall?” The thought made Catelyn shudder.
Ned saw the dread on her face. “Mance Rayder is nothing for us to fear.”
“There are darker things beyond the Wall.” She glanced behind her at the heart tree, the pale bark and red eyes, watching, listening, thinking its long slow thoughts.
His smile was gentle. “You listen to too many of Old Nan’s stories. The Others are as dead as the children of the forest, gone eight thousand years. Maester Luwin will tell you they never lived at all. No living man has ever seen one.”
“Until this morning, no living man had ever seen a direwolf either,” Catelyn reminded him. “And now a foreign man arrives in Winterfell, speaking a queer tongue.”
“I ought to know better than to argue with a Tully,” he said with a rueful smile. He slid Ice back into its sheath. “You did not come here to tell me crib tales. I know how little you like this place. What is it, my lady?”
Catelyn took her husband’s hand. “There was grievous news today, my lord. I did not wish to trouble you until you had cleansed yourself.” There was no way to soften the blow, so she told him straight. “I am so sorry, my love. Jon Arryn is dead.”
His eyes found hers, and she could see how hard it took him, as she had known it would. In his youth, Ned had fostered at the Eyrie, and the childless Lord Arryn had become a second father to him and his fellow ward, Robert Baratheon. When the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen had demanded their heads, the Lord of the Eyrie had raised his moon-and-falcon banners in revolt rather than give up those he had pledged to protect.
And one day fifteen years ago, this second father had become a brother as well, as he and Ned stood together in the sept at Riverrun to wed two sisters, the daughters of Lord Hoster Tully.
“Jon… ” he said. “Is this news certain?”
“It was the king’s seal, and the letter is in Robert’s own hand. I saved it for you. He said Lord Arryn was taken quickly. Even Maester Pycelle was helpless, but he brought the milk of the poppy, so Jon did not linger long in pain.”
“That is some small mercy, I suppose,” he said. She could see the grief on his face, but even then he thought first of her. “Your sister,” he said. “And Jon’s boy. What word of them?”
“The message said only that they were well, and had returned to the Eyrie,” Catelyn said. “I wish they had gone to Riverrun instead. The Eyrie is high and lonely, and it was ever her husband’s place, not hers. Lord Jon’s memory will haunt each stone. I know my sister. She needs the comfort of family and friends around her.”
“Your uncle waits in the Vale, does he not? Jon named him Knight of the Gate, I’d heard.”
Catelyn nodded. “Brynden will do what he can for her, and for the boy. That is some comfort, but still…”
“Go to her,” Ned urged. “Take the children. Fill her halls with noise and shouts and laughter. That boy of hers needs other children about him, and Lysa should not be alone in her grief.”
“Would that I could,” Catelyn said. “The letter had other tidings. The king is riding to Winterfell to seek you out.”
It took Ned a moment to comprehend her words, but when the understanding came, the darkness left his eyes. “Robert is coming here?” When she nodded, a smile broke across his face.
Catelyn wished she could share his joy. She had spoken to the young girl the men had brought back to Winterfell. Jeyne, her name was. Catelyn had spoken gently to the girl who had lost her whole world in an instant. The young girl cried and sobbed, and told her the tale true.
Catelyn thought of the stag and the mother wolf, and how only that foreign man’s arrival had stopped the two beasts from slaying each other before the wolf cubs.
Dread coiled within her like a snake, but she forced herself to smile at this man she loved, this man who put no faith in signs. “I knew that would please you,” she said. “We should send word to your brother on the Wall.”
“Yes, of course,” he agreed. “Ben will want to be here. I shall tell Maester Luwin to send his swiftest bird.” Ned rose and pulled her to her feet. “Damnation, how many years has it been? And he gives us no more notice than this? How many in his party, did the message say?”
“I should think a hundred knights, at the least, with all their retainers, and half again as many freeriders. Cersei and the children travel with them.”
“Robert will keep an easy pace for their sakes,” he said. “It is just as well. That will give us more time to prepare.”
“The queen’s brothers are also in the party,” she told him.
Ned grimaced at that. There was small love between him and the queen’s family, Catelyn knew. The Lannisters of Casterly Rock had come late to Robert’s cause, when victory was all but certain, and he had never forgiven them. “Well, if the price for Robert’s company is an infestation of Lannisters, so be it. It sounds as though Robert is bringing half his court.”
“Where the king goes, the realm follows,” she said.
“It will be good to see the children. The youngest was still sucking at the Lannister woman’s teat the last time I saw him. He must be, what, five by now?”
“Prince Tommen is seven,” she told him. “The same age as Bran. Please, Ned, guard your tongue. The Lannister woman is our queen, and her pride is said to grow with every passing year.”
Ned squeezed her hand. “There must be a feast, of course, with singers, and Robert will want to hunt. I shall send Jory south with an honor guard to meet them on the kingsroad and escort them back. Gods, how are we going to feed them all? On his way already, you said? Damn the man. Damn his royal hide.”
Ned sighed. “How is Maester Luwin’s lessons with Yeltska?” A strange expression crossed on his face, a grimace and a smile.
“Strangely well.” The Kossar, as the man had called himself, had grasped the basics of the Common Tongue under Maester Luwin’s patient teachings.
Strangely, he had stared at the map of Westeros for a long time, muttering in his native tongue to himself. Soon, they would have to talk with their guest but for now, greater problems awaited them.
A king was coming to Winterfell.
Notes:
All credits go to George R.R Martin for this. Generally speaking, the interlude chapters are meant to portray the book's plot and how they have or have not been affected by the arrival of our party members. Here, not much has changed other than the mother direwolf living so I took this chapter heavily from the actual Catelyn chapter but tweaked it to adjust for Andrei's presence. Moving on, as the butterfly effect gets stronger and stronger, and canon gets more changed, the interlude chapters will start diverging more from canon as well.
Chapter 8: Andrei II
Chapter Text
Lord Stark sat across him, stern and grim.
A part of him fought the urge to shift. A Boyar’s stare, this lord had.
To his left, the kind maester sat, an inked quill in his hand. Behind them, the surly old soldier they called Rodrik. On the table, his pistol sat. They were in the lord’s solar, within the Great Keep.
Weeks in Winterfell, he spent. He was treated as a guest and given a room in the Guest Hall that would have been on par with any of the Reikland’s nicer inns. A comfortable bed softened with furs and feathers, a rack and chest to store his items. The room was strangely warm, even with the cool wind. Magic? Andrei had wondered to himself.
The room overlooked one of the training yards where guardsmen drilled with blunted swords and heavy shields. He saw the young men there often, training and laughing. Bright-haired Robb clashing a tourney blade with Jon, quiet but smiling. Theon Greyjoy, the lean youth from before, shooting arrows at a straw target with perfect accuracy, a smirk tugging at his lips.
When dawn rose, a guard would wake him and bring him to the Great Hall where he broke his fast at the lower tables with the servants. Bread, they ate often, and porridge and eggs. The food was simple but fair and free. The ale could be stronger. Andrei mused sometimes, but he would not complain.
After the meal, he would be escorted to Maester Luwin’s room. Maester. He pondered on the idea. Men who knew the healing arts and who were learned. Andrei marvelled at the concept. Kislev would benefit greatly from such men. Tzar Boris had spent huge sums of gold and silver importing gunpowder from the south and hiring pirates to teach them how to make the cannons sing, reforming the Kossars into a proper army.
The thought of home made his spirits low. Where is home? Andrei thought sometimes.
He would spend a few hours a day with the old maester, learning the Common Tongue that they spoke. In turn, he taught Luwin Kislevarin, and watched with amusement as the gentle maester spoke the harsh tongue of his homeland, tasting the words of Kislev’s sons and daughters.
They would stop when their stomachs grumbled, heading for the Great Hall. A massive hall of grey stone, with wide doors of oak and iron. Inside, eight long rows of trestle tables sat, food and drink awaiting them.
The maester would politely bid him farewell there, joining the Starks at their raised dais. The lord and lady had little time to speak with him. Here and there, they seemed to rush, talking and planning and fussing.
He had spoken with the servants, haltingly, asking them slow questions. King Robert is coming to Winterfell, a serving girl told him with a shy smile, and his royal court too.
A king? Andrei thought. Tzar Boris had been strong and stout, as fierce as Urskin, his loyal bear. The great man had died valiantly, defending his beloved land from the savage Northmen. Andrei had only learned of his demise months after, far in the south he was.
In the Empire, he had heard much of their Emperor Karl-Franz. The Imperials hailed him to be the greatest since Magnus the Pious and Sigmar himself. He had seen the paintings. A powerful and majestic figure, Ghal Maraz in his hand, the ancient warhammer adding to his authority and prestige.
Andrei wondered what this king would be like. Would he be as fierce as his old Tzar, as cold as the Tzarina, or as grand and powerful as the Emperor?
He spent his meals quietly in thought. The servants around him seemed too intimidated to speak to him during these times, and muttered quietly to each other.
He recognised some of their words. Queen. Brothers. Prince. Hand. Dead.
After the meal, Andrei was free to do as he liked. He was no fool, he knew the guardsmen had been ordered to keep watch over him from far. Good men they were but not the most subtle.
There was a small, quiet temple outside the Great Hall. Inside, he saw seven marble statues, candles at their feet. Gods of the South , Andrei remembered learning from the maester, the Seven.
A strange god. Andrei thought to himself. A god with seven faces?
Not too far away was the Great Keep, the innermost castle in Winterfell, where the Starks lived. He had not stepped foot in there. The other direction was where the large courtyard was, the smith and stables too.
He spent his afternoons there, watching the smith hammer his tools and the soldiers fight. On the fourth day, the smith had spoken to him. Mikken, his name was, old but strong with a messy beard of white stained black.
“Seen you watching.” Mikken said while hammering away at a sword. “You know weapons?”
“Know how use weapons.” Andrei spoke in a broken and heavily-accented Common Tongue. Mikken had barked out a laugh.
“Don’t doubt that at all! Heard you killed three Wildlings by yourself.” The smith whistled appreciatively, his eyes drifting to Andrei’s axe, widening in wonder.
“That’s a fine axe.” He praised. “Who smithed it?”
Andrei shrugged wordlessly, drawing the axe and handing it over to Mikken.
The smith accepted it gently and graciously. Skilled hands and experienced eyes inspected the weapon carefully, glancing over the fine steel. The handle was of a smooth, dark wood. Ash wood. Andrei remembered how they shrouded huge swathes of Kislev in their dark embrace, old powerful witches lurking in them.
The pommel was the head of a silver, snarling bear and the head of the axe was similar, but larger and with two small rubies for eyes. The blade of the axe glinted by the fire, old runes in Kislevarin carved on either side.
Ursun, one side declared for. Kislev, the other.
The smith gave it a reverent look before returning the axe to him. When will they return the gun? Andrei grumbled in his mind, nodding at Mikken as he left. On the first night, Maester Luwin had politely asked for his pistol but he recognised an order when he heard one.
At least they had let him keep his axe. His act in saving Jeyne and slaying the Wildlings had earned him goodwill. He saw her a few times, busy in the kitchens. The Starks had given her a roof over her head and offered her work. It would not replace her previous life and all she had lost but she was safe and warm. Jeyne smiled whenever she saw him. Once, she had even attempted to sneak him a bottle of wine.
He gently rejected. She blinked in confusion and momentary hurt but understood when he shook his head. Then, he patted her head like a cub and she swatted at his old hands.
There was another Jeyne in Winterfell, the daughter of the steward. A small girl with brown eyes and dark hair, noble and pretty and ten. She frowned in fear every time she saw Andrei. The other girl, Stark’s eldest daughter, was courteous and elegant like a porcelain doll. Deep blue eyes peered at him behind soft auburn hair occasionally.
The younger daughter was far more curious. A skinny little cub, with a long face and grey eyes that always looked at him with unfettered curiosity. Arya, he remembered her name, asked him once.
Where are you from? Beyond the Wall? The Free Cities?
He had thought for a long moment.
“Far.” He eventually answered. Arya stared at him in confusion, looking at him like a puzzle.
Night was a brief meal in the Great Hall, followed by dark dreams of bears and cold, lonely nights.
“We must ask,” said Lord Stark, stirring Andrei from his thoughts. “Just where are you from?”
Maester Luwin unrolled a map on the table and pinned it with candles and goblets. He had seen the map in the maester’s room, and a week of staring at it had not settled his stomach. The maester gestured at the map.
Andrei kept his eyes on the map. Then, he placed his finger on the waters to the west of the continent. “Ship crashed. Sailed with others from west.” Andrei lied.
If he said that he came from another world, he imagined they would chuckle and throw him into a cell. Yet, he did not know if this was any better. Lord Stark’s eyes widened and he saw the old maester’s thick brows rise.
“A land to the west?” Lord Stark questioned skeptically. “None who sailed west ever returned.”
Maester Luwin was thoughtful, his face scrunched in deep consideration. “There are some in the Citadel who would argue that the world is round, my lord, that if west of Westeros lies the eastern end of Essos. Asshai, Yi Ti and those unknown lands.”
The maester’s eyes widened. “Two hundred years ago, when Elissa Farman sailed west from Oldtown to seek an answer to that ageless question, they never returned but Corlys Velaryon wrote that he saw Sunchaser in Asshai.”
Eddard turned to Andrei. “This Kislev, what is it like?”
Andrei smiled. “Cold. Snow. Hard land.”
Lord and maester glanced at each other with mirth.
“Much is unknown of the south of Essos, my lord.” Maester Luwin rubbed his chin. Lord Stark sighed. “You were a soldier? In your homeland?”
Andrei thought long and hard upon that question. Am I?
“Da.” He said. “Yes.” He corrected.
They gestured to his gun. “What is this?” Eddard asked, confused. Andrei stared at him in confusion. He slowly reached out for the pistol, giving the lord a questioning stare. Rodrik tensed slightly, placing his hand on his sword.
Andrei gripped his pistol and aimed it at the wall. He mimed pressing the trigger. “Press. Shoot. Men die there.” He said, confused as well.
The maester’s eyebrows could not go any higher. “Like a crossbow?” Lord Stark asked and Andrei nodded. “How does it work?” enquired Maester Luwin.
Andrei opened his mouth, and closed it. “Powder… Ball. Boom.” He said lamely. Even in his native tongue, he could not explain it well. He was not a learned man. They had been taught how to use it, how to aim and load and maintain their guns, not the inner workings of it.
The three men in front of him could not be more confused. Eventually, Luwin coughed and whispered to his lord. Eddard Stark nodded.
“Maester Luwin would like to inspect this gun closely.” The wolf lord said, an order if Andrei had ever heard one. Andrei sighed internally, gently handing the pistol to the old man, whose eyes glistened with wonder and curiosity like a child with a new toy.
At least he had already fired it, he thought. Then, he paused.
They have no guns. Andrei realised with horror. No gunpowder and shot.
He had all of twelve shots left in this world. He blinked, realising that the lord had started speaking.
“House Stark and the North thanks you, stranger, for what you did. You are welcome to stay in Winterfell and learn more of our lands and language.” The lord said and Andrei understood. As long as you follow the rules.
Eddard paused for a moment. “The King is coming to Winterfell, soon, a few days.” His face was creased with stress and worry, but there was some joy in his grey eyes. “With him comes his court, and with them, questions.” Lord Stark said, apologetically.
“Stay close to Maester Luwin during this time, Yeltska, you do not want the court’s attention.” Lord Stark warned.
Andrei nodded, understanding.
Three days passed in a blur, and now he stood with the rest of Winterfell in the courtyard as a king arrived.
Lord Stark was at the front and middle, Lady Catelyn to his right and the children on both sides. Robb, serious and unsmiling, and Bran and Rickon on the lord’s left, Sansa and Arya, the two like refined fire and crude shadow.
Andrei stood in the second row, Jon and Theon on either side. One, a bastard and the other, a ward. What was he then? A guest? A vagrant?
Then, the visitors poured in through the castle gates, in a river of gold and silver. A dozen golden banners whipped above their heads in the northern wind, emblazoned with a crowned stag. He saw a knight with hair as bright as gold, and a warrior in dark armour and a terrible, burned face. A stunted little man and a tall, haughty boy in gold and red. By Ursun, he needs a punch. Andrei thought.
He saw a huge man in black and gold, flanked by two knights in white cloaks. Andrei stared at the King of Westeros.
Tzar Boris had been as fierce as a bear, the Tzarina as cold as the glacial wind. The Emperor of Man was as majestic and shrewd as his Griffon.
This king was as fat as a pig. No, Andrei thought, three pigs.
A beard as coarse and thick as iron wire did not cover his double chin, and his black doublet bulged and sagged with his belly. The king had dark circles under his eyes, Andrei noted, eyes that stared at him for an instant. Unconsciously, Andrei stiffened and straightened. Then, the king laughed boisterously as he crushed Lord Stark in a bone-crunching hug.
Once, this might have been a fierce warrior to follow. Then, he had left the battlefield and the battle had left him. Andrei had seen men like him, and dreaded becoming one. He tuned out the fat king’s laughter, noticing more riding in.
A queen in gold and red came, a prince and princess with her. Dozens of men and women streamed in slowly, knights and guards, servants and retainers.
Andrei stared at the snow on the ground. Snow in summer? Andrei reminisced forlornly. The North was eerily similar to the Motherland. At least in the Empire, he was so far away that he could not think and brood. Here, each passing day reminded him of home, the home that he deserted.
As the king and lord walked away, the rest of the courtyard stood awkwardly.
Lady Catelyn talked courteously to the cold, beautiful queen while the children and the knights mingled. The stunted man waddled towards him.
“The slayer of wildlings!” He said in greeting. What? Andrei thought in shock.
“We’ve heard much on the road. A lost Mormont returning to the North, a Wildling who had civilised himself and sworn allegiance to the Starks, a walking bear man.” The little man chuckled.
Instantly, he knew who would enjoy talking to him. It was certainly not him.
Andrei nodded at the man, and spoke a single word. “Yes.”
The little man laughed and walked away, chuckling as he did. Andrei sighed, finding it all to be tiresome.
When the feast came that night, he sat with the squires and Jon Snow.
The Great Hall of Winterfell was hazy with smoke and heavy with the smell of roasted meat and fresh-baked bread. Its grey stone walls were draped with banners. White, gold, crimson: the direwolf of Stark, Baratheon’s crowned stag, the lion of Lannister. A singer was playing the high harp and reciting a ballad, but down at this end of the hall his voice could scarcely be heard above the roar of the fire, the clangor of pewter plates and cups, and the low mutter of a hundred drunken conversations.
Andrei sat quietly, drinking the sweet summerwine that failed to erase winter’s sorrow.
The squires urged young Jon to drink, and he did. The young boys relished in the stories they told each other, each grander and more false. They spoke and laughed of battle and beddings and hunts. Andrei looked at them, and knew it to be untrue.
There were dogs here too, hounds being fed scraps and bone. He saw Jon’s direwolf snarl at a black mongrel, before devouring the chicken that the boy gave him.
It was the fourth hour of the welcoming feast laid for the king. It was his ninth, no, tenth mug of wine. He felt no warmer than he would after a sip of Kvas.
“Is this one of the direwolves I’ve heard so much of?” a voice asked close at hand. He saw a man with Eddard Stark’s long face, gaunt and sharp-featured, and dressed all in black. Jon looked up happily as the man ruffled his hair much as Jon had ruffled the wolf’s. “Yes,” he said. “His name is Ghost.”
He straddled the bench with long legs and took the wine cup out of Jon’s hand. “Summerwine,” he said after a taste. “Nothing so sweet. How many cups have you had, Jon?”
Jon smiled and gestured at Andrei. “Not as much as he did.” Andrei turned slightly to give the boy a look.
“Benjen Stark.” The man extended a hand courteously. “First Ranger of the Night’s Watch.”
Andrei took it, accepting the firm grasp with strength. “Andrei Yeltska. Kislev.”
Benjen smiled politely, and confused, before turning to speak with Jon once more. Uncle and nephew talked but Andrei tuned them out, washing down a roasted onion with his eleventh mug of wine.
Then, he heard the two arguing.
“Take me with you when you go back to the Wall,” Jon said in a sudden rush. “Father will give me leave to go if you ask him, I know he will.”
“The Wall is a hard place for a boy, Jon.”
“I am almost a man grown,” Jon protested. “I will turn fifteen on my next name day, and Maester Luwin says bastards grow up faster than other children.”
A dozen mugs of summerwine he had finished. By now, he was slightly buzzed. Their argument had swelled, Andrei could not be arsed to listen but it came to him anyway.
“You are a boy of fourteen,” Benjen said. “Not a man, not yet. Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand what you would be giving up.”
“I don’t care about that!” Jon said hotly.
“You might, if you knew what it meant,” Benjen said. “If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less eager to pay the price, son.”
“I’m not your son!”
Benjen Stark stood up. “More’s the pity.” He put a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Come back to me after you’ve fathered a few bastards of your own, and we’ll see how you feel.”
Jon trembled. “I will never father a bastard,” he said carefully. “Never!” He spat it out like venom.
Then, the table fell silent and they were all looking at him. Andrei stared too, seeing another angry youth in his place, wild and lost. Over two decades had passed since that day, and now Andrei found himself in a foreign land. World. He reminded himself.
In his musing, he had almost missed Jon bolting out of the hall.
Andrei sighed, finishing his thirteenth mug. Then, he rose like a waking bear.
The little man strolled into the hall, whistling, as Andrei passed him. The light from the hall threw his shadow across the yard beyond, and for just a moment, the small man was as tall as a king.
Then, the moment passed and they entered different worlds.
Jon smashed a blunted stick against a training dummy, lashing and raging like a stirred beast. Sloppy. Andrei thought. The boy was far from Lucia’s skill at arms or even his own experience but there was potential.
“Jon.” Andrei said, retrieving a blunted axe from the rack of training weapons as the boy turned.
Andrei held his shield up. This was a language he spoke well. Jon smiled slightly, and wolf and bear charged at each other.
They fought long into the night, panting and growling. Jon needed this, Andrei knew, and so did he. As they stumbled away, Jon smiled gratefully at him. Andrei stared at the boy’s retreating back, aching from his back and legs. He is not so bad. Andrei chuckled to himself and for once, he did not stare mournfully at the moon. Andrei returned to his room and crashed onto his bed, a great slumbering, snoring bear.
The sound of screaming woke him as did a wolf’s howl. Andrei jumped awake, his hand at his axe. Glancing down at the courtyard, he saw a crowd gathered around a small, lifeless body.
Bran, he realised. Curious, shy Bran who loved to climb.
How? Andrei thought, numbly as he watched from above.
The rest of the day flew by in a blur. Andrei broke his fast in the Great Hall but it was solemn and cold. Maester Luwin was not in his room, occupied with caring for Bran. The courtyard was tense with the arrival of southern knights and foreign soldiers.
Winterfell was stirring, a quiet beast ready to spew its wolves out. Noise and confusion reigned though. Wagons were being loaded, men were shouting, horses were being harnessed and saddled and led from the stables. A light snow had begun to fall, and everyone was in an uproar to be off.
He turned away. His steps brought him to Bran’s room. He had not spoke much with the young boy and perhaps he would never again. What am I doing here? Andrei thought. He came to the door.
“It should have been you.” He heard Lady Catelyn speak silently and bitterly.
Then, Jon emerged from the room, blinking away bitter tears, and crashed into Andrei. He held the young man firm, steadying him. Jon glanced at him and grimaced, muttering a soft ‘thank you’ before leaving. Andrei stood at the precipice for a moment, a sobbing mother and a dying son in front of him.
He saw young Bran, pale and shrunken. The flesh had all gone from him. His skin stretched tight over bones like sticks. Under the blanket, his legs were bent. His eyes were sunken deep into black pits; open, but they saw nothing. Yet under the frail cage of those shattered ribs, his chest rose and fell with each shallow breath.
Salyak be with you. Andrei prayed, all he could do for the boy.
Then, he turned and left.
At the courtyard, he saw Robb shouting commands with the best of them. He seemed to have grown of late, as if Bran’s fall and his mother’s collapse had somehow made him stronger. Grey Wind, his direwolf who now stood almost half as tall as him, was at his side. Not a month ago, the wolf was a pup.
“Yeltska!” Robb greeted, shaking his hand. “Felt like yesterday when we found you.” He spoke like he was bidding Andrei farewell. Is he leaving? Andrei thought, confused.
“You have been a friend to Winterfell. That spar taught me much.” Robb smiled. “Help watch over my sisters in the south, will you? That sharp axe of yours should help.”
Oh. Andrei realised.
He nodded, and left the young lord to his duty. He scratched his head in confusion as he headed up to his room.
There, he found Maester Luwin waiting for him.
For once, the old man was not smiling, his eyes were closed in thought and exhaustion claimed his face. Andrei’s heavy footsteps greeted him, and Luwin opened his eyes. He cracked a small smile.
“Apologies, Andrei,” Luwin spoke. “Amidst the chaos of it all, Lord Stark and Lady Catelyn… neglected to ask if you would wish to accompany them south to King’s Landing. If you wish to find your way home, or your companions, that would be the place to start.”
King’s Landing was the capital city of Westeros, Andrei thought, where all roads met. He wondered if it would be anything like Altdorf.
“It is… okay.” He responded slowly, struggling with the words. “King’s Landing, where I want to go.”
Luwin smiled at him. “You have learned fast.” He praised, and drew from his robes two gifts. Andrei smiled at the first, holstering his pistol. The second was a small notebook and within it, he saw many Westerosi words - little drawings or symbols to denote them.
“That should help you practice the Common Tongue more.” Luwin said sagely. Andrei extended his hand, shaking the amused Maester’s hand gently.
It had taken him but a brief moment to clear his room and pack his meagre belongings into a leather bag that the Starks had given him. He gave the room a long glance. He had grown used to the room.
Andrei left. By the gates, he saw Lord Stark who seemed to be in heavy conversation with the king. Both men were mounted, and ready to leave. Eddard Stark looked grimmer than usual, his son’s fate weighed heavy on him. Still, he smiled and nodded apologetically at Andrei.
Then, Jon came to him, mounted on a black horse. The young man spoke hesitantly.
“I am heading north. To the Wall. To join the Night’s Watch.”
Andrei saw, instead, a young man riding away from his tribe to join the Kossars. He stared quietly for a moment at Jon, not knowing the words to say. Jon fidgeted.
Andrei smiled at him, his thick beard stirring slightly. He clasped his hands with Jon’s pulling him close and into a bear’s hug.
“Fight well.” Andrei said. “Like a wolf.”
He felt Jon’s smile.
“Fight like a bear.” The young man told him.
The words rang in his head for long as he left.
As he rode through the gates of Winterfell amidst the long snaking line of men; and wolves and lions and stags and hounds, Andrei thought deeply.
Then, he looked to the south and in his head, a bear roared.
Chapter Text
They floated down the Mander, slowly and lazily.
The river was clear and calm, and green hills stood on either side of the great stream. Above, the sky had turned purple in the night. The moon cast a soft glow over the land, and stars danced high over them. The white shimmered on the water, stretching this way and that way.
Lorenzo strummed his lute, humming a soft, wordless song.
A careful fire had been lit on the barge they were on, embracing them all with warmth. Six and ten they were; Lady Margaery, and three of her cousins and two of her handmaidens, courtly ladies all in fine silks and satin. Six strong and quiet oarsmen who guided the river barge along, three Tyrell guardsmen in gold and green armour, and a bard.
He could see Lucia’s flat stare of annoyance at this. Estalia had few rivers and they were all wells of life, sacred and disputed. The Empire’s great rivers had pleasure barges, sure, but for every boat of luxury, there were a dozen trading vessels. Trade flowed on the Empire’s veins, not opulence. Briefly, he wondered if Kislev’s rivers were frozen roads of ice.
No, this was more like Tilea, like the River Tarano where Princes sailed on white barges sipping wine and eating grapes. Tilea . Lorenzo mused thoughtfully.
A lesser bard would be distracted by his melancholy. Their voices would hitch and their notes would be frayed. He was not a lesser bard. Unconsciously, his fingers danced on the strings of the lute a little slower, and the tune grew lower and colder.
He closed his eyes.
He heard mournful sighs as his strumming continued. This wordless song was one of longing and loneliness, a forlorn litany of a wanderer far from home. All who heard it thought of brighter days gone by, of an idyllic youth spent and wasted, of friends come and gone.
Lorenzo opened his eyes and saw the ladies weeping soft tears, dapping at their cheeks with cloths of silk. He sighed mentally.
They did not come here to cry. Lorenzo thought. He was being a poor performer, he chided himself.
His fingers twitched ever so slightly, plucking at the strings just barely differently. The barge came alive with a different sound, a livelier, brighter tune. He thought of the Schaffenfest in Bogenhafen, and the joy they felt amidst the colourful tents. He thought of life, adventure, and kinship and companionship.
“In the mornin’ light we rise, with the sun to guide our eyes, pack our bags and take the way, adventure calls, we won’t delay!” He cried out, thinking of his lost companions. He sang in the Common Tongue of the Westerosi, for he had already grasped it. Language to him was like Lucia with her weapons.
Willas had been kind enough to point him to Highgarden’s library, where he spent over half a month poring over tomes and scrolls. First, he started with the basics. Maesters’ guides for the language, deliberately written for foreign traders and merchants.
Then came the scrolls of the poems and the songs, for he learnt best from songs of the different tongue.
It was how he learned Estalian, Bretonnian and Reikspiel, and how he learned Westerosi. He sunk himself in the Braavosi books as well, few that they were, and saw a familiar scrawl. Classical Tilean, this Braavosi was. How? Lorenzo spent many nights thinking, never finding an answer.
As the ladies giggled and clapped gently, Lorenzo hid the storm within him with a cheery smile.
“Oh, the joy of the road, my friends, a journey that never ends! Every step a story told, never to grow old, we ride and rise, we laugh and cry, we live, we die!”
He smiled, false like a mask, as the ladies showered him with praise and applause.
For now, the sound of music paused and laughing conversation took its place. There was an ornate table in the middle of the barge, adorned with pink and purple cloth. Silver jugs of Arbor Gold, the heavenly wine he had tasted on his first feast, flowed smoothly. An engraved plate of green grapes and pink peaches and blood red oranges.
He popped a grape into his mouth, savouring the sweetness of the fruit.
Megga Tyrell spilled a drop of the white gold wine on her turquoise dress, and laughed loudly and drunkenly. The handmaiden laughed with her, but the Lady Margaery only smiled.
“Careful, Meg,” said Elinor, who fancied herself witty. “Any more, and we’ll be calling you the Mander.” Megga laughed at that, gesturing at her blue dress. It was like a river, he thought, a large, billowy one. Elinor’s dress was yellow, like faded gold, and she had sunflowers in her brown hair.
Alla Tyrell, shy and quiet, hid her giggles behind a delicate hand. Her gown was pink and a harp of white wood sat on her lap. A harp, Lorenzo wondered, he had never learned the harp. Alla had not spoken a word throughout the night, Lorenzo noticed.
Next to her was Septa Nysterica. The older woman was homely, scarred with pox on her face but under her grey robes, her smile was sweet, and her words kind. Lorenzo opened his mouth to ask her about her gods but was interrupted.
“I hear the king is riding to Winterfell!” exclaimed Lady Meredyth Crane, a boisterous plump woman nearing thirty. “They say he rides to find a new Hand. Mayhaps he’ll return with a wolf in tow!” She laughed at her own jape, but few did. Alla smiled awkwardly while the Septa frowned. Margaery had her eyes on the moon while Elinor had her eyes on him.
Only Megga laughed, clapping her hands as she did.
Lady Margaery smiled slightly but her eyes were in thought, Lorenzo observed.
She had drunk and ate perfunctorily, but her mind was elsewhere. If her ladies noticed, they did not bring light to it.
“Say, bard, what did you say your name was again?” Elinor said, fluttering her eyes at him. The Arbor Gold had taken her. Her face was flushed and in the moonlight, he saw her half-lidden eyes.
Lorenzo allowed himself to smile like he was in a play.
“Lorenzo.” He said softly. “In Braavos’ docks, they called me the Seasinger.”
“The Seasinger!” She exclaimed with a sultry smile.
Before she could speak more, the oarsmen saved him. They called out a curt warning as they slowly brought the barge around. They had reached the riverbend, he realised, where the Mander gave way to two smaller streams. In the dark, he faintly made out a castle ahead. It was not Highgarden but it rivalled the larger Bretonnian castles he had passed by.
The oarsmen turned the barge around carefully. The plates and goblets had not even shook once, he observed. How many times have they done this? Lorenzo thought with mirth.
Three hours, they had floated down the Mander, watching the sun set and the moon rise. Now, night had arrived and the sky was dark. Another three hours.
He saw the Septa close her eyes in prayer, muttering softly to herself. Alla had fallen asleep, leaning against Elinor, whose eyes were closed as she leaned against the side of the boat. Both Meredyth and Megga were, finally, quiet, snoring on the table.
Margaery Tyrell turned to him, her brown eyes alight with curiosity.
“You spoke little?” She asked.
“It is a bard’s place to sing, my lady, not talk.” Lorenzo replied with a smile.
“You were a bard.” Margaery countered. “When you had an audience.” She gestured to the ladies, asleep and quiet.
“A true bard always has an audience.” Lorenzo danced with his words.
Margaery hummed in thought, and gave him the victory.
“How have you found Highgarden? I hear Braavos is all stone and canals. It must be hard, so far from home.” She continued.
Lorenzo smiled, a pang piercing his heart like an arrow.
“For a singer, a land of flowers might as well be paradise. House Tyrell’s generosity is a marvel.” Lorenzo praised, turning the conversation away from Braavos.
He spoke no falsehoods. The Tyrells were wealthy, and generous too. Abundance greeted him each day when he left the library and entered the hall to feast and sing. He learned their songs fast, and found them lacking.
The Bear and the Maiden Fair. A jolly and lively tune, cheerful but fit for a tavern, not a lordly hall.
The Dornishman’s Wife. A provocative and risque ballad. It reminded him of the burning passion of Estalia. He enjoyed it but would not sing it for ladies of the court.
Jenny of Oldstones. A sad, solemn cry of a woman who had lost it all.
The Rains of Castamere. A haunting song immortalising the massacre and defeat of an entire house, drowned in their own mines.
How could anyone sing these songs at a feast?
He sang them Tilea’s songs, the ones he had written himself. It took him some time to translate them into Westerosi, and to tweak them to perfection but he did.
He sang of Tristan the Troubadour and Jules the Jester, he sang of the mercy of doves and the wisdom of owls. He sang them songs of adventure and travel, of glory and joy.
Each night, the court sat silent as they ate and drank, each man and woman listening intently to his words. Margaery and Willas always smiled softly, while Lord Mace tried to sing along under his breath.
Each night, Olenna Tyrell stared at him like he was a ghost come to life.
A month had vanished. He had been engrossed in The History of Westeros when Elinor came to bring him to the feast. She had extended Lady Margaery’s invite for their monthly trip down the Mander, and Lorenzo knew they would not take no for an answer.
After the feast, they had rode out of Highgarden and to a small jetty by the Mander where they boarded their barge. The Rose, they called it creatively.
“House Tyrell is flattered.” Margaery said with mirth. “How long do you intend to stay for?”
Lorenzo had asked himself that as well.
“Until the wind blows me away from the garden.” Lorenzo shrugged with a smile.
“Then I shall mourn.” Margaery smiled back. “A wind may blow this way sooner than you or I think.” She said cryptically and spoke no more.
The progress back was slow but quiet, which Lorenzo was grateful for.
He strummed his lute absent-mindedly. It had been a terrible night when he realised he was far, far from home. A sleepless night he spent praying, only to be met with silence. He had pleaded with Shallya, jested with Ranald, reasoned with Verena and prayed quietly to Morr.
When the sun rose for his first dawn in Westeros, he had not slept a wink.
A week later, he had finished his first two tomes. ‘The Sunset Kingdoms’ was the first, a journal written by a Braavosi wanderer who travelled through Westeros. It was in Classical Tilean. Braavosi, he reminded himself.
The second book he read concurrently. ‘The Westerosi Tongue’ was a compilation of important words and phrases written in Westeros. Each word was accompanied with a drawing where possible and a translation into other languages. Braavosi, Myrish, Tyroshi, Pentoshi, not that he knew any of them.
From there, he taught himself the Common Tongue of Westeros.
It brought him back to his youth amidst the Shallyans, poring over books donated by merchants and traders. There, he learned the languages of the Old World. He smiled at the memory.
The Old World…
He thought of all the horrors he had seen on the road with his companions. The braying herds of Beastmen, the chittering ratmen, the cackling Goblins and howling Orcs, the quiet and marching dead, ravenous Ogres and vicious Trolls.
Westeros had none of it. No monsters, no vicious creatures of the night. There were no Dwarfs or Elves too, Lorenzo had realised with a shattering thought, only Man.
Once, dragons had flown over Westeros, when the Targaryens ruled from the Iron Throne. Then, the dragons died over two hundred years ago. Magic, too, had died with them.
This was a land where magic was a myth, and the gods were silent, distant beings.
His own gods were quiet too, Lorenzo despaired.
Then, an owl landed at the front of the Rose.
It was an elegant creature, with feathers as white as snow. Gold eyes peered at him curiously as the owl tilted its head.
Is this a sign? Lorenzo thought. Or just an owl?
He locked eyes with the bird, emerald and gold staring at each other.
Verena, guide my way. Bless me with your wisdom. He prayed, and when he looked at the owl, he saw only snow.
Highgarden was quiet and asleep when they returned. The oarsmen busied themselves with the boat while the drowsy ladies were ushered into a waiting wheelhouse by the guards.
He was given a horse, a chestnut stallion that snorted as he mounted it. Lorenzo found the horse painfully familiar.
He rode alongside the wheelhouse quietly. He found the company of the ladies wanting, and had it not been for the Lady Margaery, it would have been dreadful.
It felt wrong. His heart ached and his head spun.
They should be setting camp there, by the river. He saw Gunther sitting on a log and sharpening sticks to skewer meat. Andrei opened a bottle of Kvas and gulped greedily while Folke oiled his rifle like he did every night. Lucia was there, next to him, cleaning the blood from her mace.
He rode through the gates of Highgarden.
He shook his head and breathed in the scent of a thousand flowers. They were out there somewhere, Lorenzo believed. They must be fighting their own battles, Lorenzo concluded, and so he must fight as well, with song and words.
The ladies emerged from the wheelhouse, yawning and stretching.
Ellinor winked at him as she left, and he smiled serenely at her. Meredyth and Megga walked together, supporting each other as they swayed. Septa Nysterica bowed politely while Alla departed with a curtsy.
Margaery stood there in the dark, quiet hall for a moment. Torches lit the white walls, and her brown eyes shone. Her dress was a light green, like the lush fields of her father’s kingdom, and embroidered with fine threads of gold.
She was like the Tyrell’s sigil come to life, a golden rose on a field of green.
“Good night to you, Ser.” Margaery spoke, gently.
Lorenzo bowed. “May you rest on flowers, my lady.”
She smiled at him and left.
Lorenzo turned, heading for his room. He had been given quarters in the Guest Hall, a large, winding tower of white. He climbed the spiralling stairs of marble, quiet and in thought.
The door was of a fine, aged wood, with gold carvings in the shape of roses. The room was comfortable, beyond any tavern he had slept in. Only the manors of the Tilean Merchant Princes outshined and Lorenzo smiled, thinking of that fateful night where he bolted, drunkenly, from Lupo’s halls.
The bed was large and comfortable, soft feathers and furs laid tempting on them. The window was open, allowing a cool breeze to enter. There was a small room to the side, where a large tub of water waited for him.
Before long, Lorenzo found himself soaking in the bathtub.
He allowed himself to rest, the performer’s mask slipping from his face.
A few more days and he would have spent a month in Westeros. A month, and he had accomplished little.
He knew the history of the lands, of the names and titles of a hundred knights and lords, and the latest gossip of the servants and the handmaidens. He knew that the king was a bloated drunk and that the queen hated him. He knew the names of the Kingsguard, the sacred order of seven knights who swore their lives to protect the king, and what each servant thought of them.
Yet, he knew nothing. He knew not where to go.
Lorenzo thought of his companions. Andrei would find the cold, wintry North like Kislev, Lorenzo knew. Arid Dorne with its passionate people would endear itself to Lucia, he would wager.
Lorenzo clenched his fists.
What do I do? Lorenzo thought in frustration.
He stared at himself in the water’s reflection. His long gold curls were dripping with water, like a lion’s wild mane. Emerald green eyes stared back at himself, haunting and frustrated.
Then, he heard a sound in his room. Lorenzo rose quickly and as quietly as he could. He glanced about the washroom, looking for a weapon he could use. He grabbed a candle stand, silver and heavy. He could almost feel Lucia’s flat stare at him.
In my defense, Lorenzo thought, I am just a bard.
He crept out of the washroom. The bedroom was dark and quiet. Four torches there were, one on each side of the wall but only the one by the door was burning.
Then, he saw, perched on the windowsill, the snow-white owl from before.
Lorenzo placed his candlestick down by the table, refusing to look at it. The owl hooted softly, its gold eyes fixed fiercely on him.
Lorenzo stared at it.
Then, his green eyes rolled back and he fell.
He saw the owl again, flying in front of him, its wing spread wide. Lorenzo looked at himself, and saw a red and yellow hummingbird. They flew for what felt like eternity, soaring over hills and mountains, plains and valleys, rivers and oceans.
He looked down and saw a dead dragon in a mighty river, its blood staining the waters ruby. Wolves and falcons and stags marched in sync to a city on fire, ravaged by lions.
He saw a frail sun shattered under a rumbling mountain, and a small, glowing dragon bitten to death by a cackling manticore. An old dragon fell, pitiful green flames emerging in gasps from its jaw, a lion’s claws behind him.
A storm came to an island of stone dragons, and he saw a storm leave. East, it blew and it grew into a dragon.
Lorenzo realised with a shock that the three-eyed raven from before had appeared, flying beside the owl. It turned back and cawed at him, curious and irritated.
Time seemed to blur as they flew through places men were not meant to see.
He saw his companions but could not tell where they were. He saw Andrei and Folke, gunpowder roaring around them as men fought and died. He saw Gunther with his daggers drawn, emerging from a shadowy hall. He saw Lucia with her mace held high, glowing with a light as bright as the sun.
He saw a stag die, and felt the cracking of the land.
He saw a wolf die, and heard the weeping of women.
He saw a kraken die, and saw the one-eyed crow.
NORTH. The owl and the raven commanded him, and he followed.
North, they flew. They soared past twin towers of old hate, and a crumbling castle. They left behind marshes and barrows and woodlands and cold rivers. He saw a grand castle where winter fell softly. They avoided a fort of cold dread, where flayed men screamed in eternal torment, and flew over one last hearth.
Then, he saw it.
A titanic wall of ice, seven hundred feet tall. It shone blue and crystalline in sunlight, and glimmered pale in the moonlight. At dawn, it glowed pink and purple. On sunny days, it sparkled from melting ice and it wept on rainy nights. Lorenzo stared at it for one long second of eternity.
Then, they flew over it and he saw what awaited them beyond.
Death was marching, and an endless shivering tide of winter came with it.
Lorenzo opened his eyes, and the owl was gone.
Notes:
Don't confuse Lorenzo for a greenseer now! In our campaign, he occasionally receives cryptic dreams and visions from, he believes, the Gods of Old World Pantheon. That is, if you're familiar with Warhammer Fantasy, the Old Gods (like Morr, Rhya, Taal, Ulric, Manann) and the New Gods (like Verena, Shallya, Myrmidia and Ranald). Hope those names don't cause any confusion with the Old and New Gods of Westeros.
Chapter 10: Folke II
Chapter Text
An arrow soared through the air.
Folke nodded grimly at his handiwork, watching the rabbit collapse. The arrow had pierced its brain, killing it in an instant.
He stalked off quietly and retrieved the arrow, wiping it on a blade of grass and returning it to the quiver.
The bow felt strange in his hands. A simple wooden bow, a hunter’s bow. The last time he used a bow was before he had joined the State Troopers. Over a decade of using a handgun had rusted his skills with the bow but old instincts returned fast.
He had to.
Spitfire Four rested in a small sack that Alf had given him, disassembled. These people have no familiarity with gunpowder, he realised, and using his rifle would just attract attention to himself. Besides, he had no way of knowing or finding a gunsmith here. He had to conserve his shot and powder.
He bent and grabbed the rabbit, and an old voice rang in his head.
Grab it like this o’er here, and pull!
The hide came off in a splash of blood upon the grass. He stuffed the meat and hide into a rough sack, slung the bow to himself and turned.
Twenty-seven days. He thought to himself.
He had spent close to a month here.
Each day, he rose before Alf and Sally did. They broke their fast on vegetables and bread and meat that he had hunted. They fed him and taught him words in exchange for his help around the farm, and his hunting skills too.
For a few hours everyday, he helped Alf around the farm. When noon came, he took his bow and knives and axe, and left for the surrounding woods. Meat was a rare meal for them, he could tell, and each time he returned with a rabbit or hart, they smiled gratefully at him and thanked him profusely.
Trouble did not come to them, to his muted surprise.
One day, Folke had realised why. He had roamed into the forest deeper than usual, and found a quiet hut. A single, lonely house of wood and thatch. Within, a fireplace was dead and he saw half-fletched arrows on a simple table, rotting meat and leathers in a corner.
No one would miss a single dead hunter and his hound.
Folke took the arrows and carving tools from the house, and left without turning back.
He shook the thought out of his head as he returned to the farmhouse.
Alf was inside, watching beside Sally as the girl chopped carrots and potatoes skillfully. The farmer had lit a small fire and was preparing a pot.
Folke nodded at him, and handed him the sack of meat. Alf smiled gratefully at him as he peered inside.
“Rabbit stew for today huh?” The farmer said with a laugh.
It was because rabbits were the easiest to hunt, Folke wanted to say.
“Her stew is good.” He said, watching Sally smile shyly. Alf laughed and placed his hand on his daughter’s head.
Folke excused himself, heading for a small stream nearby.
His hands were stained with blood, he observed dispassionately.
Forever stained.
He knelt by the small stream and placed his hands into the cool, running water. He cupped his hands and washed his face with the river water. Then, he sat by the stream.
He stayed there for a long, quiet moment and watched the small stream.
His fingers twitched but he remembered that his rifle was disassembled, hidden in a sack. Quietly frustrated, he rose.
When he returned, the smell of rabbit stew greeted him, the aroma wafting out to embrace him.
When he entered, he found the two already at the table. Three tables of piping hot stew waiting. Within a sea of rich brown broth, chunks of meat and vegetables floated and warm bread sat on wooden plates next to the bowls of stew.
They had been waiting for him, he realised.
They smiled at him as he took a seat opposite them. Then, Alf clasped his hands together as did his daughter. Alf began to pray, and Sally recited his words quietly after him.
Folke was used to this by now and stared quietly at the stew.
“We ask the Father to judge us with mercy, accepting our human frailty.”
For a farmer, Alf knew his words well. He could not write like a learned man but he knew how to talk. At his questioning stare once, the farmer laughed. His wife had been a lord’s servant, he told him, and learned from listening to the nobles talk, and he learned from her.
“We ask the Mother to bless our crops, so we may feed ourselves and all who come to our door.”
The hearthfire crackled as the man spoke and Folke thought deeply. The Mother, Folke wondered, was like Rhya, the goddess of fertility and harvest. The idea of being in a different world still wreathed him in dread. For brief moments each morning, he wondered if he were still back in the Reikland.
“We ask the Warrior to give us courage in times of strife and turmoil.”
The Warrior, Folke mused. Vaguely, he was reminded of Ulric but the differences were wide. Ulric was savage and primal, like winter itself. The men who held their worship to the wolf god close fought and lived fiercely. The Warrior, from Alf’s words, was a knightly god of war, almost akin to Myrmidia of the south.
“We ask the Maiden to protect Sally’s virtue and keep her from the clutches of depravity.”
At that, the young girl cracked open an eye and looked awkwardly at her father. Folke’s lips twitched slightly. The Maiden. In some form, he could see slight resemblances to Shallya, the lady of mercy and healing. Kiepford had no room for the gentlest of the gods.
“We ask the Crone to shine her lamp of wisdom on us, guiding us through uncertainty.”
A goddess of wisdom and foresight. Folke thought of Verena, and Lorenzo. He wondered if the others were here as well. After they had went their separate paths, he would occasionally wonder what they were doing. On nights where he despaired quietly, Folke wondered how to pray to the goddess of wisdom, for her to show him a way. Only silence answered him in his mind.
“We ask the Smith to watch over our tools of labour as we work.”
His tool of labour sat within a sack meant for crops. No, it was not just a tool. What is it then? Folke wondered. His rifle was important to him, he knew, but why? Each night, his fingers twitched slightly, aching for his usual routine and ritual. He could not do it here, he knew, and he lamented.
“We ask the Stranger for more time in this world.”
The Stranger. A God of Death. Morr was ever present back in Kiepford. Constant raids by the Northmen against the outpost-turned-settlement meant a steady stream of bodies came and went. Priests of Morr travelled to their town frequently, blessing the fallen and giving their souls rest.
They unclasped their hands. Folke’s stomach growled slightly as he ate. He tore a chunk of bread and dipped it into the stew, and ate it with a spoonful of broth and carrots. They spoke quietly over the meal, and taught him more.
His first three weeks, Alf had taught him as much of the Common Tongue as he could. The past few days, the farmer had tried to teach him more on the land they were on. He spoke much on House Tully, the lords of the land, and of Lord Hoster Tully, the good lord who now slowly died of old age.
He told him of the sly House of Frey who commanded the Twins, the only river crossing in the northern Riverlands, whose house grew rich from their bridge toll. He spoke of the eternally feuding Houses of Bracken and Blackwood, for whom their grievances stretched through history. Powerful House Mallister with the only port on the western coast, and the Pipers of Pinkmaiden, and the Whents of Harrenhal.
The farmer’s face was conflicted when he spoke of Edmure Tully. The son and heir to House Tully, he was a decent man but seemed to be a poor lord, spending his time in brothels and hunts. His sisters were long married. Catelyn Tully, Lord Hoster’s oldest, had been married to Lord Eddard Stark during the Rebellion. Lysa, the younger, was married to Lord Jon Arryn.
“The Rebellion.” Folke asked. “Just what happened?”
Alf hummed in thought, his bread mere inches from his mouth.
The farmer thought for a moment and spoke.
“It’s like this. House Targaryen ruled the land for centuries. Every boy growing up heard the stories. Aegon the Conqueror came with his dragons three hundred years ago and unified the land. He defeated many kings and brought peace to Westeros.”
Alf took a bite of his bread and stew, chewing and thinking.
“The kings after him were a mixed bunch. Some were good and great like old Jaeherys. Others were terrible. Then came Aerys, the maddest of them all.”
Sally was listening intently too, Folke noticed.
“Oh, King Aerys started his rule well. I heard the stories from me da. But over the years, he grew madder and madder. Everyone held their breath though. His son and heir, Prince Rhaegar, could have been a good king. We just needed to wait until old Aerys died.”
The farmer shook his head.
“Then, that damned tourney. Twas at Harrenhall,” He pointed in a general direction to the south and east. “A more blasted ruin, you’ll not find in Westeros. Aegon burnt it during his conquest with dragonfire when the old Ironborn kings refused to kneel. Good riddance, I say.”
Alf blinked.
“Anyways, the Tourney at Harrenhal was when it all started to break down. The largest tourney in history. I wasn’t there but I was working at Fairmarket at the time and heard the rumours. The Mad King Aerys was not supposed to be there, I heard, and Rhaegar had called the tourney to plan rebellion.”
“Then Aerys came and he was a proper fright. A lad from the town had worked as a stableboy there and came by a month later. Said the king looked a nightmare, like he had not washed himself or cut his nails for months.”
Folke listened intently, barely remembering to eat. He could not remember being so engrossed in a tale, other than when Lorenzo spoke of his dreams.
“It still continued of course, even with Aerys looming over the tourney. Then, it happened. You see, Prince Rhaegar was married to Elia Martell of Dorne. She was there, and so were her brothers, the Princes of Dorne. Lords from across the Kingdoms were there too, I hear.”
“The Lords Stark and Baratheon and Tully and Arryn were all there. Robert Baratheon was bethroned to old Lord Rickard Stark’s daughter, Lyanna.”
Alf caught his look of confusion. “Aye, that Robert is our king now. Let me get to that later.”
“The current Lord of Winterfell is Eddard Stark, the second son of old Lord Rickard. At that time, he was just a boy, a ward in the Vale with King Robert.”
“The Vale?” Folke asked.
“You see those mountains to the east? House Arryn rules there. Jon Arryn fostered both the young Robert and Eddard in his home. He’s the Hand of the King now, Jon Arryn. Anyways.”
Alf gulped down his stew hungrily.
“Robert was a fierce warrior then, proud like a bull. They say he was madly in love with Lyanna Stark too.”
His eyes grew sad.
“Then, Prince Rhaegar won the tourney. Everyone expected him to crown his wife, Elia, with the Crown of Love and Beauty.”
At Folke’s confusion, he digressed. “Tourney winners can gift a lady with a Crown of Love and Beauty. Usually, they give it to their bethrothed or wife or sister. Tis what’s expected of them. ”
Alf sighed.
“Then, Rhaegar rode past his wife and crowned Lyanna Stark his queen. They say every smile died then. There, House Targaryen died. Lyanna Stark was the daughter of one great lord and was bethrothed to another. Elia was the sister of two proud princes. Months after, Lyanna Stark went missing. Brandon Stark, Rickard Stark’s eldest son, rode to King’s Landing and demanded the Prince return his sister.”
Alf shook his head once more. “A hot-headed young noble, he was. He met a terrible fate. Aerys threw him and his companions into the Black Cells. When his father came to King’s Landing to beg for mercy, Aerys burnt him alive and tied a rope around Brandon Stark’s throat so that he died while trying to save his father.”
“Then, Aerys demanded Jon Arryn give over both Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon. He refused. Then came the Rebellion.”
Alf shuddered slightly, and Folke saw Sally’s eyes widen. He was lost in thought.
He was reminded of the age of in the Empire, that terrible time men called the Age of the Three Emperors when Sigmar’s sons and daughters had fought and killed each other for hundreds of years.
“I can’t rightly tell you much of what happened then. I was just helping my da’s stall and I was lucky enough that they didn’t take me to war. They took him though, and he never came back.” Alf muttered darkly.
Then, Sally clutched his hand and the farmer smiled.
“The rebels met Rhaegar’s army at the Trident. Robert fought and killed him there. They say the rubies on Rhaegar’s armour were sent flying into the river, and men scrambled for them. They call that place the Ruby Ford now. When Lord Stark arrived at the capital to secure it for Robert, who was injured, the Lannisters had taken it already.”
Alf’s eyes were of scorn. Folke stared curiously at him. He had never seen the friendly farmer take on this tone.
“Tywin Lannister had sat out of the Rebellion but when Rhaegar died, he threw himself on the rebel’s side. He marched to King’s Landing under the pretense of helping the throne and took it bloodily. I had cousins there who died in the sack. The Royal Family met the same fate too. Aerys was killed by his own guard. Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, Tywin’s own son.”
“Princess Elia was killed too, and her two children. They say Lannister men savaged them. I shan’t speak on it. It was ill done. The last of the Targaryens were in Dragonstone. The Queen, Rhaella. Prince Viserys too. Then, they had to flee across the sea to the east. Rhaella died but she gave birth to a daughter. Daenerys Targaryen.”
Alf shook his head and sighed.
“Then, Robert took the throne. It’s been seventeen years since.”
He shrugged. “There is peace, and the taxes are not too high. House Tully keeps the roads safe. The harvests are good. I’ve got nothing to complain about.”
Folke leaned back. His bowl was empty, and his mind was full. Names swirled in his head as he tried to comprehend the tale he had been told.
“Where is King’s Landing?” He asked.
“Southeast on the King’s Road. Two weeks of walking maybe.” Alf seemed slightly worried.
“Are you…leaving already?”
Folke thought for a moment. “No, not yet.” Alf sighed in relief.
“You’ve always got a place here, Folke. It’s good having you.” The farmer smiled warmly at him as he helped his daughter clear the table.
Folke stepped out.
The sun was setting. Folke stood and watched the falling sun, staring intently at the horizon.
King’s Landing. He thought to himself. Could he find answers there? Would he find a way back?
His musings were interrupted when the door opened. Alf joined him there, and handed him a mug of water.
“Say, I never asked. Where are you from? You don’t look like you are from one of the Free Cities.” Alf asked curiously.
Folke tensed slightly.
He had thought much on this question during restless nights. What could he say? He could never think of a response. He knew little of this land, and nothing of what was beyond it.
“Far away.” He responded after a long moment. “Too far to return.”
Alf gave him a sympathetic look. “I can understand. Fairmarket was my home for a while. Lost me ma when I was a boy and the war took me da. Could not stay there after.”
He gestured to the farm. “Worked as a labourer at Saltpans for a while. I met Annara there.” Alf said with a wistful smile. “She died from a sickness a year back, when Sally was just five. A bad cough. Sometimes, I worry she can only remember her ma’s dying face.”
Folke was as still and stiff as a corpse.
In his mind, a town burned and he watched helplessly. Fire. Smoke. Ashes.
A hand clasped his shoulder and Folke reached for his pistol. The holster was empty. He had left his gun in the house. In half a second, his hand flew to his axe. Then, he met Alf’s confused eyes.
Folke took a breath.
“Lost mine too.” He said after a long moment. Alf did not reply but stood next to him until the sun vanished from the sky.
“You’re a restless sort, right?” Alf spoke up. “Can tell by the way you hunt. We have enough meat for the next month and still you hunt. I think some walking will do you good!” The man beamed at him.
“I sell some of my crops to the Inn at the Crossroads at the end of every month. It’s a half a day’s walk there and I’ll be leaving with Sally tomorrow.. You could stay here to watch the house or you could come along?”
Folke nodded instantly. He had no wish to be alone with his ghosts for now.
“Go get your rest, Folke. We’ll be waking early tomorrow.” The farmer smiled at him.
That night, Folke’s dreams were troubled and restless. Screams and cries haunted him in his sleep. He rose in the quiet dark of night and found that sack next to the bedroll. Folke sat by the door, cleaning and oiling his rifle.
When the sun rose, he waited for the drowsy farmer and his daughter. He had loaded the crops onto the old cart. Carrots, potatoes, cabbages, onions, beetroot.
Alf looked over the crops briefly and gave him a tired smile. “Thank you.”
The journey was quiet. They had travelled this road many times, Folke realised. Sally slept next to sacks of potatoes while he and Alf took turns pulling the cart. They stopped by the Blue Fork once, to drink and rest.
By midday, they arrived at the Inn at the Crossroads.
Three stories tall, it stood, with turrets and chimneys of white stone. Next to it, he saw a small stable and heard the clanking of a forge.
“Masha!” Alf called out cheerfully at the innkeeper who had walked up to greet them.
She was a fat and middle-aged woman, with thinning brown hair and a kind smile. Her teeth were stained red, Folke observed, and her hands were rough. The woman whispered something to Sally, who giggled, before handing her a small sweetcake.
“Right on time, Alf. I was running low on vegetables.” Masha greeted.
“Who’s this?” She said with a questioning look at Folke.
“A friend.” Alf said easily. “Here to help out around the farm.”
She hummed in thought and gave Folke a nod. He stood aside as Alf brought the crops into a cellar. Folke’s eyes were elsewhere. He slowly looked about the inn and its inhabitants.
The common room was spacious, long and drafty. At one end, he saw wooden kegs and barrels. At the other, a roaring fireplace. A narrow staircase led up while the kitchen wafted with the aroma of food.
A handful of travellers were in the inn, merchants and mercenaries. He kept a close eye on the latter, and sat close to Sally, who sang to herself while munching on the sweetcake.
“This is a good stock.” Masha said as she handed a small pouch of coins to Alf. “Remember I told you the King came by about three moons back? I heard from travellers that his court is riding south. They’ve already passed the Twins or so I hear. I imagine they’ll be stopping by here soon enough.” Masha smiled gleefully at that.
“Serving kings is always a dangerous business, Masha.” Alf warned.
“Bah! I’m just an innkeeper. They’ll eat and drink and sleep, and I’ll get paid for it.” Masha waved her hands casually.
“Same time next month?” She asked.
Alf nodded. She waved them off at the door as they left, muttering to herself about what the king might like.
They hurried on their way back. “If we are fast, we can make it back just after sunset.” Alf muttered to him.
“How did you like the inn?” Alf asked curiously.
“It was good.” Folke replied.
It was almost dark when they returned. The house greeted them like a lost friend, and Folke allowed the warmth of the hearth to relax him, slightly. The place had grown on him, and he wondered why. Alf and Sally bid him goodnight and entered their rooms. Folke sat by the table, staring at the fire.
Where do I go? He asked himself, not for the first time.
Exhausted and weary, he dragged himself to his bedroll. He thought of Masha’s words.
He was glad that they left fast for he had no desire to be in the presence of the king. Besides, there was no way he could find any of his former companions with a royal court.
Chapter 11: Lucia II
Chapter Text
A spear came soaring at her, like a leaping snake.
The shaft was a red wood, as deep as blood, and an orange cloth coiled around the spear. The blunt steel glinted under the Dornish sun. She had no time to admire the beauty of the spear, however.
She raised her shield and the steel rang as the spear crashed against her bulwark. She pushed with her shield, attempting to parry the spear but it slung back, as swift as a viper.
It came again, biting at her head and she twisted to the side. She smashed it down with her shield and thrust the wooden club forward.
Oberyn leapt back, laughing as he did. Nary a bead of sweat was on his sandy skin and the prince danced around the courtyard, comfortable in his bronze leathers. She advanced slowly, with her shield raised and her club at the ready. She was slower, in her heavy steel, but relentless like an iron giant.
The spear came hissing again for her face and she raised her shield once more. Clang. It rang. Instantly, she realised her mistake. She had blinded herself.
The spear jutted at her left arm, at the joint of her elbow where it was unarmoured. At the last second, she moved her hand up, letting the blunt metal bounce off her gauntlet. Oberyn smirked at that and twirled his spear like he was a performer.
“A break?” He asked in the Common Tongue of Westeros, accented with Dornish spice. “Si.” She said instinctively in Estalian. As hardened as she was to the Estalian sun, even she was feeling the heat of Dorne.
She corrected herself. “Yes.” She said slowly.
They strolled to the edge of the courtyard when the sun’s glare was hidden and a cool shade covered them. She placed the wooden club back on the rack of blunted training weapons and returned her steel mace to its leather loop.
Ellaria waited for them, lounging lazily on a red couch. She popped a sour, red grape in her mouth as they approached, and gestured at the platter of fruits and wine on a wooden table. Silver goblets engraved with snakes and a jug of Dornish Red. A silver platter of red grapes, peaches and figs. Oberyn poured them both a goblet of red and she accepted it gratefully.
Lorenzo had taught her how to appreciate finer vintages once, when they had first arrived at Ubersreik, she remembered.
Small sips. Let it swirl. He had instructed.
Too thirsty. She replied, then and now. Lucia downed the red in a single gulp, and coughed slightly. Ellaria giggled at that and Oberyn laughed. Ellaria popped a fig into Oberyn and the Red Viper, as men called him, lounged on the seat.
“Where did you learn to fight?” Oberyn asked, curiosity glinting in his black eyes.
Lucia thought, remembering an old face. She thought of the old vagrant and how he danced with sword and dagger. She remembered his lessons well and recalled the many tales he had spoken, of wars fought on foreign lands and battles with exotic creatures.
Her lips twitched in a slight smile.
“An old friend,” she said and kept silent. Oberyn raised his goblet and silence rang for a moment.
Lucia allowed herself to sit on a wooden stool, which proved strong enough to hold her weight. She took the heavy helmet from her face and gratefully accepted another goblet of Dornish red from Ellaria.
It had been close to a month since she found herself in that cave, she mused as she sipped at the sour wine.
When she saw the single moon, she froze. Oberyn and Ellaria had excitedly asked her questions in her home and all Lucia could do was stare at them. The two had glanced at each other before gesturing for her to follow them.
She did, reluctantly, mounting her black horse and following their graceful sand steeds on the narrow, winding road that led to the palace looming over them.
The guards guarding the tall, thin tower had let them through with a smile and a friendly word with Oberyn. Inside, servants hurried this way and there, giving them polite bows and smiles. They brought her to a high room, overlooking the shadowy, sandy city.
Oberyn had gestured about with a lazy smile before the two left, speaking something to her before they did.
Lucia sat facing the door for an hour, a hand on her mace. When she heard a knock on the door, she nearly raised her shield.
Then, she opened it and saw a young boy standing there with a tray of food and drink. Honeyed bread and spiced meat and red cheese, a goblet of red. The thought of poison had crossed her mind and she spent some time staring intently at the food. Her stomach had growled and she shrugged.
As honeyed sweetness and fiery spice danced on her tongue, she briefly wondered how much an Imperial inn would charge for this. She scoffed to herself. Those Imperials can’t stand spices.
She had stayed in the room for hours, only interrupted when the same boy from before returned to clear the tray. At first, she had been wary. Then, she grew tired.
She knelt by the window, feeling the desert wind entering. It felt like what home would feel like. Where is that?
She prayed.
“Myrmidia, guíame porque estoy perdida.”
This was a foreign land, yet hauntingly familiar. Every grain of sand and each blow of hot, dry wind brought back thoughts of Magritta and Estalia.
“Guía mi mano para saber dónde atacar”.
She felt the comforting presence of her mace in its leather loop. She had snatched it from the corpse of a bandit leader. Lucia snorted at the irony.
"Bendice mi escudo para que pueda resistir la oscuridad".
Her shield was still strapped to her back. She had refused to take it off, no matter its weight. It was a burden she bore gladly and gratefully.
“Oh Señora de la Guerra, brilla sobre mí con la luz del sol y que las águilas guíen mi camino”.
Then came a knock on her door.
Oberyn and Ellaria sauntered in, holding books and scrolls. It made for a strange sight, Lucia had thought.
They sat the old tomes and papers down on the wooden table with a heavy thud before lounging on the bed. Is that not my bed? She thought to herself.
Then, Oberyn had pointed at the sun on one of the books. “Sun.” He drawled out.
She stared at him, and understood. “Sol.”
Then, he pointed at the spear piercing the sun. “Spear.”
“Lanza.”
The conversation continued for thirty words, then the pair rose with smiles.
“Tomorrow. Return. Continue.” Oberyn said and she nodded before they sauntered away.
Lucia did not rest easy that night. She slept as she ever did, with her gauntlets on and a dagger close at hand.
A knock on the door jolted her awake. The same boy from yesterday stood there with a tray of food once more. Lucia tried to smile at the jittery youth, though it was more of a grimace. The boy smiled back, however, revealing missing teeth.
“Lucia.” She said, gesturing to herself as she accepted the platter. Fish there was, spiced with herbs and lemon. Blood red sausages came with it, and a mug of something dark.
“Vorian.” The boy beamed at her before leaving.
Lucia ate quietly. Her mouth burnt from the spice but she enjoyed it, washing it down with black beer. She speared a sausage with her fork and gnawed half of it off, watching the grease flow.
She sat there in silence after her meal. When Vorian returned, it was with Oberyn and Ellaria in tow. The pair smiled at her, and they resumed the night’s conversation.
She spent two weeks like this. She rose early when Vorian brought her food. Then, Oberyn and Ellaria would come, bringing with them the Dornish language. They spent the afternoon talking and slowly, Lucia grew more familiar with their tongue. At sunset, the pair invited her down to the shadow city.
Each evening, they ate at a different tavern. They feasted on fish and olives and spicy peppers, and paired them with olives and blood oranges and sour red wine. Oberyn lived freely, she realised, with a fire in him. He laughed easily and flowed from one place to another, one conversation to another, smoothly. Like a viper.
Then, after two weeks, Oberyn came to her room and gestured for her to follow him. Follow him, she did, and they came to the training yard. She smiled at that, and the two warriors spoke with mace and spear.
“My brother, Prince Doran, wishes to see you.” Oberyn said suddenly, smiling.
“The Prince of Sunspear rarely sees visitors. Be on your best behaviour.” He bantered.
Lucia’s face was stony. A prince. She had little experience interacting with nobility outside of robbing them. Do I bow? Lucia thought before realising that she had not bowed to Oberyn, a prince too.
“Come, Lady Lucia.” Oberyn beckoned. “The Water Gardens wait.”
She groaned in her head. During their early travels, Lorenzo had called her that. She had glared at him each time he did, only for the bard to find it terribly amusing.
But you are a lady, no? Just as I am a simple bard. He had said. She stared at him in disbelief for a few seconds before ignoring him.
She shook her head, returning to the hot reality around her. Oberyn led her through the Tower of the Sun and to the stables. Lucia smiled slightly. There, the black horse waited for her, freshly saddled.
She stepped close, placing an armoured hand on its head and brushed its black mane. Noche. She would call it. Night. Oberyn mounted his own sandsteed and rode. She followed behind closely.
“Water Gardens.” She shouted as they thundered down the sandy road, testing the words. “How far?”
“Three leagues!” Oberyn shouted back. “Less than an hour!”
True to his words, their horses brought them to the Water Gardens swiftly. There were few riders on the road, a few merchants on their wagons and some guardsmen on patrol.
They had arrived close to a beach, she realised.
Pale, pink marble paved the gardens and their horses went down the end of the road with a trot. They dismounted, handing the horses to a pair of stableboys. Oberyn sauntered in with the familiarity of a man who had seen it all a thousand times.
Lucia stared in amazement. There was a grand courtyard, with numerous pools and fountains of pristine waters where children played and laughed. The garden was shaded by dozens of blood orange trees and she saw Oberyn casually snatch one of the fruit, peeling it with his dagger.
Multiple terraces overlooked the gardens, white stone buildings with red roofs. A salt breeze blew in from the sea.
Lucia watched as two boys, each one with a girl riding on their shoulders, rushed at each other, imitating cavalry charges. She saw a lithe little girl dart around a guard and sneak an orange for herself, imitating Oberyn.
Here, the children danced and splashed water with nary a care in the world.
The sun was warm and the water was cool. Lucia tried to smile. She thought of all the children she had met on her journey. Peasant children, street urchins, orphans. Life is not fair.
She followed Oberyn quietly to a shaded terrace, and up a flock of white stairs. Red and orange silks hid the room and a guard stood watch.
This was no ordinary guard, she realised. This was a fighter, skilled and hardened, much more than she was.
The man was old with white hair, once dark, but deadly he remained. He was broad-shouldered and tall, nearly a head taller than her. A scarred face loomed down at them. He wore a shirt of copper scales over an orange gambeson bearing the spear-pierced sun, and a great axe of white wood rested on his back.
“Hotah.” Oberyn greeted cooly.
“Prince.” The man rumbled, eyeing her carefully. He spoke with an accent, unlike Oberyn’s Dornish one.
“My brother awaits, and I have arrived with a guest. Will we stand here for long” Oberyn said with a meaningful smile and a glint in his eyes.
The two men stared at each other for a moment before Hotah stood aside. Oberyn gestured for her to follow him.
The room was quiet and dark, and smelled of incense. Yellow silk curtains added shade and luxury. An aged man sat on a chair of dark wood and orange padding with wooden wheels, watching the gardens with a wizened smile. He did not turn to look at them but acknowledged their arrival with a small hum.
Oberyn stood to his brother’s right and whispered to him while Lucia watched from a distance. The older prince nodded and hummed and smiled.
“You looked sad when you saw the children. Why is that?” The prince asked, turning his head and staring at her with a small smile that revealed nothing.
Lucia glanced at him, and turned to look at the Water Gardens.
“Too many children can never come here.” She said quietly.
Doran was quiet at that.
Then, he wheeled his chair around and Lucia observed him.
He had to be in his fifties, she thought.
Where Oberyn was lean and fierce and swift as a viper, Doran was calm and thoughtful. A red blanket covered his legs and knees, and the Prince steeped his hands over them.
“Oberyn tells me that you have come from a land west of Westeros?”
“Yes.”
“What is its name?” Doran asked. His eyes were like two chips of flint.
“Estalia.”
“How did you come to Dorne?”
“Ship crashed. Storm. Walked from beach.”
“You must be hardy.” Doran praised softly. “To survive Dorne’s deserts. Is this Estalia like Dorne then?”
Lucia nodded. “Sand and stone.”
“Sand and stone.” Doran repeated. He smiled softly at her.
“Is there a king of Estalia?”
Luca shook her head. “Kings.” Doran raised a curious eyebrow.
“What do you intend to do now, my lady?” Doran asked.
This prince was a shrewd speaker, Lucia knew. Lorenzo could talk with him for hours, each man dancing around the other’s words like duellists with rapiers, speaking and not saying anything. She could not.
“Find companions. Storm blew them away days earlier.”
Doran hummed.
“You sailed from the West, yes?”
She nodded.
“Most likely, your companions might have washed up along the coastline of the Reach. Oberyn has shown you maps?”
She nodded once more.
Doran smiled. Somehow, she felt like a prey in the eyes of an eagle.
“Oberyn, I have need of you to visit Oldtown to check in on our associate. A ship has already been arranged at Sunspear. Perhaps you could escort the lady there?”
Oldtown . She thought, remembering its place on the map. It was west of Dorne, in the fertile province they called the Reach. A realm of flowers and singers, Oberyn had pronounced.
It reminded her of Lorenzo.
“Oldtown.” Oberyn mused longingly. “How many years has it been since I was at the Citadel, brother? Are you sure those old men will appreciate my presence? He smirked.
“The Citadel is not Oldtown, no matter how much the Maesters may wish so.” Doran replied softly and smiling.
“When do we depart?”
“Tonight. You should go now.”
Lucia blinked. She remembered to bow awkwardly, her armour creaking as she did. “Thank you, prince.”
Doran smiled slightly at her. “Dorne is a harsh land but warm to its guests. I wish you well on your journey.”
Lucia turned, forgetting to wait for Oberyn and did not notice Oberyn bending to listen to his brother’s whisper.
In a blur, she was mounted on Noche and she rode alongside Oberyn.
“Oldtown!’ She shouted once more. “What is it like?”
Oberyn barked in laughter at that.
“Oldest city in Westeros!” He exclaimed. “See it for yourself!”
“What is Citadel?”
Oberyn slowed his horse. “A place of learning and knowledge. Maesters come from there, and serve every lord in the kingdoms, managing their house and keep, teaching their children, healing the sick and wounded. I studied there in my youth until I was bored.”
A school. The word came to her.
“How long to Oldtown?” She asked. Oberyn mused on that. “A week and a half. Shorter if the winds are good.”
Sunspear came to life ahead of them as the sun set. The Dornishmen lived freely and wild, and spent their nights as they did their days.
Oberyn parted ways with her at the entrance to the Tower of the Sun.
“Do you have much to pack?” He asked with a smile.
She shook her head but stopped when she remembered. “The books.”
Oberyn smirked at that. “Those are for children. I will have Varion pack a few more for you.”
He looked up at the Tower. “Ellaria will be asleep by now, I think. I will have to wake her up. Forgive us if we are late and tell the captain not to leave if we are.” He said casually.
“The Sunkiss is the ship’s name. You shouldn’t miss it. ‘Tis the cog with the orange sails.” He shouted as he entered the tower.
Lucia stared at his retreating back for a moment. The two brothers were as different as sun and moon, she thought as she rode through the streets of Dorne. A Dornishman whistled appreciatively at her and she stared at him until he looked away. Then, a tanned woman with sandy hair whistled at her and Lucia stared at her too, in silent confusion.
She arrived at the docks swiftly. Sunspear’s port was not big, Lucia observed, but a stream of merchant ships and fishing vessels flowed in and out of the pier.
She saw a dozen cogs with orange sails and suns on their flags. Her eye twitched in annoyance. That prince…
“Sunkiss?” She asked one of the captains, fat and old, who gave her a look of confusion and waved her away. “Sunkiss?” She asked another man, thin and tan, who smiled at her and spoke. “For the right pric-” She left.
“Sunkiss?”
“Aye.” A stout, tanned man with a potbelly eyed her. “You’re the guest? Where’s the prince?” The captain demanded. Behind him, his cog floated lazily on the water, a single orange sail dancing and fluttering in the wind.
“He might be late.” Lucia said, sitting on a barrel. The captain sighed.
There, they waited. Lucia stared at the sea. The setting sun sent rays of gold shimmering across the water. She wondered what she would find at Oldtown.
Chapter 12: Gunther II
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Pastete.” The little urchin crudely butchered the Imperial language.
Gunther scowled.
“Fine. Let’s go.” He responded in annoyance, accustomed to this.
The two left the abandoned, crumbling house that they squatted in. One, a lean youth of twenty in dark leathers and a shadowy cloak, daggers at his hip. The other, a boy half his age in dirty, roughspun clothes of old linen smudged with soot and mud and more. Another year and his clothes might be stained fully black, Gunther thought.
They strolled out onto the dirty streets of Flea Bottom where not a single glance was levied at them. The two fit in perfectly, a pair of skulking urchins, even siblings, in the filthy slums of King’s Landing. Gunther glanced over at Len, as the boy called himself, squashing down the rising memories of a boy around his age.
“Pie boy’s gone.” Len spoke.
“What?” Gunther asked boredly.
“That fat one. That we bought them pies from.”
“He died?” Gunther questioned, his eyes glancing about for fat pouches.
“Nah. Got caught stealing bread by the Gold Cloaks.”
The Gold Cloaks. The City Watch, the notoriously ineffective and corrupt watchmen. He had heard what some of the Flea Bottom folk call them. Bronze twats. Somehow, they managed to catch a fat baker’s boy.
Some things never change. Gunther snorted to himself.
“A baker’s boy stealing bread? What? What’s next? A smith gonna steal iron bars?”
Len scowled in response, as much as a boy of ten could.
“I saw it with my own eyes! Lugged him out of the Street o’ Steel, they did. He was squealing like a pig too.” Len giggled.
“The Street of Steel? Why were you there?” Gunther wondered.
The Street of Steel was where most of the smiths in King’s Landing were, Gunther had learned, beginning from the bottom of Visenya’s Hill and climbing up to the Great Sept of Baelor, that damned white temple.
It was almost on the other side of the city.
“That’s where the rich knights go!” Len spoke too quickly.
Gunther stopped, staring at him.
“Knights. You stole from knights?”
Len stuttered. “A hedge knight!”
“No pie for you.”
“Fine!” Len crossed his arms. “There’s a quiet boy that comes around e’ry fortnight, meets us in an alleyway there.”
“Us?” Gunther asked, intrigued and worried.
“Boys and girls like me. Like you.” Len grinned impishly.
Gunther smacked him lightly on the head. “And then?”
“We talk to him. Tell him what we saw. Did you know Henry saw some red-haired lady come in through the docks all sneaky-like? Marietta saw Lord Renly in some manse with that Knight o’ Flowers.”
At Gunther’s annoyed stare, Len coughed. “He never says anything. Just sits there and listens to us. After that, he gives us all a copper star and some sweets.”
Information broker. Gunther instantly knew. Someone was using these children to gather information. After all, who would suspect the urchins to be spying on you?
Instantly, he thought of sly Egon Behrend from Bogenhafen’s Pit. Briefly, he wondered if he might be able to meet this broker. Then, something else hit him like a hammer.
“Wait. Did you tell him about me?” Gunther questioned.
“O’ course!” Len grinned at him without shame. Gunther’s eye twitched slightly. This little shit.
He wondered if he should abandon him.
Nah. Still need him. Gunther reasoned, ignoring the other reasons.
As they walked in search of pies, Gunther thought of the past three months.
After leaving the Great Sept of Baelor, Gunther had wandered the streets of King’s Landing aimlessly, the moon lighting the way. It was a bad idea in hindsight but he could hardly blame himself. A different world. He thought bitterly.
At night, the scum came out like roaches and rats. Rough men gathered in dark alleyways, leering at those still foolish to walk through the streets. Thieves and lurkers floated through the various streets, like hungry wolves stalking prey. Gunther instinctively avoided them, slinking through quiet bends and narrow streets.
Then, he felt a hand brush against his pouch again and his body leapt into action.
In a quiet, dark alleyway, he ducked to a side and drew his dagger. Then, the same boy who had tried to steal from him earlier in the day stared at him in terror, squeaking out words he did not understand.
“Mercy.” He spoke again and again. “Mercy!”
Gunther stared at him for a long time, before realising what the boy was saying.
“Mercy.” He tested the word. “Barmherzigkeit” He repeated in Reikspiel, watching the boy’s face twist in confusion.
Then, he dropped the little thief, sheathing his dagger. He glanced at the young urchin, no older than ten, trembling in terror.
He had only been fourteen when he started stealing. This boy seemed to have grown up a thief. Not a very good one.
Gunther sighed, fishing out a copper star and flicking at him. He would not spare with his Imperial coins but he could easily gather more of this local currency. I’m way better than him. Gunther thought, and realised his opponent was a child.
The younger thief grabbed the coin from the air with both hands, eyes wide in shock.
Then, Gunther turned and walked away. A second later, he heard footsteps. He turned and saw the boy following him, his eyes still wide open.
Instantly, he thought of Bogenhafen. His companions and him had marched into the Pit, that squalid slum across the river from the rest of the city, to help a brewer deal with the gang that was extorting him. They left the Pit, with a dead gang leader, and two little urchins clinging onto them. Their eyes had been wide with shock, having been gifted with kindness for the first time in their lives.
He saw the same look in the boy’s eyes. Gunther shifted slightly in shock.
Go away. He wanted to say. His head had still been swirling and spinning. Then, he saw an opportunity. The lad lived here and spoke the local tongue and knew the streets and alleyways.
Gunther stopped, and nodded at the boy, letting him catch up.
Then, he realised he did not know where to go. The boy gestured for him to follow and Gunther did, reluctantly and cautiously.
Quietly, the boy guided him through various alleyways before entering through an almost hidden backdoor into a small abandoned house. The place was crumbling and dark, and he saw vermin crawling away when they entered. A moth-eaten and stained tarp of old cloth was in a corner, a small brown coin pouch by it.
There was an old table too, leaning dangerously with one leg crumbling. Half a loaf of bread sat on a wooden platter, and a leatherskin of water. Once, there was a narrow stairway leading to the second floor but it had broken and fell, leaving no way up. There were a few broken windows, boarded up and covered.
The boy gestured around, giving him a cautious smile.
What a shithole. Gunther thought but he nodded slowly at the boy. Better than sleeping in an alleyway.
He grabbed an old stool and hoped that it would not break. It creaked and groaned as he sat on it but it held firm. The two sat in silence.
Then, the lad broke it.
“Len.” He said, pointing to himself.
Gunther wondered for a moment on how to respond. “Gunther.” From Nuln. He almost said instinctively but stopped. What was the point? The boy did not know how to continue the conversation so Gunther did so for him.
He pointed to his sheathed dagger. “Dolch. ” He said, repeating himself until Len understood. “Dagger.” Len responded. They continued for some time before they grew tired. Len had covered himself under that old dirty cloth and fell asleep fast.
Gunther sat quietly for some time. There was a level of innocence and naivety in the boy. He wondered if he would have done the same back in Nuln. He snorted.
Before he knew it, his head was on the old table and he snoozed. He rose in the morning when Len yawned loudly. Gunther nearly jumped.
“Out. Money. Steal.” Len said with a child’s grin, beckoning him to join. Gunther thought for a moment and grinned back. “Watch.”
Len had watched from a quiet alleyway while Gunther strolled out. Then, he fell into his usual dance. He passed by some young squire, nervous and panicky. He bumped into the young man, muttering an apology. In a flash, he had drawn his dagger and slashed the thin leather cord tying the coin pouch to the belt. Then, he walked away, the blonde boy in red unknowing and oblivious.
He returned victorious to the alleyway to Len’s wide, shocked eyes. “Go. Try.” He urged, like some sergeant of thieves. He watched the boy emulate his walk from the alleyway. He picked a good target, some old labourer drinking from a wineskin. Len’s fingers fished into the coin pouch and drew forth a silver coin. The man did not notice.
When he came back, Gunther smirked.
They walked about the streets aimlessly that day before stopping when they saw that fat baker’s boy pushing a cart of freshly baked pies. “Hot pies!”
Len pointed at the cart. “Pies!” He said in excitement. “Pastete.” Gunther whispered hungrily. They headed for the boy, whose eyes lit in recognition. Gunther handed him three stars, and Len did the same. The baker’s boy waved them off as the two thiefs strolled away, munching on their hot pies.
That was how he spent over three months, Gunther mused as they searched for pies. They rose early, and lurked about searching for easy marks. They bought pies and bread to eat and retreated into their hideout at sunset. Then, Len would teach him the Common Tongue.
Irritatingly, on the third night, Len suddenly realised that he had the leverage. After teaching Gunther the tenth word of the night, ‘King’, he had refused to speak.
When Gunther stared at him confused, Len grinned and spoke.
“Torte.”
Gunther groaned in annoyance but he relented. Each day, he would buy the boy a pie to eat and in return, the lad taught him a dozen words. Gunther would not admit it but he found himself glad for the boy’s presence.
He was losing hope, he knew. He had spent over three months in this foreign city, and still knew nothing about where his companions were. They were not in the city, he realised. They would stand out too much if they were. What can I do? He lamented often. Steal a horse and ride out?
It was the familiarity of the days that kept him sane. Each day, they walked through the streets of King’s Landing, keeping an eye for easy targets and bulging pouches of coins. As much as he hated it, he was reminded of home.
With his help, Len was turning into a better thief. They stole coins from merchants and labourers, wine from passing wagons and bread from bakeries. Their little hideout was less of a shithole too, Gunther thought. He had stolen candles from a traveller merchant before returning to buy bedrolls from him.
“Heard that the king’s finally coming back.” Len said casually, sitting on a stone ledge. Gunther leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and observing the crowd. “From who?”
“Some fisherman’s boy who heard it from a beggar who heard it from a passing sellsword.”
Gunther scoffed. “Why he leave in the first place?”
“The old Hand died. Lord Arryn. King went north to find another, they say.”
“What’s a hand?” Gunther asked curiously.
“Like a…” Len scratched his cheek. “Like a hand. A right hand.”
Gunther parsed his lips, turning away from the conversation. Ah. He observed. A fat merchant passed by, ogling the calling whores. Gunther nudged Len, before strolling towards him.
Then came a commotion.
“Make way, make way!” Mounted riders came along the bend. “King Robert, His Grace, is returning! The Royal Court will be entering through the Gate of the Gods!”
Gunther stopped in his tracks and turned to Len, who flashed him a wide, smug grin.
“Come.” Len said, leaping from the ledge. “They’ll be passing by Cobbler’s Square. I know a good place to see them.”
Gunther followed him as Len guided them through the city. By now, he had grown oddly familiar with King’s Landing.
They passed through the Muddy Way, barely giving a glance at the pitiful markets and winesinks. Sellswords and labourers and beggars alike crowded towards where the King was coming, hoping to catch a glimpse of the court. And also to beg for coins.
There was the Guildhall of the Alchemist, where cranky, mad old men sat about muttering. He saw the Street of the Sisters but this time, they ignored him.
“Here.” Len led him into an alleyway and into some old house. Everything inside that could have been stolen was gone, even the tables and chairs. They went up the stairs, and found themselves on the third floor, leaning out of a balcony.
From far, they could see the grand procession of riders returning.
“Folk crowd down there to get the coins that the king and his lot throw at them.” Len whispered. “But after they leave, they start fighting for it. The children always lose.” He said bitterly.
Gunther nodded uncomfortably, turning his attention back down to the street.
They could see them now. Golden banners of prancing stags fluttering in the wind.
The fat king, in a doublet of black and gold, roared in laughter as the crowd cheered for him. His face was red and his black beard was stained with wine.
“Robert!” The crowd called out. “King Robert!”
“They love him?” Gunther asked. Len shrugged. “He’s alright.”
His knights rode beside him. The Kingsguard, he had learnt, an elite order of knights who swore their lives and swords to the king’s defence.
“That’s Jaime Lannister. The Kingslayer.” Len whispered, pointing to the golden knights. Everything about the man was gold, from his armour to his hair and his arrogant smirk.
“Lord Renly. The Master of Laws. The King’s brother.” Len pointed at a young black-haired man. He was a handsome man, with an easy smile and was dressed in flowing green and gold. He did not seem much older than Gunther.
“Ser Barristan the Bold. Commander of the Kingsguard” Len said in awe at an aged but graceful knight. Even from here, Gunther could tell that the man was skilled and dangerous, and thought of grizzled veterans back home.
This time, the queen did not bother to peek out from the wheelhouse. Len spat. “Queen Cersei. Nobody likes them Lannisters, not after what they did in the Sack.”
The Sack of King’s Landing, Gunther had learned briefly from him. He shuddered at that. Nuln had stood firm against the hordes of Nurgle when Tamurkhan attacked. The Empire’s sons had shattered that terrible army and the Lady Elspeth had seen to his demise. He did not want to imagine what Nuln would have looked like if they had lost.
The king had brought new arrivals with him. He saw a stern, grim lord sweating in leathers. “Aye, that’s the one they call Lord Stark. The one that the king went north to make his Hand.”
He rode close to the king but was surrounded by his own retinue of grey-clothed men. Hard men all, in leather and with swords at their hips, glancing about.
Then, Gunther’s eyes bulged.
Riding amidst these men was a familiar figure. He sat on a dark chestnut horse, sipping from a wineskin. He was clad in the same armour that Gunther had grown used to seeing, hard leather and steel scales and metal plates. A heavy shield hung from his back and an axe was on his hip.
Andrei glanced about boredly.
Gunther leaned dangerously, staring intently with wide eyes at him while Len looked at him in confusion.
“What are you doing?” Len asked, confused. Gunther ignored him, his thoughts screaming in his head.
What.
How.
What?
There he was, as bored and blank-faced as ever, riding close to a high lord and a king while drinking wine. For a brief, mad moment, Gunther wondered if Lorenzo was in the queen’s wheelhouse.
“ANDREI!” He shouted to no avail. His call was drowned out by the din of the crowd, hundreds of men and women calling for the king and the lords.
He screamed in confusion, Len wincing as he did. Gunther glanced about, lost and desperate, cursing to himself in Reikspiel.
Then, he remembered his old coinpouch, hidden behind his belt. He drew a brass penny. It must have been minted in Hochland for a stag, fittingly, was on it, two arrows surrounding the beast, reflecting Hochland’s hunters.
He glanced at Andrei, who was still riding obliviously through the street. Ranald, bless me. Gunther prayed.
He flicked the coin and held his breath.
The world stood still and the screams of the crowd fell silent for him. He saw only the coin, flipping and soaring down. Please. Gunther thought. If Andrei was riding with the court, for some reason, he would be heading for the Red Keep.
No matter how skilled he had grown in breaking locks and sneaking into houses, there was no way he could sneak into the king’s own castle.
Then, the brass penny fell on Andrei’s lap. Look up, look up, look up.
The Kossar stared at the coin for some time, the wineskin freezing before it could reach his lips. Then, Andrei raised his head and their eyes met.
Immediately, Gunther pointed at the Great Sept of Baelor, that blessed white temple looming in the distance. A wide smile bloomed across Andrei’s face and he nodded.
Gunther sighed deeply in relief, falling to the floor. His hands trembled slightly and he stared at them absent-mindedly. How? Where are the others then?
“Why you throw a coin for?” Len turned to look at him in utter bewilderment.
“For luck.” Gunther responded after a moment. Something nagged at him for a moment. Then, he reached out into his pouch of Imperial coins. He drew a silver shilling and stared at it. Altdorf’s reaper stared at him.
For your tithe. Gunther thought, flicking it over the balcony.
Len gasped, trying to reach for it and failing. The boy stared at him like he was mad before huffing and sitting with him.
They sat there for some time, watching as the royal procession passed. Mounted men trotted down the street, knights and free riders alike. Then, the servants and long wagons of crates and barrels and casks.
Then, the stream of men and women disappeared in the direction of the Red Keep. The crowd slowly dissipated too but he could see small scuffles here and there, desperate vagrants fighting for the coins that the king threw out.
“We should go now. Sun’s setting.” Len finally spoke.
“Aye.” Gunther responded. “I’ll have to head out later.”
“Where to?” Len waved his hands about Gunther’s face. “First, throwing coins away. Now, going out at night. Have you gone mad?”
Gunther grinned widely at him. Perhaps he did, but he felt mad with joy and relief. “The Sept.” Gunther said, watching the sun set.
Notes:
Sorry for the hiatus!
Between my exams, prepping for the actual dnd campaign, writer's block, losing motivation, figuring out the direction of the plot, it took awhile...
I'm back now. Can't promise fast updates but will definitely still be working on this
Chapter 13: Interlude: Eddard I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Finally, Baelish drew rein in front of a ramshackle building, three stories, timbered, its windows bright with lamplight in the gathering dusk. The sounds of music and raucous laughter drifted out and floated over the water. Beside the door swung an ornate oil lamp on a heavy chain, with a globe of leaded red glass.
Ned Stark dismounted in a fury. “A brothel,” he said as he seized Littlefinger by the shoulder and spun him around. “You’ve brought me all this way to take me to a brothel.”
“Your wife is inside,” Littlefinger said
It was the final insult. “Brandon was too kind to you,” Ned said as he slammed the small man back against a wall and shoved his dagger up under the little pointed chin beard.
“My lord, no,” an urgent voice called out. “He speaks the truth.” There were footsteps behind him.
Ned spun, knife in hand, as an old white-haired man hurried toward them. He was dressed in brown roughspun, and the soft flesh under his chin wobbled as he ran. “This is no business of yours,” Ned began; then, suddenly, the recognition came. He lowered the dagger, astonished. “Ser Rodrik?”
Rodrik Cassel nodded. “Your lady awaits you upstairs.”
Ned was lost. “Catelyn is truly here? This is not some strange jape of Littlefinger’s?” He sheathed his blade.
“Would that it were, Stark,” Littlefinger said. “Follow me, and try to look a shade more lecherous and a shade less like the King’s Hand. It would not do to have you recognized. Perhaps you could fondle a breast or two, just in passing.”
They went inside, through a crowded common room where a fat woman was singing bawdy songs while pretty young girls in linen shifts and wisps of colored silk pressed themselves against their lovers and dandled on their laps. No one paid Ned the least bit of attention. Ser Rodrik waited below while Littlefinger led him up to the third floor, along a corridor, and through a door.
Inside, Catelyn was waiting. She cried out when she saw him, ran to him, and embraced him fiercely.
My lady,” Ned whispered in wonderment.
“Oh, very good,” said Littlefinger, closing the door. “You recognized her.”
“I feared you’d never come, my lord,” she whispered against his chest. “Petyr has been bringing me reports. He told me of your troubles with Arya and the young prince. How are my girls?”
“Both in mourning, and full of anger,” he told her. “Cat, I do not understand. What are you doing in King’s Landing? What’s happened?” Ned asked his wife. “Is it Bran? Is he…” Dead was the word that came to his lips, but he could not say it.
“It is Bran, but not as you think,” Catelyn said.
Ned was lost. “Then how? Why are you here, my love? What is this place?”
“Just what it appears,” Littlefinger said, easing himself onto a window seat. “A brothel. Can you think of a less likely place to find a Catelyn Tully?” He smiled. “As it chances, I own this particular establishment, so arrangements were easily made. I am most anxious to keep the Lannisters from learning that Cat is here in King’s Landing.”
“Why?” Ned asked. He saw her hands then, the awkward way she held them, the raw red scars, the stiffness of the last two fingers on her left. “You’ve been hurt.” He took her hands in his own, turned them over. “Gods. Those are deep cuts . . . a gash from a sword or . . . how did this happen, my lady?
Catelyn slid a dagger out from under her cloak and placed it in his hand. “This blade was sent to open Bran’s throat and spill his life’s blood.”
Ned’s head jerked up. “But… who... why would…”
She put a finger to his lips. “Let me tell it all, my love. It will go faster that way. Listen.”
So he listened, and she told it all. The fire in the library tower and the cutthroat sent to kill Bran in his coma. How she fought fiercely and how Bran’s wolf had slain the assassin. How Ser Rodrik had guarded and escorted her south as they sailed to King’s Landing, and how Varys and Baelish had found and aided them. How they told her that the dagger belonged to Tyrion Lannister, the queen’s brother.
And when she was done, Eddard Stark sat dazed beside the table, the dagger in his hand. Bran’s wolf had saved the boy’s life, he thought dully. What was it that Jon had said when they found the pups in the snow? Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord. And he had killed Sansa’s, and for what? Was it guilt he was feeling? Or fear? If the gods had sent these wolves, what folly had he done?
The mother direwolf had remained behind in Winterfell at his command. It would not have impressed the southron courts much if the new Hand arrived with a direwolf at his tail, he had thought. When he spoke, awkwardly, to the she-wolf, she had growleed but reluctantly remained. Ned wondered if he should regret that.
Painfully, Ned forced his thoughts back to the dagger and what it meant. “The Imp’s dagger,” he repeated. It made no sense. His hand curled around the smooth dragonbone hilt, and he slammed the blade into the table, felt it bite into the wood. It stood mocking him. “Why should Tyrion Lannister want Bran dead? The boy has never done him harm.”
“Do you Starks have nought but snow between your ears?” Littlefinger asked. “The Imp would never have acted alone.”
Ned rose and paced the length of the room. “If the queen had a role in this or, gods forbid, the king himself… no, I will not believe that.” Yet even as he said the words, he remembered that chill morning on the barrowlands, and Robert’s talk of sending hired knives after the Targaryen princess. He remembered Rhaegar’s infant son, the red ruin of his skull, and the way the king had turned away, as he had turned away in Darry’s audience hall not so long ago. He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once.
“Most likely the king did not know,” Littlefinger said. “It would not be the first time. Our good Robert is practiced at closing his eyes to things he would rather not see.”
Ned had no reply for that. The face of the butcher’s boy swam up before his eyes, cloven almost in two, and afterward the king had said not a word. His head was pounding.
Littlefinger sauntered over to the table, wrenched the knife from the wood. “The accusation is treason either way. Accuse the king and you will dance with Ilyn Payne before the words are out of your mouth. The queen…if you can find proof, and if you can make Robert listen, then perhaps…”
“We have proof,” Ned said. “We have the dagger.”
“This?” Littlefinger flipped the knife casually end over end. “A sweet piece of steel, but it cuts two ways, my lord. The Imp will no doubt swear the blade was lost or stolen while he was at Winterfell, and with his hireling dead, who is there to give him the lie?” He tossed the knife lightly to Ned. “My counsel is to drop that in the river and forget that it was ever forged.”
Ned regarded him coldly. “Lord Baelish, I am a Stark of Winterfell. My son lies crippled, perhaps dying. He would be dead, and Catelyn with him, but for a wolf pup we found in the snow. If you truly believe I could forget that, you are as big a fool now as when you took up sword against my brother.”
“A fool I may be, Stark . . . yet I’m still here, while your brother has been moldering in his frozen grave for some fourteen years now. If you are so eager to molder beside him, far be it from me to dissuade you, but I would rather not be included in the party, thank you very much.”
“You would be the last man I would willingly include in any party, Lord Baelish.”
“You wound me deeply.” Littlefinger placed a hand over his heart. “For my part, I always found you Starks a tiresome lot, but Cat seems to have become attached to you, for reasons I cannot comprehend. I shall try to keep you alive for her sake. A fool’s task, admittedly, but I could never refuse your wife anything.”
“I told Petyr our suspicions about Jon Arryn’s death,” Catelyn said. “He has promised to help you find the truth.”
That was not news that Eddard Stark welcomed, but it was true enough that they needed help, and Littlefinger had been almost a brother to Cat once. It would not be the first time that Ned had been forced to make common cause with a man he despised. “Very well,” he said, thrusting the dagger into his belt. “You spoke of Varys. Does the eunuch know all of it?”
“Not from my lips,” Catelyn said. “You did not wed a fool, Eddard Stark. But Varys has ways of learning things that no man could know. He has some dark art, Ned, I swear it.”
“He has spies, that is well known,” Ned said, dismissive.
“It is more than that,” Catelyn insisted. “Ser Rodrik spoke to Ser Aron Santagar in all secrecy, yet somehow the Spider knew of their conversation. I fear that man.”
Littlefinger smiled. “Leave Lord Varys to me, sweet lady. If you will permit me a small obscenity—and where better for it—I hold the man’s balls in the palm of my hand.” He cupped his fingers, smiling. “Or would, if he were a man, or had any balls. You see, if the pie is opened, the birds begin to sing, and Varys would not like that. Were I you, I would worry more about the Lannisters and less about the eunuch.”
Ned did not need Littlefinger to tell him that. He was thinking back to the day Arya had been found, to the look on the queen’s face when she said, We have a wolf, so soft and quiet. He was thinking of the boy Mycah, of Jon Arryn’s sudden death, of Bran’s fall, of old mad Aerys Targaryen dying on the floor of his throne room while his life’s blood dried on a golden blade. “My lady,” he said, turning to Catelyn, “there is nothing more you can do here. I want you to return to Winterfell at once. If there was one assassin, there could be others. Whoever ordered Bran’s death will learn soon enough that the boy still lives.”
“I had hoped to see the girls... ” Catelyn said. “That would be most unwise,” Littlefinger put in. “The Red Keep is full of curious eyes, and children talk.”
“He speaks truly, my love,” Ned told her. He embraced her. “Take Ser Rodrik and ride for Winterfell. I will watch over the girls. Go home to our sons and keep them safe.”
“As you say, my lord.” Catelyn lifted her face, and Ned kissed her. Her maimed fingers clutched against his back with a desperate strength, as if to hold him safe forever in the shelter of her arms.
“Would the lord and lady like the use of a bedchamber?” asked Littlefinger. “I should warn you, Stark, we usually charge for that sort of thing around here.”
“A moment alone, that’s all I ask,” Catelyn said.
“Very well.” Littlefinger strolled to the door. “Don’t be too long. It is past time the Hand and I returned to the castle, before our absence is noted
Catelyn went to him and took his hands in her own. “I will not forget the help you gave me, Petyr. When your men came for me, I did not know whether they were taking me to a friend or an enemy. I have found you more than a friend. I have found a brother I’d thought lost.”
Petyr Baelish smiled. “I am desperately sentimental, sweet lady. Best not tell anyone. I have spent years convincing the court that I am wicked and cruel, and I should hate to see all that hard work go for naught.”
Ned believed not a word of that, but he kept his voice polite as he said, “You have my thanks as well, Lord Baelish.”
“Oh, now there’s a treasure,” Littlefinger said, exiting.
When the door had closed behind him, Ned turned back to his wife. “Once you are home, send word to Helman Tallhart and Galbart Glover under my seal. They are to raise a hundred bowmen each and fortify Moat Cailin. Two hundred determined archers can hold the Neck against an army. Instruct Lord Manderly that he is to strengthen and repair all his defenses at White Harbor, and see that they are well manned. And from this day on, I want a careful watch kept over Theon Greyjoy. If there is war, we shall have sore need of his father’s fleet.”
“War?” The fear was plain on Catelyn’s face.
“It will not come to that,” Ned promised her, praying it was true. He took her in his arms again. “The Lannisters are merciless in the face of weakness, as Aerys Targaryen learned to his sorrow, but they would not dare attack the north without all the power of the realm behind them, and that they shall not have. I must play out this fool’s masquerade as if nothing is amiss. Remember why I came here, my love. If I find proof that the Lannisters murdered Jon Arryn…”
He felt Catelyn tremble in his arms. Her scarred hands clung to him. “If,” she said, “what then, my love?”
That was the most dangerous part, Ned knew. “All justice flows from the king,” he told her. “When I know the truth, I must go to Robert.” And pray that he is the man I think he is, he finished silently, and not the man I fear he has become.
Notes:
A good bulk of this chapter comes directly from chapter 22 in AGOT (right after that council meeting) but see if you can spot where canon is already slowly being diverted. I aim to make the changes and butterfly effects realistically developed too, with all the subtleties and consequences that come with them. Next chapter will be from Andrei's perspective as he gets to know King's Landing and the Starks more, while finally reuniting with Gunther.
Chapter 14: Andrei III
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Gunther fixed him with a flat stare and a half scowl, leaning against one of the white walls of the grand temple.
Temples and their bloody stairs. Andrei huffed to himself, catching his breath. He could hear an old voice, made forever young, in his head laughing lightly. Old bones, eh, Yeltska?
In the shadowy night, the lithe rogue seemed almost one with the tendrils of dark along the walls. Then, he kicked himself from the wall and spoke, and Andrei was reminded of just how young the lad was, and how old he felt.
“How in the hell did you end up riding into the city with the king and his court?” Gunther spoke in Reikspiel, bewildered and annoyed. “I’ve been skulking through alleyways and stealing to survive, and you were riding with royals!” The lad crossed his arms and sulked.
Andrei blinked. “Not king. Lord. Lord Stark.”
It was Gunther’s turn to blink in confusion.
“Where did you wake up?”
“The North.” Andrei replied.
“Have you met the rest? What even happened?”
“No. Don’t know.”
Gunther rubbed his face blearily. “Do you have any idea where the others are?”
Andrei shrugged. “Been with the Starks. Rode south with them. What have you doing?” He struggled through the words.
The thief smirked at him and patted a bulging pouch of coins.
Andrei sighed. “What have you learned?”
Gunther shrugged. “About as much as you know, I reckon. Know enough about the city and the kingdoms, the Baratheons and the Lannisters. Been loitering about the slums, Flea Bottom, lately. ”
He nodded and pointed to the Red Keep. “I return to red castle soon. Told them I want to ask around city.”
Gunther’s face scrunched in thought and envy. “They’re not going to let some random thief into that keep.”
Andrei scratched at his coarse beard. “I ask them?”
The proud Nulner scoffed, and sighed. “Nah. As much as I want to, that’s just a dream. You do what you can up there, and I’ll keep poking around here.”
Under a single moon’s glow, a silent understanding passed between the two. They could not be more different, Andrei thought. A young Imperial thief from a city of smog and machines, and an old Kislevite deserter from a realm of cold and emptiness.
As King’s Landing slept around them, Gunther had led him to Flea Bottom, where his hideout waited. The younger man kept his hands, subtly, on his daggers and Andrei did not begrudge him. There was a filth to the city, besides the smell, a certain sense of danger and desperation.
He thought of Erengrad, and found himself missing home once more. In the North, with its snows and vast plains, the agony of homesickness was unbearable. Yet, in this city of filth and feces, he found himself strangely focused.
He had found one of his companions. On that miserable ride south, he had begun to lose hope. Amusement bubbled deep within his grizzled heart. Back in the Old World, he had found comfort in the rugged wilderness and the long roads, and felt only misery and itchy discomfort in the Empire’s cities. Here, in this strange world, it was the opposite.
“Careful with your gun around here.” Gunther had called out quietly as they waded through the dung-crusted streets of Flea Bottom. “These people have no gunpowder.” He said in a tone of disdain, dismay and disappointment.
“Aye.” Andrei responded, despondently. He knew too well.
“No monsters.” He said, in return. “No Orcs, Ogres or Beastmen. No Dwarfs or Elves or Halflings. Just men.”
Gunther blinked owlishly at him. “Huh. Something good at least.”
Then, he seemed to realise something. “Not just men.” Gunther said. “There were dragons here too.” There was a boyish wonder in his voice.
“Dead.” He said flatly and Gunther sighed.
“Hey!” A child’s voice called out in annoyance, in the Westerosi tongue, as Gunther opened the door. The thief turned to glance at him.
“Come here when you find something out, alright, or in a few days’ time. I’ll see what I can find out too.” Gunther smiled warily at him.
Andrei nodded. “I will.” He hesitated for a moment. “Good to see you.”
Gunther’s face scrunched into something resembling confusion before he regained his composure. “Yeah. Yeah, you too.” Shaking his head, he closed the door.
Andrei tore his gaze from the rickety old door and to the Red Keep, looming in the distance. He sighed as he pulled the wineskin from his belt. I should have taken the horse. He grumbled to himself as he walked.
He had left his shield behind in the small room that the Starks had given him in the Tower of the Hand. His pistol too. His axe remained at his side, as ever, and his flask of Northern wine. It was no Kislevite Kvas but it would have to do for now.
Under the moonlight, he made his way through the winding streets of King’s Landing. The feeling was queer, for there to only be a single moon.
No Morrslieb. No Chaos. Yet, a bastion of ice in the north to hold the savages at bay.
He shook his head. Which god was mocking him so?
Had Ursun finally chosen to punish his desertion? Yet, why was Gunther here then?
His thoughts halted. If ever there was one of us accused of heresy.
Regardless, with the lad here, the others would be present too. He could not see that southern warrior goddess, Myrmidia, forsaking her fervent believer. That bard, too, with all his omens and prophecies.
Despite the humid stink of King’s Landing, Andrei shivered. Were there more of them in this world then? He would not be amiss at the arrival of some friendly faces yet he shuddered at what they would entail.
This world would be torn asunder by the arrival of the savage Norscans. It would never stand against the relentless onslaught of the Greenskins or the creeping menace of the ratmen. Should the Ruinous Powers turn their eyes on this world, it would end, he knew.
He gripped his axe tightly. No point. Focus.
The languishing guards barely gave him a glance as he entered the keep. When he had rode into the Red Keep with the Starks, he made sure to memorise the route to the Tower where they would stay. Bloody maze.
This world and his, some things never changed. Such frivolties and wastes rankled his mind, and he knew many of the Northmen felt the same. Southerners. At least the Imperials back home knew how to fight and fought for Kislev when it came down to it. This King’s city was but a viper’s den of filth.
The sooner he was out of here, the better.
“I’ll speak with Robert, when I have the time.” Lord Stark had promised.
He knew the Northern lord could be trusted, but one look at the fat king and Andrei had lost hope. Sighing, he entered the barracks.
“Ah, there you are!” Fat Tom called out jovially, chewing on bread from the table.
“Went to see the sights?” The friendly guard asked.
Andrei shook his head. “Temple.”
“You pray to the Seven?”
“No. Just to see.”
Fat Tom shrugged, finishing his bread. “A grand sight, but a waste of gold. That’s for sure.”
Andrei nodded before strolling to his own bed. The wood creaked as he rested on it but it held firm. Two dozen beds were arranged in the room, twelve on either side, with a long table near the door where Tom slowly drank from a flask.
His bed was at the very end of the room. Beside him was Harwin, a stout and friendly man, who snored as he slept. Andrei shook his head. Slept through worse.
Being stationed in Praag for a mere two months had been enough for him to learn to sleep even with haunting screams and howling just rooms away. He felt sleep’s tender fingers grabbing him and he gave in, collapsing on the soft bed.
The next few days were a blur. He rose with the guards and ate with them in the Small Hall but after, he was free to do as he wished. Unlike in Winterfell, the Northerners did not bother to keep a watch on him.
Alyn had laughed at that. “We’ve got enough trouble as it is to worry about you, Yeltska!”
He sparred with the guards in the yard after his meal, wandered about the city during the day, visited Gunther during the evening and retreated back to the barracks at night. The thief had been especially smug on the second night.
“Guess what?” Gunther had smirked.
Andrei sighed.
The young thief flashed three gold dragons, each one deftly balanced between his fingers. “What are you buying?” He asked, unsurprised.
Gunther shrugged. “Gold is gold. Never hurts to have more.”
Some things never change. Andrei smiled at that, shaking his head. Today, once more, he found himself in the yard with the Stark men.
His reputation amongst the Stark guards was growing, he knew, having soundly beaten most of them in Winterfell’s yard. Tom, Harwin, Alyn, they were not bad fighters but a lifetime of war against Chaos, Greenskins and Trolls was an unfair advantage.
The other men had laughed and jeered and cheered as he defeated each one again before they egged on Jory Cassel, the captain of the guards, to fight. The young man sighed and smiled before accepting a blunted blade and facing him with a playful expression.
“For the honour of my men, it seems I must win.” He shook his head with an exaggerated sigh.
Andrei smiled before leveraging the blunted axe at Jory.
The captain was a good swordsman, careful with his footwork and guard. A cautious jab of his sword was accepted by his tourney shield. Then, a second jab. A test of his defense, he knew.
A small smile spread across his face, obscured by his beard.
As Jory brandished a third jab, Andrei hooked his axe around the blade, wrenching it aside. He smashed the wooden shield against him, sending Jory stumbling back. In a flash, the blunted blade of the axe was at his throat. A trick from the Motherland. Andrei thought, proudly.
Jory laughed, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Best not let Lord Stark know. Else, I might lose my job.”
“See what, Jory?” Eddard Stark’s amused voice rang out from the side.
The other guards laughed hard as Jory’s face reddened. The young guard smiled bashfully, bowing to his lord.
“That was a fine fight, regardless.” The lord continued. “Rodrik taught you well.”
He turned to Andrei.
“Jory is one of my finest swords. I’ve never seen him bested like that before. Where did you learn to fight?”
Andrei scratched at his coarse beard. “Soldiers. War. Learned as I fought.”
Eddard Stark grimaced. “Aye. The hard way.” He shook his head. “Walk with me, Andrei.” Lord Stark nodded at his men and turned. Andrei followed. Twenty years of military regimentation, as rowdy as the Kossars were, had drilled him to follow and listen when a commander ordered.
The wolf lord was quiet for a long moment, heavy in thought and grim-faced. They walked away from the sparring yard, away from the ringing of blunted steel and the laughing men. Finally, he broke the silence. “What do you make of King’s Landing?” Eddard Stark asked, light curiosity in his grey eyes.
Even Altdorf smells better. Andrei thought. Erengrad too.
“Southern. Smells like…” He said, instead. Eddard smiled at that. The two of them were now on the walls of the keep, overlooking the city below.
“I remember my first time here. The smell…” Eddard Stark’s eyes peered deep into him and beyond, seeing something he could not. Every man rotated through Praag had eyes like that, Andrei knew.
The Stark lord shook his head lightly, before giving him the look that his old sergeants gave after an unsatisfactory report. “Danger.” Andrei continued. “Lies and liars.”
“Aye. A den of snakes, my lord father named it. Then and now, King’s Landing is dangerous, all the more for us Northerners.”
Andrei’s face remained icy and stern. The lord continued.
“Three Small Council meetings I have had…” Eddard Stark began before trailing off.
“Robert, His Grace, remains busy. I understand that you wish to find your companions, and a ship home. If they survived the ship sinking, they must be scattered all across Westeros by now.”
Busy. Andrei wanted to scoff. With whores, wine and food. Externally, he bowed his head.
“In the meantime, I wished to offer you a more permanent arrangement with my household. I could use a stout man like you by my side in this city.”
Andrei’s hands, at his side in a soldier’s stance, twitched. If he had been alone, he would have stroked his axe or scratched his cheek.
“What will I… have do?”
“A guard. For me, or my children.”
Andrei hummed. What would he do anyways? Besides, it would hardly be his first time working as a mercenary.
He nodded.
Andrei yawned before finishing the rest of the thick, sweet pumpkin soup. He was in the Small Hall again, breaking his fast with the rest of the Stark household. It was a long room with a high vaulted ceiling and bench space for two hundred at its trestle tables.
Around him, Jory Cassel and the rest of the guards ate quietly. Each man wore a new cloak, heavy grey wool with a white satin border. A hand of beaten silver clutched the woolen folds of each cloak and marked their wearers as men of the Hand’s household guard. There were only fifty of them, so most of the benches were empty.
At the head table, Sansa and Arya, along with their Septa and Jeyne Poole, ate. The two sisters, as different as spring and winter, threw glares at each other in between sips of the soup. He sat close to the Stark children, close enough to watch over them, close enough to hear their conversations. He had never seen siblings so different. Then again, how many siblings had he seen?
As the first course was taken away by silent servants, he saw Lord Stark entering the hall, late and stony-faced, as he did so often. “My lord,” Jory said when the lord entered. He rose to his feet, and the rest of the guard rose with him. Andrei followed along.
“Be seated,” Eddard Stark said. “I see you have started without me. I am pleased to know there are still some men of sense in this city.” He signaled for the meal to resume. The servants began bringing out platters of ribs, roasted in a crust of garlic and herbs.
“The talk in the yard is we shall have a tourney, my lord,” Jory said as he resumed his seat. “They say that knights will come from all over the realm to joust and feast in honor of your appointment as Hand of the King.”
“Do they also say this is the last thing in the world I would have wished?” Lord Stark grumbled.
As her lord father approached the table, Sansa’s eyes grew as wide as her plate.
“A tourney, ” she breathed. “Will we be permitted to go, Father?”
“You know my feelings, Sansa. It seems I must arrange Robert’s games and pretend to be honored for his sake. That does not mean I must subject my daughters to this folly.”
“Oh, please,” Sansa said. “I want to see.”
Septa Mordane spoke up. “Princess Myrcella will be there, my lord, and she is younger than Lady Sansa. All the ladies of the court will be expected at a grand event like this, and as the tourney is in your honor, it would look queer if your family did not attend.”
Lord Stark looked pained. “I suppose so. Very well, I shall arrange a place for you, Sansa.” He turned to Arya. “For both of you.”
“I don’t care about their stupid tourney,” Arya said and Andrei hid his smile behind a roasted rib.
Sansa lifted her head. “It will be a splendid event. You shan’t be wanted.” Anger flashed across Father’s face. “Enough, Sansa. More of that and you will change my mind. I am weary unto death of this endless war you two are fighting. You are sisters. I expect you to behave like sisters, is that understood?”
From his seat, he saw Sansa biting her lips and nodding, and Arya staring at her plate sullenly. The lord remained silent at his seat, barely touching his plate. The only sound was the clatter of knives and forks. Not long after, Eddard Stark rose, his face stormy.
“Pray excuse me,” her father announced to the table. “I find I have small appetite tonight.” As he walked away, his grey eyes met Andrei’s and he gestured slightly to the door. Andrei nodded, letting the lord leave, finishing the rib and his mug of ale.
He rose, the other guards paying him no mind, and wandered out the door. His long strides ate the distance of the hallway and he saw the retreating back of Eddard Stark. Before long, he found himself by his side.
Once again, the Stark lord remained in a brooding silence as they walked. Then, like the cracking of ice, it broke.
“I will need you to accompany my children, especially Arya, should they wish to wander the Keep.” Lord Stark said quietly. Andrei nodded.
“She is a wild child.” Eddard said with a smile that turned solemn. “Winterfell allowed her to run free but here in the South…”
“Aye.”
“At times, I may need you to accompany me, especially through the city. But for now, I would like you to watch over Arya, and make sure she stays out of trouble. She seems quite enraptured by you.” He sighed.
They stood beside the railings of a walkway, the looming sight of Maegor’s Holdfast not too distant. “Tell me more of your homeland, this Kislev.” Stark said, distracted. Andrei looked to the north, musing over his words.
Cold. Barren. Harsh. Empty plains and tundras of ice, constant fighting against the Men of the North and the horrid monsters of Troll Country. Three great cities standing like defiant pillars against the dark, one forever defiled.
“Like the North. Cold. Vast. We are … ruled by Tzar.”
“Tzar?”
“Like King.”
Eddard nodded and gestured for him to continue.
“Many stanistsas. Small villages. Ruled by atamans. Two kinds of people. Ungol and Gospodar.” Andrei tapped his chest, rapping against the steel scales of his armour.
“Ungol.”
“Your Tzar, does he answer to a higher authority? A king?”
Andrei shook his head.
“Now… is Tzarina. No king above. Only gods.”
“This Ursun, tell me more.”
“Ursun, Father Bear. Protector of Kislev. Three more gods. Dazh… lord of sun. Tor, lightning god. Salyak, dove of mercy.”
The lord’s face was deep in thought, his earlier frustrations dissipated like a storm vanished. “A land to the west, much like mine own…”
Andrei’s face remained steel-cold as he prepared to lie more.
“Is it an island, then? Like Bear Island.”
He shook his head. “Old World. Kislev in the north. Other lands around.”
The Stark lord’s eyes were filled not with doubt, but of apprehension and worry, the calculations and burdens of a man with too much on his shoulders. He could only imagine the worries the Hand must feel, the diplomacy and politics that were beyond a soldier like him. Was this how Shoika, the first Tzarina, felt when contemplating the Empire to the south?
Worry not then, wolf lord, my world is not here. I hope, for all of your people.
Eddard opened his mouth but the sound of rushing footsteps interrupted him. It came from behind him and as Andrei turned, he saw the barest of tension in the Stark lord’s body.
The grouchy Septa came, huffing and panting.
“My Lord Hand.” She wheezed. “Your daughter, Arya, she is most insolent. She-”
Lord Stark sighed. “What has she done?”
“She left the table before finishing her meal! Ran away from the Small Hall and refused to open the door! That is most unladylike, an absolute insult to the decorum expected of a highborn lady.” The old Septa continued. The frown on Eddard’s face deepened. He sighed once more before speaking.
“I shall speak with her, Septa.” He nodded at her before glancing at Andrei, conflict brewing in his eyes. “Come with me then, Yeltska. I would have you know my daughter before you guard her.”
The burden of the kingdoms and his daughters weighed heavily on him, Andrei knew, and the walk to Arya’s room was silent and grim. He knocked softly on the door.
“Arya.” The lord spoke just as quietly. “Open the door. We need to talk.”
He heard the light movement of her feet before the door creaked open. “May I come in?” Eddard Stark asked gently, gesturing for him to wait outside. Andrei nodded, turning to stand guard. The door closed behind him, but not fully.
“Whose sword is that?” He heard the lord ask.
“Mine.” came the sullen voice of a child scolded.
“Give it to me.”
“A bravo’s blade,” he said. “Yet it seems to me that I know this maker’s mark. This is Mikken’s work.” She did not reply.
Lord Eddard Stark sighed. “My nine-year-old daughter is being armed from my own forge, and I know nothing of it. The Hand of the King is expected to rule the Seven Kingdoms, yet it seems I cannot even rule my own household. How is it that you come to own a sword, Arya? Where did you get this?”
Silence dominated the room for a long moment. Was this how children were scolded by their parents? A scolding for an orphaned Ungol amongst a nomadic tribe brought about violence and blood. An angry, savage-looking boy came to his mind’s eye.
“I don’t suppose it matters, truly. This is no toy for children, least of all for a girl. What would Septa Mordane say if she knew you were playing with swords?”
“I wasn’t playing,” Arya insisted. “I hate Septa Mordane.”
“That’s enough.” Her father’s voice was curt and hard. “The septa is doing no more than is her duty, though gods know you have made it a struggle for the poor woman. Your mother and I have charged her with the impossible task of making you a lady.”
“I don’t want to be a lady!” Arya flared.
“I ought to snap this toy across my knee here and now, and put an end to this nonsense.”
“Needle wouldn’t break,” Arya said defiantly, but her voice betrayed her words.
“It has a name, does it?” He sighed. “Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. ‘The wolf blood,’ my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave.” There was a deep sorrow in the wolf lord’s voice, longing for the departed and exhaustion.
Family. Andrei mused. His father had died before his birth and none had bothered to give him his name. His mother perished in childbirth and forever remained a pale, young woman with no face. He was a man of thirty-eight now. A vision of a woman half his age, bleeding and dying as he came to life, haunted him.
“Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”
“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled.
“She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time. Arya, what did you think to do with this … Needle? Who did you hope to skewer? Your sister? Septa Mordane? Do you know the first thing about sword fighting?”
“Stick them with the pointy end,” she blurted out.
Her father snorted back laughter. “That is the essence of it, I suppose.” Andrei smiled.
“I was trying to learn, but …” Her voice quivered “I asked Mycah to practice with me. I asked him,” she cried. “It was my fault, it was me … ”
He heard their embrace. “No, sweet one,” Eddard Stark whispered. “Grieve for your friend, but never blame yourself. You did not kill the butcher’s boy. That murder lies at the Hound’s door, him and the cruel woman he serves.”
“I hate them,” Arya continued, sniffling. “The Hound and the queen and the king and Prince Joffrey. I hate all of them. Joffrey lied, it wasn’t the way he said. I hate Sansa too. She did remember, she just lied so Joffrey would like her.”
“We all lie,” he said. “Or did you truly think I’d believe that Nymeria ran off?”
“Jory promised not to tell.” She spoke, affronted.
“Jory kept his word,” Lord Stark said. “There are some things I do not need to be told. Even a blind man could see that wolf would never have left you willingly.”
Andrei’s eyes turned to his flask, replenished straight from a barrel of cool Northern wine. He took a long sip from it, deliberately letting the conversation behind fade into the background as he stared blankly at a flickering torch opposite it.
“I do not mean to frighten you, but neither will I lie to you. We have come to a dark dangerous place, child. This is not Winterfell. We have enemies who mean us ill. We cannot fight a war among ourselves. This willfulness of yours, the running off, the angry words, the disobedience... at home, these were only the summer games of a child. Here and now, with winter soon upon us, that is a different matter. It is time to begin growing up.”
Danger. Andrei thought. Give me a Norscan Berserker or an Orc. Politics, intrigue. He thought, darkly. Where was the bard when you needed him?
His musings were interrupted when he heard the sound of his name. Silently, he opened the door and waited. Lord Stark nodded at him and turned to his daughter. “I have decided. While you learn your needle, Andrei here shall be your guard. He will not stand guard at your door but should you wander the keep, he will follow you.”
Arya scowled for a moment before curiosity flickered across her young face. She straightened her back and replied solemnly, as solemnly as a child could be, with her slim blade clutched tightly.
“Aye, father.”
Eddard Stark smiled at that before giving his daughter an encouraging look. The lord finally laughed as Arya began a long bombardment of questions, before taking his leave.
“Where are you from? Tom said you killed ten wildlings, is that true? Where did you learn how to fight? Can you teach me?”
Andrei stared at the red bricks of the roof.
“Kislev. No. Kislev. Ask lord.”
Her brows furrowed angrily, and Arya Stark frowned like her father.
The next day, as they broke their fast, she apologized to Septa Mordane and asked for her pardon. The septa peered at her suspiciously, but Father nodded and Andrei smiled from his table.
Three days later, at midday, he accompanied her to the Small Hall. The trestle tables had been dismantled and the benches shoved against the walls. The hall seemed empty, until an unfamiliar voice said, “You are late, boy.” A slight man with a bald head and a great beak of a nose stepped out of the shadows, holding a pair of slender wooden swords. “Tomorrow you will be here at midday.” He had an accent, strange yet familiar.
“Who are you?” Arya asked.
“I am your dancing master.” He tossed her one of the wooden blades. She grabbed for it, missed, and Andrei watched it clatter to the floor. “Tomorrow you will catch it. Now pick it up.”
Where had he heard that accent before?
He hummed in thought before shrugging. As Arya tried and failed to hit the man, Syrio Forel as he had named himself, Andrei stared at the blood red bricks of the keep’s walls, deep in thought.
Notes:
Now we are really getting into the plot...
Sidenote: Andrei deliberately never uses 'ned' when talking to or thinking about ned. just thought it made sense for a hardened kislevite veteran to not get all chummy with a foreign lord, and realistically, Lord Eddard Stark won't suddenly become best friends with a stranger on his lands but you do start to see something forming between these two hardened men, a form of respect between men who have been through war.
Chapter 15: Lucia III
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“You no…answer question.” Lucia scowled at the Red Viper as the Sunkiss was steered into the bay that the sailors called the Whispering Sound. Just ahead, she saw a massive lighthouse, a beacon burning brightly at the tip of the high, stone tower that dominated the city.
“I never answered your question.” Oberyn corrected with a smirk and she glared.
The prince shrugged and gestured to the thick, high stone walls surrounding the city as the ship maneuvered through the pale blue waters and ever closer to the port. Seagulls danced and cried above them and she stared at the Hightower with restrained awe.
“These walls have been here before the dragons and the coming of the Andals.” Oberyn drawled. “The origins are lost to time, the Maesters say.”
Many small isles dotted the waters around the black isle upon which the tower stood, each littered with small buildings and men.
“There.” Oberyn pointed and her gaze followed. A complex of buildings in the distance, towers and domes connected with arching stone bridges, past the Hightower. “The Citadel.” Even compared to the University of Altdorf and the Great Library of Magritta, both of which she had only spied from a distance, it was a grand sight.
Oldtown did not sprawl as wide as Altdorf did, but it did dwarf Magritta. Dozens of vessels floated along the waters too, fishing boats and trade barges alike. As the captain of the Sunkiss gingerly steered his ship into one of the waiting wharfs, Oberyn sighed and smiled, stretching lazily.
The Dornish prince was dressed in his red robes, with a cloak of pale red silk. He had left his armour and spear in his cabin but the Red Viper seemed no less dangerous. Two wicked daggers sat on either hip, like the fangs of a snake. Ellaria had not come with them for the trip, and Oberyn had spent his time on the ship sparring with her, playing dice with the sailors and laughing with the captain.
She had finally realised what he reminded her of. The swaggering diestros of the Estalian Kingdoms, with their sharp blades and deadlier tongues. As old Ormond stepped onto the wharf, already grumbling and negotiating with the waiting port officers, Oberyn gestured for her.
“If I could, I would guide you to Highgarden. But my brother has a task for me and I am ever the dutiful brother.” He smirked. Oberyn tossed her a small red sack, heavy with coin and she catched it with one armoured hand. She blinked at him.
“A gift from Sunspear.” He shrugged. “Come. I find myself tiring of this moving floor.”
He deftly landed on the wharf, giving Ormond a nod. “I shall be done with my business by sunset.” Oberyn said.
“Aye, the Sunkiss will be waiting, my prince.”
She winced slightly as the wood of the wharf creaked and groaned under the weight of her steel. Nevertheless, it held firm, as it must have done for years. Oberyn was already strolling away and she redoubled her steps. Oldtown was a labyrinth of crisscrossing alleys, narrow streets and markets, and she had no desire to be lost.
Beneath layers of steel, she sweated slightly but the heat had long ceased to be an enemy for her. Everything she owned was on her. A thick metal cuirass guarded her torso and steel pauldrons sat on her shoulder. As she walked, the sound of her greaves and sabatons clinked. She clenched her fist, finding comfort in the sound of the gauntlet.
Under the plate was a shirt of chainmail and a simple tunic and breeches. A large leather knapsack had been gifted to her by Ellaria before she boarded the Sunkiss. “Enough food for a week, a waterflask, and two bottles of Dornish red.” She winked and Lucia nodded uncomfortably.
The Hightower loomed on their right, as they ventured down a long street. The weight of history was heavy on the bastion, an eternal guardian watching over the city and her gaze was drawn to it more than once. Now that they were closer, she could see the black stone of its foundations, and the almost oily sheen covering it.
“What stone is that?” She asked and Oberyn shrugged, and she cast that question aside.
One moment, the city smelled as flowery as a dowager’s perfume as they passed by a street of flowers and scents. Then, the pungent odour of meat and blood reeked over them as butchers called out their fresh cuts. Markets and shops with all manners of wares called to them but she paid them no mind.
“There are five great cities in Westeros.” Oberyn suddenly spoke. “King’s Landing. Lannisport.” He said darkly, with scorn in his voice and hatred in his eyes.
“White Harbour, of marble and snow. Gulltown, one of the only harbours amidst the mountains of the Vale.” Then, he gestured broadly to the city around them. “Oldtown.”
Lucia closed her eyes, envisioning the map of Westeros that Oberyn and Ellaria had shown her. This was a strange continent, she decided, unlike the Old World that she had grown familiar with. Yet, there were windows of familiarity that peeked at and mocked her.
The arid deserts of Dorne had been a sudden unwelcome home to dry Estalia. From what she had learned of the North, that realm of snow and forests, it had not been unlike the wintry plains of Kislev, where Andrei hailed from.
She grimaced. The Reach, with its flowery hills and knights, was too similar to Bretonnia. She thought back to her travels with Lorenzo before their fateful arrival at Ubersreik. She thought of the sprawling green plains of Bretonnia that some called beautiful, and remembered the uncountable peasants hidden under that blanket of illusions. The helpless terror of unwashed children as they passed through, each one believing her to be a knight.
She inhaled the cool air, and exhaled. The fire within her still burned but she tempered it. To their right now flowed the Honeywine River, as Oberyn had called it, and the other half of the city waited.
Soon, they stopped before a grand stone bridge, the sounds of the city around them bustling with life. Merchants in silk and labourers in torn clothes, students and sailors and priests too, walked about them, going about their businesses and lives. Knights rode past on their barded steeds, nary giving them a glance, while sellswords swaggered about.
“I am afraid this is where we must part, my friend.” Oberyn smiled, the shadows of the Citadel across the river. “Follow the street and you shall find the Kingsgate. There will be stables there and steeds you can buy.” She nodded.
“Follow the road north. The ride to Highgarden will be, mayhaps, four to five days. That is a good place to start, if any, if you wish to find your lost companions.” Oberyn raised a hand in farewell. “Send Willas my regards.” He said with a smirk.
Lucia clasped her hand against her breastplate in salute, the metal ringing out. “I thank you, Prince Oberyn.” She spoke clumsily.
The prince laughed and turned, strolling down the stone bridge and vanished amongst the crowd, like a passing sandstorm. She stood there silent and motionless for a few seconds before turning north and continuing down the road alone.
When was the last time she had ventured on roads alone? From the fighting pits of Magritta grew an angry girl leading a band of vicious, vengeful children. From the roads of Cantabrio came a young woman leading a band of vicious, vindictive bandits who proclaimed themselves friends of the poor and lost their way. From where she was supposed to die came a bard, and they left a pair. From Ubersreik, she had left with four others.
She was quiet as she walked, musing on her plans. Truthfully, she had none.
Highgarden, the flowery seat of House Tyrell, was not too far away. With a good horse, she could arrive there in less than a week. What then? She spoke the Westerosi tongue well enough now to pass as merely a foreigner from the east but from Oberyn’s words, she knew that women warriors were not a welcome sight here.
Highgarden. Ask around. Worst comes to pass, I’ll take the road to the capital. She decided.
The shadows of the Citadel passed, that bastion of learning and knowledge behind her. Now, on her right and across the river, was a great dome with black marble walls and arched windows. She could see a wide, marble plaza outside of the temple and the brown robes of the pious as they prayed and sang and chanted.
She gave it a glance and scoffed.
The Archecclesiatium of Myrmidia in Magritta had been a holy site for the worthy, not a gaudy display of wealth and opulence that would make the Prince of Pleasure proud. Across the Old World, all who hailed Myrmidia as their patron and goddess longed to make the pilgrimage to Magritta, the heart of the Myrmidian faith, to stand before that great bronze statue of the Lady of War.
She ignored the sight and focused on the street. The gates were close now; tall, stone walls with the sharp tips of the iron portcullis barely visible. Not too far to the side was a long row of stables, close to half a hundred mounts on display. Stableboys ran here and there, feeding, brushing, watering and cleaning.
She strided towards one of them.
“How much for horse.” She intercepted a brown-haired, reedy boy as he walked from horse to horse. He glanced at her, and back at the horse, and back at her again and his youthful face twisted in shock and confusion.
“How much for horse.” She repeated herself, looming over him.
“Uh… depends on the horse.” He stuttered.
She found herself wishing that the Sunkiss had the room for Noche, that midnight-black mount that she had taken for herself. Growing impatient, she reached for the red pouch of coins and drew forth a single gold crown. She flicked it at the boy and watched as he barely caught it. She raised an eyebrow and waited.
He rubbed his scalp and pointed to a brown, quiet stallion that snorted as she approached. “Saddled, watered and fed. For a silver, I can fill the saddlebags with food for the horse for a week?” The boy asked, giving her armour a curious look.
She glanced at him and nodded. She handed him a silver stag, and stared at him for a few seconds before adding three more coppers. Lucia gave the boy a pat on the shoulder before, hesitantly, brushing the mane of the horse. She had more experience slaying men on horses charging at her than riding them but long rides on the Reikland’s roads with naught to do but talk and watch had taught her plenty.
Andrei had been the one to handle the reins to their horses while they rested and watched and sang from the wagon. Once, the Kislevite had asked the rest over the campfire dinner. “You…want learn horse.”
Lorenzo, the useless bard that he was, laughed and sang a charming reason why he would rather enjoy the soil below his feet. Gunther scratched his head at that before giving a fake yawn and looking away. She shook her head as the boy returned, and she inspected the saddlebags. Thick, firm leather bags bulging with carrots and apples and leafy greens. She gave the boy a small smile and he waved hesitantly.
The brown beast gave naught but another snort at the weight of her armoured frame as she got on. Strong and stubborn. She nodded. She tugged slightly at the reins, gave the bustling city behind her one last glance, and the horse took her out of Oldtown and onto the fields of the Reach.
She rode for three days and slept next to a small, crackling fire beneath the shade of bountiful trees and the night stars. The road was unpaved, a dry horror of dirt and mud, that stretched as far as her eye could see. The dust and dirt from the road, if you could call it such, coated her armour and skin like a blanket.
If this is what the main roads look like… She mused.
The paved cobblestone of the Reikland seemed like a distant, unreachable dream now. She shrugged to herself. Years of banditry along the Cantabrio Road had taught her well, if anything.
She passed by knights on destriers and coursers, with banners of flowers and fruits and foxes. Each gave her a haughty look of confusion and condescension but each, deigning themselves chivalrous and above, did not halt. She rode past apple trees and fields of flowers with every shade and hue of every colour. Vast swathes of wheat danced and swayed to gentle winds, dots of farmers tending to their crops.
She rode past retinues of armoured knights and armed men-at-arms, ladies in silk, merchants in their dyed clothes, wandering priests and pilgrims. She rose at dawn, to the chirping of birds, and broke her fast on bread, berries and dried meat. Water was aplenty, with many small streams and lakes never too far from the road.
Rolling green hills and verdant fields, bright skies and airy forests, knights and ladies in armour and dresses of all colours. She scowled. She, and Lorenzo, had the misfortune of passing through Bretonnia on their way to the Empire. The sights and people were, frankly, much the same in her eyes. The same pompous, young knights, pumped full of arrogance and vigour. The same sneering, beautiful maidens, their heads full of ideas of class and privilege.
The same downtrodden peasants, too miserable and isolated to even realise the misery they were in. Memories of that damned village floated to the surface of her mind, of the grieving mother who had dared to weep at her son’s burial as a knight rode through their tiny hamlet of a village. Her blood boiled once more and she took a deep breath of the sweet, summer air as her fist clenched.
She gave the toiling farmers a look as she rode past them. Were their masters as cruel and flippant as the knights and nobility of Bretonnia? Life was never an easy one in the Estalian Kingdoms, and conflict was ever eternal but at least a man had a chance. Or a woman.
She shook her head once more. This was not her war to fight, and she had more important battles.
She led her mount to a nearby creek under the gentle glare of the midday sun.
As the horse lapped the clear, blue water from the small stream, she leaned against a tall tree nearby, allowing herself to rest in the cooling shade. She drew her gilded mace from its leather hoop by her hip and stared at him. Gaudy as it was, it was good steel that had served her faithfully ever since she bought it in that Tilean store in the Grandmarkt.
Tiny strictures had been etched onto the weapon and she stared at them. Lucia closed her eyes.
Myrmidia, O Lady of War, hear my prayer. Why have you-
“Hail there!”
She opened her eyes in annoyance.
A young knight stared at her with a suspicious, scrutinising expression from atop his barded steed. Platemail adorned the man, with a yellow sash from shoulder to hip. A longsword rested at his left hip and one armoured hand rested upon it. She glanced at his shield, three yellow beehives on a black pale over a black and yellow field.
“Who are you, traveller, and where do you hail from?” The knight questioned.
She stared at the bee knight.
“Sellsword from the east.” She grumbled, remembering the words that Oberyn had taught her. “Looking to pledge to House Tyrell.”
He glanced at her strictures, her horse and her gilded mace before letting out a puff.
“Stay out of trouble, then, woman.”
She stared at the knight as he turned away and continued riding in the direction of Oldtown. Fucking knights.
She twirled her mace and slid it back into its hoop. She clicked her tongue and the horse came to her, neighing. She drew a carrot from one of the saddlebags and watched dispassionately as it chewed on it. With a grunt, she mounted the stallion and she returned to the road.
The day slowly crawled to sunset and, then, night. Once again, she led her horse to the side of the road and found a small clearing by the edge of some light, small forest. She tied her horse to a nearby tree and gave its shaggy mane a light brush. Grabbing a handful of twigs and dried leaves, she strolled over to a nearby stone and sat.
She knew that some of her companions found the monotonous nature of starting a campfire mind-numbing but she had always found a strange calm in it. Embers sparked and turned into a small blaze whose warmth she found comfort in.
She dined on cold, hard bread and jerky once more, and took a few sips from the Dornish Red that Ellaria had given her. As the stars shone above her, she gathered a large clump of leaves beneath her. She scattered twigs and dried leaves around the area, a familiar action that Andrei had done when they were in the gloomy Reikwald Forest, where danger lurked behind every shadow.
Even while travelling with the others, she refused to sleep unarmoured. Her shirt of mail, greaves and gauntlets were always on her. Her dagger remained strapped to her lower back and her mace would be within arms reach. Here and now, she refused to even take off her helmet and breastplate, no matter the discomfort.
She laid down on her bed of leaves and closed her eyes, slowly drifting. She would reach Highgarden soon, she knew, and part of her dreaded what she would find there. The exhaustion of the day’s travel claimed her as she fretted and worried, and darkness took her.
“Lucia.” A weak, sickly voice called to her. She was standing mutely before a dirty bed once more, her small fists clenched uselessly by her side. A pox-ridden, dying woman coughed from the bed and a pale, boney hand reached for her. “Lucia, daughter.”
Crack.
Her eyes shot open, taking in the night sky above. Her right fist grabbed her mace and she rose, like a metal spectre. She blinked a few times, making out a figure in the dark a few feet away.
A man’s voice cursed crudely and she heard the sound of a sword being drawn from its scabbard. She saw a shirt of mail on him, and heard the clinking of steel greaves as he approached her.
“Hand over your horse and armour and you can walk away from this.” The man rasped out. “Yer just another hedge knight like me. No need to die.”
She stared at him silently. In the dark, she resembled a hulking, looming man in steel. Truthfully, during the day, it was not too different. She craned her head left and right, and listened. It was only just the one mad fool.
He took another step forward. Even in the dark, she could see the blade trembling in his grip.
“Come on. You don’t need to die.” The man threatened, and then seemed to beg. “I lost everything in that damned tourney. My horse. My plate. My gold.” He spat bitterly.
He was close enough that she could see his face. It was a rough man with a messy beard, with a face worn down by a life of hardship. The blade trembled, and then stilled. “Just give me everything. You can still walk back to Oldtown from here, lad.”
Lucia sighed. Her heavy steel kite shield was on the ground beside her but she had no need for it. She would just knock him out and leave, she sighed once more.
Then, he cursed angrily and stomped forward. The smell of alcohol hit her. The sword flashed through the air from her left. She ducked back, letting it slash nothing but air. She had done this before, and she remembered the old gladiator’s teaching. Bring the mace down on the sword, she ordered herself, and use the momentum to crash it across his face.
She brought her mace down upon the old sword. Then, the blade broke and snapped in two with a disturbing ring. She drew her mace back and watched him cautiously. The man stared at his broken blade in shock and horror and she saw his face twist in a near mad, desperate fury.
The man dropped his shattered sword and drew an old, thin dirk from his belt. She sighed and shook her head. His eyes were on her face now, and they widened with realisation. She brought her mace down on his wrist and the bones snapped with a sickening crunch. The dirk fell and he howled in pain, clutching at his shattered wrist.
She took a step forward and swung her mace down onto his skull, crushing it. The hedge knight stilled, twitched and crumbled to the ground dead. Lucia stared at his corpse for a few seconds.
She bent, wiping the head of her mace against the back of his stained tunic and placing it back in its hoop. She patted at his belt and found naught but a half empty wineskin and a pouch with a few silvers and coppers. She quietly added them to her own pouch.
She spared him another glance before looking at the sky. Poor, mad fool.
The night was ending soon. The rosy tendrils of dawn were slowly climbing and soaring from the east and the dark of night was fading. She walked to her horse slowly, taking a swig from her waterskin. Might as well start early.
She untied her horse and mounted it. “Caballero.” She muttered to herself. “Your name.” She said to her horse and the beast snorted. Knight.
She rode on once more, as the night slowly gave way to the morning sun. The road stretched northeast, she remembered. To her right, far in the distance, she saw the tall, crimson mountains that Oberyn had called the Red Mountains. Above the blood-red stones soared the sun of dawn, and she found strength in that.
Her Lady was watching, she told herself. Myrmidia’s sun still shines on me, even in this foreign land.
Hours passed, and she rode past some old, white keep that seemed half abandoned. She could feel the stares from the riders on patrol as they rode but they gave her no trouble. The road here seemed busier now.
Farmers with wagons loaded with vegetables and livestock lumbered alongside her. An old man with a straw hat, chewing on a blade of wheat and pulling on two draft horses that seemed half dead, gave her a look of disgust, horror and confusion as she walked past.
“What’s a woman doing in armour!” He called out as his chickens clucked behind him loudly from small cages.
She ignored him and continued riding.
There were many merchants too, riding in the same direction as her. Large caravans, guarded by retinues of armoured riders, crawled ahead and she caught glimpses of rich silk and cloth, dyes and dresses, fine ceramics and statues. The guards, mercenaries clearly, gave her careful glances as she rode past them.
There was a time where she would wait alongside well-travelled roads and hide in foliage and dark trees for rich, fat merchants like these. She scoffed to herself. To her annoyance, she saw more knights as well. Small bands of young knights in twos and fours, laughing amongst themselves as they saw her. Desperate, dirty hedge knights staring hungrily at her armour and her. Her face scrunched in disgust and she clutched the handle of her mace.
And then, she saw it.
A grand castle of white stone, with tall towers gleaming with gold at their tip and green banners fluttering in the wind. Three rings of white stone walls and, she blinked, a maze of greenery and trees. It was a sight of opulence and grandeur she had seldom seen. Even the cities of the Reikland paled in comparison to its beauty.
Lucia grimaced.
Highgarden.
Notes:
The Reach does bear many unfortunate similarities to the rolling hills and verdant plains of Bretonnia, no? Luckily, the peasants of the Reach are only slightly in-bred.
Happy New Year!
Chapter 16: Andrei IV
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“I am Tobho Mott, my lord, please, please, put yourself at ease.”
The master smith wore a black velvet coat with hammers embroidered on the sleeves in silver thread. Around his neck was a heavy silver chain and a sapphire as large as a pigeon’s egg.
“If you are in need of new arms for the Hand’s tourney, you have come to the right shop.”
From beside the black couch where the lord sat, Andrei saw the slightest hint of frustration in the ice-grey eyes of Lord Stark.
“My work is costly, and I make no apologies for that, my lord,” Mott said as he filled two matching silver goblets. “You will not find craftsmanship equal to mine anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, I promise you. Visit every forge in King’s Landing if you like, and compare for yourself. Any village smith can hammer out a shirt of mail; my work is art.”
The lord sipped his wine, his face a mask of cool calmness. The Knight of Flowers bought all his armor here, Tobho boasted, and many high lords, the ones who knew fine steel, and even Lord Renly, the king’s own brother. Knight of Flowers. Andrei scoffed to himself internally. Back in Kislev, the Golden Knight had been a figure of legend and terror and skill unmatched. Knight of Flowers. He scoffed once more.
“The direwolf is the sigil of House Stark, is it not? I could fashion a direwolf helm so real that children will run from you in the street,” Mott vowed. The lord smiled. “Did you make a falcon helm for Lord Arryn?”
Tobho Mott paused a long moment and set aside his wine. “The Hand did call upon me, with Lord Stannis, the king’s brother. I regret to say, they did not honor me with their patronage.” Lord Stark looked at the man evenly, saying nothing, waiting.
“They asked to see the boy,” the armorer said, “so I took them back to the forge.” “The boy,” Stark echoed. “I should like to see the boy as well.”
Tobho Mott gave him a cool, careful look. “As you wish, my lord,” he said with no trace of his former friendliness. He led them out a rear door and across a narrow yard, back to the cavernous stone barn where the work was done. When the armorer opened the door, the blast of hot air that came through made him feel as though he were walking into a dragon’s mouth.
Inside, a forge blazed in each corner, and the air stank of smoke and sulfur. Journeymen armorers glanced up from their hammers and tongs just long enough to wipe the sweat from their brows, while bare-chested apprentice boys worked the bellows.
The master called over a tall lad no older than sixteen, his arms and chest corded with muscle. “This is Lord Stark, the new Hand of the King,” the smith said as the boy looked at them through sullen blue eyes and pushed back sweat-soaked hair with his fingers. Thick hair, shaggy and unkempt and black as ink. The shadow of a new beard darkened his jaw. “This is Gendry. Strong for his age, and he works hard. Show the Hand that helmet you made, lad.” Almost shyly, the boy led them to his bench, and a steel helm shaped like a bull’s head, with two great curving horns.
Andrei gave the helm a cursory glance. It was good steel, no doubt. He focused his stare on the boy, however. The boy looked like… someone, Andrei knew. Who?
Andrei tuned the conversation of the two aside, standing silently and still like a sentinel. Eventually, Lord Stark nodded. “If the day ever comes when Gendry would rather wield a sword than forge one, send him to me. He has the look of a warrior. Until then, you have my thanks, Master Mott, and my promise. Should I ever want a helm to frighten children, this will be the first place I visit.”
Andrei cracked a slight smile as he followed the lord out of the gaudy smith’s shop.
“Did you find anything, my lord?” Jacks, one of the two guards who had accompanied them, asked as they mounted up.
“I did.” Stark told him, a heavy expression of brooding on his face. Andrei followed them in silence as they rode back to the Keep. As they rode through the gates of the Red Keep, the lord turned to him.
“Will you join the melee, Yeltska?” Lord Stark asked.
“Melee?” replied Andrei.
“It’ll be part of … the Hand’s Tourney. Dozens of men fighting with blunted steel. The winner will receive ten thousand gold dragons.” Eddard Stark spoke, a slight hint of annoyance in his voice.
Andrei was silent for a moment. “How to… enter?”
Lord Stark smiled. “I will send one of my men to sign you up.” As Jacks and Varly left for the barracks, the lord gestured for Andrei to follow. “The joust is an affair of pomp.” Eddard frowned. “I do not figure you for an archer.”
Andrei shook his head. “Axe.” Andrei spoke, gruffly.
Eddard Stark laughed slightly. “Many of my northmen prefer the axe over the sword. When did you start using that one?” He gestured at the fine Kislevite axe by his hip.
“Months ago.” Andrei scratched his beard. “Used a … long mace.” Andrei held both his hands out.
“Ah, a great mace. A rare weapon in the Seven Kingdoms.” The Stark lord noted. “Changing from a greatmace to a shield and axe must not have been easy?”
“Trained with both. Kislevites… love both.”
Stark nodded. “I shall look forward to seeing you in action. The joust is tomorrow, and the melee on the day after. I want you to accompany my daughter tomorrow, and get a sense of these men of the South. Arya will not be there, nor will I but Jeyne and the Septa will be.”
Andrei gave the wolf lord a nod, and watched as the man entered his quarters. He stood there in the hallway for some time, deep in thought before turning. With his new role as a swornsword, he had been given a room closer to the Starks. A comfortable featherbed greeted him as he opened the door.
He slowly stripped the heavy armour of leather, mail and scales off from his body, placing his armour pieces on the wooden table gingerly. During the day, he kept only his axe and pistol with him, and his shield rested on the table. Clad only in a sweat-stained tunic and breeches, Andrei stood still for a moment.
This damned city. He thought, cursing King’s Landing for yet another time. He cursed its heat and the smell and the crowds and the people. He longed for the cool air and plains of the North, or even the gloom of the Reikwald. The Motherland feels a lifetime away. Andrei despaired, brushing his coarse fingers along the steel edge of his kite shield.
The firm, hard wood was painted a dark scarlet with a white, crowned bear roaring in the centre. Yet, months of fighting had chipped the shield’s surface, leaving ugly rends and slashes across the bear and the field of blood. He sighed, turning to the large bathtub where a warm bath had been drawn.
He stripped, and sank into it. He groaned in satisfaction as the warmth seemed to seep into his old, cold bones. With his new duties as a swornsword, he had found little time to leave the Red Keep and find his companion. Often, during the morning and day, he escorted Arya to the Small Hall where she trained with her mentor, that swaggering Braavosi that reminded Andrei of the many Estalian diestros he had met on the road.
Sometimes, he followed Lord Stark to the Small Council meetings and waited outside until the lord exited, his long face cold and gloomy and tired. Today, he had followed him out into the city, into a street of smiths and forges. Andrei cursed himself for not bringing his shield with him. Next time. He promised.
Clean and sore, he clambered out of the bath and dried himself with a towel as soft as a maiden’s flesh. He sat on the edge of the bed, sharpening his axe with a whetstone. Ten thousand gold crowns. Andrei thought. That would be useful, he knew, though what for exactly, he knew not.
He placed his axe under his pillow, and crashed asleep.
The next morning, Andrei rose near the crack of dawn. He armed and armoured himself, strapping his axe to his hip, his pistol unloaded and under his armour, and his shield rested on his back. He broke his fast in the Small Hall with bread and roast meat and ale, and watched amused as a tired Sansa Stark strolled into the hall with an equally groggy Jeyne Poole.
Finishing the rest of his ale, he approached the ladies.
“Lady Sansa.” He said quietly and slowly. Sansa gave him a polite and curious look as Jeyne giggled. “Your father… wants me to escort you. To joust.”
Sansa smiled politely. “I will be glad to have your protection, Ser Yeltska.”
Andrei shifted uncomfortably and nodded. “Will wait… with horses.”
He turned and left, to the giggling of maidens. Andrei strided for the stables and found the grey courser that the Starks had given him. He found more comfort with these beasts than the fair ladies, and the horse seemed to know. The grey stallion snorted at him as he brushed his mane. Andrei cracked a smile. Horse riding was in an Ungol’s blood. He stood there for a long moment, feeding and watering the horse.
He was interrupted by a quiet cough. He turned, noticing the grey-robed Septa Mordane frowning at him in disapproval. Behind her, Sansa and Jeyne sat in a litter with curtains of yellow silk so fine he could still see them gazing at the cloth with wonder and awe.
“I believe it is time, my good sir.” The old Septa sniffed. Andrei nodded silently and mounted his horse, following the litter. They rode out of the Red Keep, and through the busy street of King’s Landing. He kept an eye out for Gunther but saw no sign of the thief. Either he is busy, or it is too early.
They joined a long stream of riders leaving the city. Beyond the city walls, a hundred pavilions had been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in the thousands to watch the games. As they rode ever closer to the tourney grounds, the shine of armour and the cheer of the crowd grew ever more irritating.
The litter was placed gently on the ground. Sansa Stark emerged, in a gown of green that matched the auburn of her hair. Like a tree to fire. Andrei struggled with the words in his head. Jeyne stepped out next, in a dress of pink. He wondered how Jeyne, that quiet merchant’s daughter he had saved, was doing.
The four of them found their seats, high up above the stands. Andrei declined the seat, standing behind the women like a silent sentinel.
They watched as the knights emerged onto the field.
He saw the white cloaks of the Kingsguard, each as pale as freshfallen snow, each clad in scaled armour the color of milk, except for Jaime Lannister. The lion knight wore the white cloak as well, but beneath it he was shining gold from head to foot, with a lion’s head helm and a golden sword.
A huge man, three heads taller than him, thundered past them like an avalanche, in dark, grim plate armour. An older man rode by in armour of bronze engraved with runes. Andrei gave him a long stare but the runes did not glow with power. He remembered the runes of Dwarfen weapons in his world, each a masterpiece and deadly weapon, and how they glowed like the forge they came from.
The girls giggled over a man with flapping red robes and shaven head, until the septa told them that he had once scaled the walls of Pyke with a flaming sword in hand. “Thoros of Myr.” She said the name, with some scorn in her voice. “A priest of that fire god from the east.”
A warrior priest, Andrei knew. He had crossed paths with those iron-armoured paladins of Sigmar in the Reikland. Staring at the greying, fat man in wine-stained robes, Andrei frowned in disappointment.
A hundred more knights of summer and foolish, young boys gathered on the field, preening before the cheer of maidens and peasants. He raised an eyebrow at a man with skin as dark as night in a cape of green and scarlet feathers. The burned, rough man that guarded the Crown Prince, the Hound, entered the lists as well, as did handsome Lord Renly.
“Jory looks a beggar among these others,” Septa Mordane sniffed when he appeared. Andrei frowned. Jory’s armor was blue-grey plate without device or ornament, and a thin grey cloak hung from his shoulders like a soiled rag. Yet he acquitted himself well, unhorsing two men.
Andrei found himself tiring off the dreary display of horsemanship. The jousting went all day and into the dusk, the hooves of the great warhorses pounding down the lists until the field was a ragged wasteland of torn earth. A dozen times Jeyne and Sansa cried out in unison as riders crashed together, lances exploding into splinters while the commons screamed for their favorites.
Jeyne covered her eyes whenever a man fell, like a frightened little girl, but Sansa was made of sterner stuff, he realised. Both him and the Septa nodded in approval before turning to give each other an incredulous stare before looking away in confusion.
Next was the large man they called the Mountain. Andrei watched with boredom as his lance rode up and struck a young knight from the Vale under the gorget with such force that it drove through his throat, killing him instantly. The youth fell not ten feet from where Sansa was seated. The point of Ser Gregor’s lance had snapped off in his neck, and his life’s blood flowed out in slow pulses, each weaker than the one before.
His armor was shiny new; a bright streak of fire ran down his outstretched arm, as the steel caught the light. Then the sun went behind a cloud, and it was gone. His cloak was blue, the color of the sky on a clear summer’s day, trimmed with a border of crescent moons, but as his blood seeped into it, the cloth darkened and the moons turned red, one by one.
Andrei gave the monstrous knight a brief glance. He saw the look of terror that the ladies, lords and knights gave him but after the mutated horror of screaming Chaos Spawns, the ravening terror of hungry Trolls and the furious charge of Rat Ogres, Andrei found himself unfazed.
Jeyne Poole wept so hysterically that Septa Mordane finally took her off to regain her composure, but Sansa sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching with a strange fascination. He gave the young lady a stare of curiosity. The wolf’s blood runs in her veins. Andrei thought, thinking to the cold stare that her father could muster, like two flints of smoky ice.
Sansa turned to him, dazed, almost as if she had just remembered he was there. Amidst the deafening din and roar of the crowd, she gave him an uncertain look.
Andrei raised an eyebrow.
“Should I…” She whispered softly. “Should I have felt more sorrow?”
Andrei stared at her and at the cooling body of that young man. He watched as two men carried off the body, a boy with a spade ran onto the field and shoveled dirt over the spot where he had fallen, to cover up the blood.
He thought of long winters, and even longer wars, and the death of friends.
“No.” Andrei said, quietly. Then the jousts resumed.
In the end, it came down to four; the Hound and his monstrous brother Gregor, Jaime Lannister the Kingslayer, and Ser Loras Tyrell, the youth they called the Knight of Flowers. Andrei laughed under his breath.
His plate was intricately fashioned and enameled as a bouquet of a thousand different flowers, and his snow-white stallion was draped in a blanket of red and white roses. After each victory, Ser Loras would remove his helm and ride slowly round the fence, and finally pluck a single white rose from the blanket and toss it to some fair maiden in the crowd.
To the other maidens he had given white roses, but the one he plucked for Sansa was red. “Sweet lady,” he said, “no victory is half so beautiful as you.” Sansa took the flower timidly, inhaling the sweet fragrance and clutching it tightly even as the young knight rode off. Andrei gave the knight a look of boredom.
When Sansa finally looked up, a man was standing over her, staring. Andrei had seen him coming, and placed a hand on his axe. He was short, with a pointed beard and a silver streak in his hair, almost as old as her father. “You must be one of her daughters,” he said to Sansa. He had grey-green eyes that did not smile when his mouth did. “You have the Tully look.”
“I’m Sansa Stark,” she said, ill at ease. The man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver mockingbird, and he had the effortless manner of a high lord. “I have not had the honor, my lord.”
Septa Mordane, who had returned from escorting Jeyne back to the Tower of the Hand, quickly took a hand. “Sweet child, this is Lord Petyr Baelish, of the king’s small council.”
“Your mother was my queen of beauty once,” the man said quietly. His breath smelled of mint. “You have her hair.” His fingers brushed against her cheek as he stroked one auburn lock. Andrei took a step forward. The man gave him a sly smile, and turned to walk away.
By then, the moon was well up and the crowd was tired, so the king decreed that the last three matches would be fought the next morning, before the melee. While the commons began their walk home, talking of the day’s jousts and the matches to come on the morrow, the court moved to the riverside to begin the feast.
Six monstrous huge aurochs had been roasting for hours, turning slowly on wooden spits while kitchen boys coated them with butter and herbs until the meat crackled and spit. Tables and benches had been raised outside the pavilions, piled high with sweetgrass and strawberries and fresh-baked bread.
Sansa and Septa Mordane were given places of high honor, to the left of the raised dais where the king himself sat beside his queen, and Andrei stood them, quiet and gloomy. The Prince Joffrey, that spoiled brat, sat to her right. He wore a deep blue doublet studded with a double row of golden lion’s heads, and around his brow a slim coronet made of gold and sapphires. His hair was as bright as the metal.
And his head as hollow. Andrei thought.
All the while the courses came and went. A thick soup of barley and venison. Salads of sweetgrass and spinach and plums, sprinkled with crushed nuts. Snails in honey and garlic. Then came trout fresh from the river, baked in clay and with salt. A meat course of chicken, pork and mutton followed. Later came sweetbreads and pigeon pie and baked apples fragrant with cinnamon and lemon cakes frosted in sugar.
Andrei stared at the food mournfully but kept his head straight.
King Robert had grown louder with each course. From time to time, he could hear him laughing or roaring a command over the music and the clangor of plates and cutlery, but they were too far away for her to make out his words.
Now everybody heard him. “No,” he thundered in a voice that drowned out all other speech. He was on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine in one hand, and he was as drunk as a man could be.
“You do not tell me what to do, woman,” he screamed at Queen Cersei. “I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!”
Everyone was staring. Ser Barristan, and the king’s brother Renly, and the short man who had talked to Sansa, but no one made a move to interfere. The queen’s face was a mask, so bloodless that it might have been sculpted from snow. She rose from the table, gathered her skirts around her, and stormed off in silence, servants trailing behind.
Jaime Lannister put a hand on the king’s shoulder, but the king shoved him away hard. Lannister stumbled and fell. The king guffawed. “The great knight. I can still knock you in the dirt. Remember that, Kingslayer.” He slapped his chest with the jeweled goblet, splashing wine all over his satin tunic. “Give me my hammer and not a man in the realm can stand before me!”
Jaime Lannister rose and brushed himself off. “As you say, Your Grace.” His voice was stiff.
Lord Renly came forward, smiling. “You’ve spilled your wine, Robert. Let me bring you a fresh goblet.”
Sansa started as Joffrey laid his hand on her arm. “It grows late,” the prince said. He had a queer look on his face, as if he were not seeing her at all. “Do you need an escort back to the castle?”
She frowned. “I have one already, my prince.”
“A lady must always be well-protected.” He smiled at her and sneered at him.
Joffrey called out, “Dog!”
Sandor Clegane seemed to take form out of the night, so quickly did he appear. He had exchanged his armor for a red woolen tunic with a leather dog’s head sewn on the front. The light of the torches made his burned face shine a dull red. “Yes, Your Grace?” he said.
“Take my betrothed back to the castle, and see that no harm befalls her,” the prince told him brusquely. And without even a word of farewell, Joffrey strode off, leaving her there.
“Did you think Joff was going to take you himself?” He laughed. He had a laugh like the snarling of dogs in a pit. “Small chance of that.” He reached to pull her to her feet but Andrei took a step forward and the Hound turned to him. To their side, he could feel Sansa’s terrified eyes.
The Hound spat. “Come, you’re not the only one who needs sleep. I’ve drunk too much, and I may need to kill my brother tomorrow.” He laughed again.
“The wolf lady has a guard.” Andrei rumbled. “No dog needed.”
This bear will maul you. Andrei thought, giving the man a cool stare.
The Hound stepped close, his burned scars seeming to dance and warp under the fire light and the shadows of the pavilion. Andrei kept his gaze on the man’s wild eyes and his hand rested on his axe’s head, ready to slash the mad dog’s throat open.
“My good sers,” Sansa Stark called out meekly, yet not without strength. “My father has assigned Ser Yeltska to guard me and the prince has assigned you to escort me to the castle. There is no need for conflict.” She pleaded.
Eventually, the Hound took a step back. He snatched up a torch to light their way and they followed close beside him. The ground was rocky and uneven; the flickering light made it seem to shift and move beneath them. They walked among the pavilions, each with its banner and its armor hung outside, the silence weighing heavier with every step. “You rode gallantly today, Ser Sandor,” Sansa spoke.
Sandor Clegane snarled at her. “Spare me your empty little compliments, girl … and your ser’s. I am no knight. I spit on them and their vows. My brother is a knight. Did you see him ride today?”
“Yes,” Sansa whispered, trembling. “He was…”
“Gallant?” The Hound finished.
“No one could withstand him,” she managed at last.
Sandor Clegane stopped suddenly in the middle of a dark and empty field. They had no choice but to stop beside him. Andrei eyed him in annoyance. “Some septa trained you well. You’re like one of those birds from the Summer Isles, aren’t you? A pretty little talking bird, repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to recite.”
“That’s unkind.” Sansa murmured, her pale skin paling. “You’re frightening me. I want to go now.”
“No one could withstand him,” the Hound rasped. “That’s truth enough. No one could ever withstand Gregor. That boy today, his second joust, oh, that was a pretty bit of business. You saw that, did you? Fool boy, he had no business riding in this company. No money, no squire, no one to help him with that armor. That gorget wasn’t fastened proper. You think Gregor didn’t notice that? You think Ser Gregor’s lance rode up by chance, do you? Pretty little talking girl, you believe that, you’re empty-headed as a bird for true. Gregor’s lance goes where Gregor wants it to go. Look at me. Look at me!”
Sandor Clegane put a huge hand under her chin and forced her face up. Then, he froze before he could speak. The snarling bear roared quietly an inch away from the Hound’s fingers as the blade of the axe lingered just above the man’s hand. Sansa was silent and terrified while the Hound’s eyes flashed to him, hesitant yet wild with drunken anger.
“Let her go.” Andrei said coldly. “Or you die.”
Slowly, the mad dog drew his hand back.
The man stared at him in the dark. “You’re a killer, aren’t you.” He snarled and rasped. “It’s in your eyes.”
Andrei took a step forward, glaring into the Hound’s eyes. “Aye. Killed worse than you and your brother.”
Clegane’s face twisted in fury but he stopped. He spat bitterly on the ground and turned and left. Andrei gave his retreating back a stare as he slowly returned his axe to its holster. He turned to see Sansa giving him a stare of wonder and awe, and he groaned internally.
“Thank you, Ser.” Sansa whispered. “That man, he was dreadful.”
Andrei tried to smile. “Let us be back to Keep now.”
She nodded. He found his grey steed waiting impatiently and he helped Sansa onto the stallion before mounting it himself. He felt the young lady’s hands wrap shyly around his torso and he grumbled quietly in annoyance but said nothing. They rode in silence through the King’s Gate and the torchlit city streets until she broke the silence.
“Did you mean it?” Sansa asked in a quiet voice. “That you’ll… kill him?”
Andrei laughed. “Aye.”
“You said,” She paused. “That you have killed worse than him, and… and Ser Gregor?”
“I have, lady.” Andrei responded, gruffly but not unkindly.
“How?” She asked, her voice rising in curiosity.
Andrei stared at the night sky. “To survive.” Sansa was silent at that.
They entered the Red Keep and he helped her off the horse at the stables. Andrei escorted her quietly through the winding stairs of the Tower of the Hand, all the way to the corridor by her bedchamber.
“Thank you, my lord.” Sansa said softly, with a blush.
Andrei blinked. “No lord.” Sansa giggled and covered her slight mouth, and walked into her room, closing the door behind her.
Andrei sighed. I hate this city.
Once again, he stripped his armour off and bathed, resting and languishing. He sharpened his axe once more, and this time, he sharpened the base tip of his shield. He crashed into the soft bed once more and sleep took him, like a gentle mother.
The next morning was a blur of activity. He rose, equipped himself and ate before riding to the tourney field. He did not see the Stark lord but Jory helpfully pointed him to the direction of the melee field where he waited. He walked through large tents and pavilions of gold and black and red and green, where young squires sharpened swords and polished armour for their impatient, lazy masters.
He was given a small tent that was barren inside bar a stool. Andrei sighed, sitting gingerly on the wooden stool that creaked and groaned as he bore his weight upon it. His shield and his axe were sufficient, he thought to himself.
The minutes passed into an hour and another, and he yawned. He rose, stretching his stiff bones and muscles, wincing at each creak. “Well prepared, I see.” A voice called from the tent’s entrance flap.
Andrei turned, his axe in hand, to see Lord Stark giving him an amused look.
“Lord Stark.” Andrei greeted with a nod, sheathing his axe.
Eddard Stark entered the tent and grimaced at the bare interior. “You are the only man in my household in the melee.” The lord spoke. “You have my apologies for this.” He gestured at the tent. “If I had not had to speak with His Grace in the morning…” He trailed off, rubbing his face.
“It is no… issue, lord.” Andrei cracked his neck.
“My daughter tells me that you kept her safe.” Eddard Stark spoke once more, a more serious, sombre expression settling on his face, like the first snows upon the land.
Andrei nodded. “Too many… mad dogs.”
“Too many indeed.” The Stark lord sighed.
“Four men rode in the last rounds of the tourney. Ser Gregor and the Hound, Loras Tyrell and the Kingslayer. Tell me what you made of them.”
“A monster, dangerous.” Andrei struggled with the words. “A rabid dog. A… foolish knight. Skilled but arrogant.”
The lord smiled. “Some fighters in the melee will be mounted, will you do the same?”
Andrei scratched his beard. He had never preferred fighting on horseback and losing a mount in battle was too often crippling. He shook his head.
Then, the horns blared.
“That is the call for the melee.” Eddard noted. “Sansa did not want to watch the melee but she changed her mind after yesterday. Arya is there as well.”
Andrei gave the lord a look of questioning.
“My daughters appear to have taken a liking to you.” Eddard said, amused, as they walked out of the grey tent. He saw Arya and Sansa standing there, Jory behind them with a smile.
Andrei blinked.
“Are you going to win?” Arya asked with a toothy smile.
“Arya!” Sansa gasped and shook her head.
Andrei cracked a smile. “Aye, little wolf.”
“Show them what the North can do, eh?” Jory grinned at him.
Andrei stared at him for a moment before nodding slowly.
Sansa shyly approached him, a grey ribbon in her pale, slender hands. Andrei stood there in confusion, giving Eddard Stark a helpless glance. The lord struggled to keep his composure and gestured for him to extend his hand. Andrei did so, giving his right hand to Sansa. He shifted uncomfortably as the wolf maiden tied the grey ribbon around his chainmail-covered wrist.
“Thank you.” She whispered.
“Come now.” Eddard said, and they started to leave. “Fight well, Yeltska.” He nodded at Andrei, and Andrei instinctively saluted.
He found his way to the melee field, where nearly fourty men gathered. Freeriders and hedge knights and new-made squires in search of a reputation. Each was given blunted steel and Andrei grumbled as his axe and shield were taken from him.
Why did I sharpen them then? He grumbled more.
In his right hand was a blunted axe, similar in length to his own. In his left was a simple, wooden kite shield. It was lighter than his but still sturdy. They gathered in a line before the lords and ladies and the King. Robert roared with impatience and excitement, raising his goblet.
Glancing through the sea of nobility, he finally saw the Starks. Eddard Stark nodded grimly at him, while Sansa smiled gently and Arya gave a toothy grin.
They were, then, arrayed around the field in a loose circle. A herald called out from the stand. “The rules for the melee! Avoid killing! When the opponent surrenders, you will accept it! We have a pair of eyes watching each of you. The last one standing wins!”
The crowd roared in anticipation, drowning out the shout from the announcer, and the melee began.
A squire in nothing more than boiled leather and a few scraps of plate covering his shoulders came at him screaming, an old sword in his hand that he raised high. Andrei charged forward, and the boy’s eyes widened in terror and shock. The shield crashed against his face, not with his full force, and the boy crumpled unconscious.
Andrei shook his head, moving on. A rough-looking free rider came at him next. Leather and chainmail covered his body, and he had a blunted spear that he thrusted forward. Andrei parried the spear’s tip with the edge of his shield, and brought the axe down upon the heft.
Splinters exploded across the air and the spear snapped in two. In a blur, the blunted blade was by the man’s throat. “I surrender.” The man called out reluctantly, dropping the broken half of his spear. Andrei grunted and turned, parrying a blunted sword.
A gnarly man snarled at him, revealing a mouthful of crooked, yellowed teeth. A sellsword, he could tell, and not a very successful one. Stained black leather covered him and a dull sword flashed through the air. Andrei took the blow on his shield, barely feeling the impact. He brought his axe forward, flipping the blade on the way, and crashed the back of the axe head against the man’s temple.
Leaving the unconscious body behind, Andrei groaned. Two men were staring at him now. One was a burly, brute of a man with a blunted great axe and wore little other than leather and some scrap of chainmail. The other was smaller and shorter, and had half plate. One hand clutched a mace, and the other, a round shield.
The two men glanced at each other and rushed at him. Andrei snarled and smiled.
He ducked to the right, closer to the man with the shield and mace. He ducked back from a wild mace swing and slammed the metal edge of his shield on the man’s wrist. He howled in pain, and Andrei crashed his shoulder into him, sending him smashing into the great brute, who grunted and shoved the man aside.
The great axe came soaring for him and Andrei parried it with his shield once more. This time, the impact rang dully through his left arm but he paid it no mind. He brought his axe down, slashing through the man’s shoulder. His opponent roared in pain and tried to punch him across the face.
Andrei glanced down, letting the fist crash against the metal of his helmet. He heard the sound of bones cracking and he smiled slightly. He smashed his shield across the man’s face and brought his axe against his throat. The man growled, and spat, and laughed, dropping his great axe.
Andrei glanced around. By now, the field was almost cleared of fighters. Across him, he saw that red-robed priest with a sword on fire laughing wildly. Five men surrounded him but the man had no fear. Andrei strolled forward.
“Priest of fire!” He called out, and the man gave him a brief glance. “We deal with these five, and then, me and you.” He offered.
The warrior priest laughed. “Deal.” And he leapt forward to the right, his flaming sword flashing and hacking. Andrei charged, parrying a sword thrust with his axe and knocking a man unconscious with his shield. Another blade came for him, biting through the air, and he ducked. He smashed the shield against the sword and raised his axe against the throat of the man who dropped his blade.
He turned, and he saw the priest staring at him.
“Thoros of Myr.” The man offered softly, swinging his sword a few times through the air. The fire blazed through the air, leaving hypnotising rings of orange and red. “Andrei.” He muttered. He glanced at the Starks and, after a moment, he added. “Of the North.” He raised his axe at the warrior priest in challenge. “Come, priest.”
Thoros of Myr smiled like a madman and charged without fear. In four great leaps, he crossed the space between them, his blood red robes flapping in the wind. He howled as he slashed his flaming sword in a horizontal arc. Andrei took a step back, feeling the heat of the flame.
He swung his shield at the man’s face but the priest, faster than he appeared, ducked under the shield and thrusted his burning blade forward with a laugh.
Andrei slammed the steel edge of his shield against the fiery sword with no hesitation, and brought his axe across the man’s chest, feeling the blunted steel rake across chainmail with little effect. Thoros grunted, bringing his sword down just as Andrei stepped to the side.
Once again, Thoros swung his sword. Andrei caught it on his shield and scowled when the fire spreaded to the wooden surface. At least it’s not mine. He grumbled, unbuckling the shield. Uncaring of the spreading fire, he chucked it at a charging Thoros who blinked as it flew for his face.
Just barely in time, Thoros brought his sword up and a deafening clang of steel rang out. Andrei roared like a bear as he charged. He crashed into Thoros, feeling the flaming sword between them. Luckily, his sweat-stained leathers failed to catch on fire. The priest, however, slammed into the ground. Still stubborn, he thrusted his blade forward. Now, the fire was dimming and flickering.
Andrei caught the blade between the blade of his axe and the heft, and hooked it away, ripping it from Thoros’ hand with a single, strong tug. The priest groaned light-heartedly, lying flat on his back in the mud in exhaustion. “You can have the damned victory.” Thoros laughed.
As the crowd broke into cheer and applause, Robert called for him with a booming laugh. Andrei walked up the steps, leading to the Royal Pavilion. The Starks were part of the applause, Eddard Stark smiling quietly. Sansa had a blush on her face and a wide smile while Arya hollered and cheered.
He saw the Prince giving him a long, curious look while the Hound glared at him. “By the Gods,” Robert laughed as he knelt. “Get up, get up. Last I saw a man fight like that, we were still at the Trident. You, you’re Ned’s man, yes? Andrey Yetska?”
“Andrei Yeltska.” Andrei corrected quietly. Robert laughed, slapping him on the shoulder. The king’s meaty fist grabbed onto Andrei’s wrist with surprising strength and raised his hand. “Andrei Yeltska, winner of the melee!” The King declared.
Andrei stood there awkwardly, amidst the applause of thousands.
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 27, 29, 30
Our dear Kossar accidentally stumbles into canon and starts to mess things up
Chapter 17: Lorenzo III
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Margaery Tyrell sighed softly from her seat of gilded vines and gold roses.
Her gaze was distant and the lady of roses reached for a grape, purple and ripe and juicy. He strummed his lute gently, feeling the notes rather than hearing them, and watched as she gazed at the fruit briefly before returning it to the plate of gold and white with another soft, worried sigh.
Alla Tyrell, in a gown of rose pink, gave her cousin a look of concern. It was just the three of them, in one of the quiet corners of Highgarden’s many gardens. Amidst the well-trimmed shrubbery, fruit trees and berry bushes, they gathered under the shade of a marble pavilion.
A pitcher of Arbor Gold sat on the table, as did a platter of exotic fruits. Margaery Tyrell sat watching the Mander before her, while Alla Tyrell sat opposite her. He was seated a few feet away, on a low wooden bench of mahogany and etched with vines and flowers.
“Are you alright, Margaery?” Alla asked quietly.
The Rose of Highgarden turned to look at her cousin, giving her a soft smile. A girl of fourteen, Lorenzo mused, and she was considered almost a woman grown. He wrinkled his nose. In Luccini, she would have been considered just a child.
“It is nothing, Alla.” She responded. “We received a letter from King’s Landing, from my brother.”
“Ser Loras?” Alla asked and Margaery nodded. The Knight of Flowers. It was a majestic title, he concurred, one that bards could sing about, or mock. He knew how Lucia would react to that.
“Has harm befallen him?”
Margaery shook her head.
“It is what they write about that troubles me.” She said softly. “My good man,” She smiled at him. “Could I trouble you to play us a song? A cheery one, like a summer fair.”
Lorenzo gave her a dashing smile. Slender, elegant fingers danced along the strings of the lute and he tasted the sound of summer. It was light and fair, and bright and warm. It was the gentle giggle of maidens beneath apple trees, and the free laughter of children as they played gleefully along the riverside.
“Summer, the birth of life, and the coming of my heart.” He sang, closing his eyes. He thought of the Schaffenfest of Bogenhafen once more, and the bright market stalls with their tents of red and blue and yellow. He thought of the smiles of the Cuppolalini Family Circus, and the first taste of a cool beer amidst the sounds and sights of that fair, summer day.
“Sunlight, the end of night, and the ending of the dark.” He thought of tales of heroes and legends, who slayed the dragon and saved the maiden, and realised he heard little of these tales be it back home or here. The songs here were too sad, he thought, and he strummed a higher tune.
Margaery smiled, closing her eyes and swaying her head gently to the sound of summer. The Sound of Summer. Lorenzo nodded. He would pen this down later.
Quietly, almost unheard over the sound of the song, Margaery whispered to Alla.
“Renly’s plan has failed.”
A lesser man, and bard, would not have caught that but sound to his ears was like the clashing of steel for the master swordsman. Renly? The King’s youngest brother. By all accounts, a young and handsome man, more known for his charming smile and expensive garments and little else. And a close friend to Ser Loras.
Alla nodded. Margaery smiled at him as his tune slowed. She moved to speak but stopped, and her gaze was torn away. Lorenzo followed her eyes, and grimaced.
Lady Olenna Tyrell strolled into the pavilion, her twin guards trailing behind her. Each was seven feet tall, well-muscled, with broad shoulders and strong jaws. Both wore a gilded halfhelm, and a green cloak edged in gold satin, with the golden rose of Highgarden on their chests. A thick red moustache and stern blue eyes added to their intimidating visage.
“Wait outside.” The old woman snapped at her guards. Both men, cowed, silently stepped out and turned, facing away from the pavilion.
The Queen of Thorns sat on one of the empty gilded chairs, resting both of her soft, spotted hands on the golden rose at the handle of her walking cane. The wrinkled, wizened woman sniffed and Margaery reached to pour a goblet of wine.
“Grandmother.” Margaery greeted with a soft smile, giving Alla a meaningful gesture with her head. Alla rose, and gave a curtsy, before leaving the pavilion, giving him a glance as she left. Lorenzo slung the lute over his back and rose.
“Stay, boy.” Olenna Tyrell barked.
Lorenzo blinked, his emerald green eyes flashing.
“Green eyes, blond hair, as pretty as a woman.” Olenna scoffed. “Put a sword in your hand and gold armour on your body, and Old Tywin would claim you as his.” Her shrewd eyes stared at him without blinking, watching and waiting like a hawk.
Margaery gasped. “Grandmother!” She exclaimed.
He smiled. “I am but a bard of Braavos. The lion does not roar there, I hear.”
She peered into his eyes. “One did.”
Margaery gave her a curious look.
“Gerion Lannister. That brash lion went to the Free Cities for his coming of age tour…how many years ago?” Olenna Tyrell mused, her eyes never leaving his. “Twenty-seven. How old are you, bard?”
“Twenty-three.”
She harrumphed. “That name means nothing to you, does it not?”
“I cannot say I have heard of the name, my lady.”
She snorted at that. “Sit, singer.”
Lorenzo turned to the low bench. “Not there.” Olenna snapped. “Here.” She gestured with her head at the seat across hers, with Margaery watching between them from the side.
“Do you play the harp?” Olenna asked, slowly sipping from the golden goblet before her.
“The lute, mainly.”
“Don’t we all know?” She lashed with her tongue.
A dangerous woman. Lorenzo realised, and smiled. How long has it been since the days of his youth in the courts of Luccini, under the gaze of Lorenzo Lupo? That was a realm where treachery and schemes were a form of art, where words were wielded with as much mastery and lethality as swords were.
“I am but a bard.” He shrugged. “To bring life and sound to halls and taverns is my purpose.”
“A bard who sits next to lords, and who eats fruits with high ladies.” Olenna peered at him over the gilded rim of her goblet.
“The lords and ladies of the Reach are good patrons of the arts, and I am but a fortunate singer.”
“Where did you learn your craft, then?” Margaery asked with a smile.
“Everywhere, my lady of roses. From the sea shanties of Braavos’ sailors, to the rowdy tunes sung in taverns.”
“Surely, a master like you had to learn from someone famous? Alia of Braavos perhaps?”
She was as good as her grandmother, Lorenzo realised.
“Alas, I left Braavos when I was but a child!” He laughed, remembering old Niccolo and that rowdy old bandit’s life lessons. “I joined a ship of sailors and sailed the salty seas. From there on, men called me the Seasinger.”
Margaery laughed mirthfully.
“Where were your parents, then?” Olenna asked.
“The sea was my father, the doves above were the mothers I never had.”
Olenna rolled her eyes. “Fine words. I did not realise we had hired a poet as well.”
Lorenzo smiled once more. “I was looking towards learning poetry.”
Olenna huffed. “Did the sailors teach you how to speak like that?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “Books have been stalwart companions of mine since young. Books that the sailors gave me as payment, alongside continued passage.”
Olenna laughed, a short, sharp bark. “Books taught an orphan from Braavos how to speak better than some of the lords and princes of the realm?”
Lorenzo stared at her with amusement, the emeralds of his eyes gleaming against the dark clouds of hers. “There are some boys born into the saddle, who can outride the world. There are men who are born in the womb with mastery over the sword or the hammer or the bow. Why not with words?”
Olenna stared at him for a long moment, and her frown grew into a slow smile. “Perhaps that orphan from Braavos should have been born a lord of Westeros then.” She mused.
“Then, that butterfly might have never left the cocoon?”
Olenna raised her goblet with a laugh.
“We have plenty of fat, swollen worms stuck in their cocoons, no doubt. One of them is right here, in Highgarden, don’t you think?”
Lorenzo tapped his fingers on the fine table, to the tune of the Ballad of Ranald. “Highgarden has been too fine a sight, with beautiful flowers a plenty,” He gestured with a slight bow to Margaery who laughed and giggled. “For me to notice the more dreary sights of the world.” He lied, smoothly.
“The more dreary sights of the world!” She laughed and shook her head. “Go on now, bard. My son, the Lord of Highgarden, is preparing a feast yet again in the Great Hall and I’m sure he needs a bard or a dozen. Leave me to my granddaughter now.”
Lorenzo rose once more and gave her a bow. “A pleasure, Lady Olenna.”
She stared at him with a shrewd smile. He turned, brushing a lock of hair away from his eyes, and walked away from the pavilion.
By Shallya and Ranald, that woman is as dangerous as Lupo himself and Belladonna. Lorenzo breathed, a slight, single bead of sweat trailing down from his temple. Olenna Tyrell suspected something, something that he had not done and had no knowledge about, he knew. What was it?
The Lannisters? A harp? Lorenzo mused to himself. She wondered if I was a spy first but something else later.
The questions lingered on his mind even as he left the gardens and entered the Great Hall. He saw Lord Mace near the end of the long hall in deep conversation with a few young men, servants dashing about here and there preparing the hall for a feast.
“Ah, Lorenzo, my young friend!” Mace boomed with laughter. “I have need of your great talent of voice and song.”
He smiled. “How may I aid your great realm, my lord of flowers?”
“My son, Garlan, will be visiting this night in time for a great feast. I need you to write a song about his gallantry and perform it at the feast! These men will sing along with you.”
Lorenzo’s smile remained rigid on his face.
“Of course, my lord.”
Mace slapped him on his shoulder and strolled off, musing loudly over the courses of the coming feast. Lorenzo stared at the four young men staring at him. He smiled.
“My friends, I believe the best inspiration arrives from the heart of a hearth. Why not take a seat and have a drink, and find a muse?” The men looked at each other and at him and slow grins grew on their faces.
Lorenzo’s smile faded from his face as he watched their retreating backs. Write a song about a man I know nothing about, and perform it in a few hours. His smile returned hungrily. Lorenzo Lupo had given him half an hour each time.
He unslung his lute and left the hall humming. A knight. A gallant knight.
He stopped, peering down and out of a window. Willas Tyrell sat on a comfortable chair, overlooking the briar labyrinth of Highgarden, lounging and reading a book. Lorenzo smiled. As he walked down the white steps of the tower, the thought lingered on his mind.
A well-read, intelligent son. Two gallant knights. A maiden as beautiful as she is clever. All of that cannot come from the grandmother alone, he knew. He had seen little of Alerie Tyrell, the wife of the Lord Mace, but found her to be a quiet, dignified woman. Surely, there had to be something more to the Lord of Highgarden than the jolly, blundering oaf?
He shook his head as he approached Willas. The young lord turned at his approach and smiled, placing the book gently upon a small table. The Lives of Four Kings, it read on its cover.
“It has been awhile.” Willas greeted softly. “I hear my father has entrusted you with a most solemn task.” He gestured for one of the servants standing nearby to bring a seat and Lorenzo smiled in appreciation.
“A most solemn task, indeed.” He agreed. “A song for your most gallant brother, who I, regrettably, know little about.”
Willas shook his head and groaned slightly. “My father can be overly enthusiastic. Forgive him. Allow me to share more of my brother.”
A cushioned seat of green and gold was placed and Lorenzo gave the servant a grateful smile. In truth, he did not need these details but it could always give flourishes to the song, like the colourful flowers by the side of a well-baked tart and cake.
“Garlan, the Gallant.” Willas laughed softly. “I gave him that name when we were boys.” Lorenzo raised an eyebrow.
“Garth the Gross, an uncle of ours is called.” Willas explained and Lorenzo nodded, his face a mask of courtly politeness.
“Garlan was not… the slimmest of children, you see, but he grew into a fierce knight nonetheless. Undeniably, he is one of the finest swords of the Reach though he deigns not to participate in the tourneys that Loras loves.”
Lorenzo hummed in thought, glancing at the book on the table.
“The Lives of Four Kings,” Willas spoke. “By Maester Kaeth. An enriching tome truly. A terrible tragedy, you see, for there are but four copies in Westeros remaining.”
His curiosity piqued, Lorenzo replied. “I am familiar with the idea, I believe.” There was a rare tome in Luccini that he had never managed to find, the Lives of Twelve Princes. He stared at the book hungrily.
“Are you familiar with the Targaryen Kings?” Willas asked.
Lorenzo shrugged. “I know well the madness of Aerys, the cruelty of Maegor and the conquest of the Dragon.”
Willas waved his hand. “Any child across the realm knows that.” He laughed.
“It is a poor bard who sings of doom and darkness.” Lorenzo countered. “And the reign of the dragons was shrouded in those shadows.”
Willas tilted his head in acceptance. “I hear from the Maester you were reading the Red Fire?”
Lorenzo nodded. “A curious religion, this Lord of Light and his Red Priests.”
“A controversial one.” Willas gazed at the plains of the Reach. “Even in Highgarden, we heard of a Red Priestess’ arrival at Dragonstone, and all the rumours it brought. Does Braavos not have their fire burning?”
Does it? Lorenzo thought. Braavos, the free port city built by escaped slaves. It would be open to all religions, Lorenzo guessed, even ones of fire.
“It does but alas, I left Braavos when I was but a child.” Lorenzo waved his hand.
“Do you take any stock in the tales of their magicks and visions?” Willas asked curiously.
Lorenzo laughed. “Magic!” He shook his head. “I am always intrigued by the divine, be they real or but figments of Man’s imagination.”
“Do you worship any then?” Willas asked once more.
Lorenzo smiled. “I sing to the tune of doves and dice, of the sea and forest, of eagles and crows.”
Willas gave him a curious stare. “Alas, I must prepare for the feast now, my lord.” Lorenzo spoke mournfully. “Shall we continue this conversation another time?”
Willas smiled. “Of course.”
Lorenzo left the young lord to his book. Truthfully, ten minutes by the docks and the song would be ready. It could be worse, Lorenzo thought. The gardens of the white castle were peaceful and quiet, a flowery paradise. He found a seat by a long row of hedges and sat, strumming his lute and humming.
The hours flew by and the golden hues of sunset crawled above the horizon. He blinked. Time to go.
The path to the Great Hall was an easy one. One merely had to follow the servants with the silvery platters of food and golden pitchers of wine. The smell of roast meat and vegetables lingered in the hall, the aroma teasing his nostrils and taste buds.
Mace Tyrell beamed as he approached. “There you are, Seasinger! I was going to send one of my men to find you. Are you ready then?”
Lorenzo laughed slightly. “I always am, my lord of Highgarden.”
A special seat of red wood and gold edges was presented for him, to the side of the main table and six chairs were gathered around it. The lord and lady. Olenna Tyrell. The Lady Margaery. Willas. Garlan Tyrell.
“Garlan will arrive soon, within the hour.” Mace spoke. “As he enters, you will regale him, yes?”
Lorenzo nodded, and Mace slapped his shoulder joyfully once more. Lorenzo grimaced and shook his head. He unslung his lute and found a comfortable position. Gradually, the Tyrell family entered the Great Hall. Alerie Tyrell entered, her daughter by her side. Then, Willas entered, his cane clacking against the hall. Olenna Tyrell came last, escorted by her twin guards, and scoffed at the sight before her.
As the five Tyrells gathered around the table, Olenna spoke.
“Are you going to hold a feast everytime Garlan comes to visit? If Loras were to return on the morrow, would there be a feast then too?”
“Mother, it has been some time since Garlan was last home.” Alerie Tyrell reasoned.
Olenna huffed. “Don’t call me Mother. I would remember if I pushed you out of my womb. I do recall when Garlan was last home. Just eight moons ago!”
Margaery hid her giggle behind a slender hand while Willas laughed softly. A man approached Lord Mace, red-faced and sweating, and whispered in his ear. A smile broke across the jolly lord’s face. Mace Tyrell turned to give him a nod and he ran his finger down one of the strings of his lute in preparation.
Then, the grand doors of the Great Hall slowly creaked open. The herald by the door shouted loud and clearly. “Ser Garlan Tyrell and his companions!”
In walked a tall and well-built man, with brown hair and a brown beard. A cape of light green and gold edges fluttered as he entered, and two golden roses sat on his tabard of green while his armour shone bright. The man smiled easily but there was the gleam of a deadly warrior in his eyes.
“In the gardens of Highgarden, where roses bloom and fall, a knight of shining armor stood, his name known by all.” Lorenzo sang, his voice carried across the hall. Garlan’s eyes snapped to him and there was a curious glint in them. Margaery smiled at him and sighed softly while Olenna gave him a scrutinising look.
“With a sword that gleamed like morning sun, and a smile that charmed the night, Garlan the Gallant rode forth, a hero in the fight.” He continued, strumming gently. The hall had gone silent and Garlan continued his path to his family. Alerie smiled softly while Mace boomed with laughter. Willas gave him a grateful nod as Garlan arrived at the table, wrapping his mother in an embrace.
The sound of life and laughter bloomed through the hall once more, just as the warmth and light of the many hearths embraced them. Lorenzo strummed his lute gently, allowing the Tyrells to converse without being heard by the rest of the hall.
“How is Loras?” Garlan asked.
Mace moved to speak but Olenna spoke first. “As foolish as ever. That poorly planned idea with the fat stag failed. No doubt, Renly Baratheon will be prancing this way soon.”
Lorenzo’s eyes were drawn to another figure meanwhile. An armoured, frowning woman entering the hall, trailing behind the rest of Garlan’s retinue. She scowled at the men around her, and gazed about the hall, one hand on her mace’s handle. Then, she locked eyes with his emerald ones and her olive eyes widened in utter shock, and she glared, and scowled, and smiled.
Ranald’s blessing. Lorenzo smiled, giving a casual wave at Lucia.
Notes:
We just had a masquerade session in Altdorf where Lorenzo really showed why he is the speaker of the group, so I felt that this chapter with all the conversations and subtleties was a nice touch. Enjoy!
Chapter 18: Eddard II
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Robert, I beg of you,” Ned pleaded, “hear what you are saying. You are talking of murdering a child.”
“The whore is pregnant!” The king’s fist slammed down on the council table loud as a thunderclap. “I warned you this would happen, Ned. Back in the barrowlands, I warned you, but you did not care to hear it. Well, you’ll hear it now. I want them dead, mother and child both, and that fool Viserys as well. Is that plain enough for you? I want them dead.”
The other councillors were all doing their best to pretend that they were somewhere else. No doubt they were wiser than he was. Eddard Stark had seldom felt quite so alone. “You will dishonor yourself forever if you do this.”
“Then let it be on my head, so long as it is done. I am not so blind that I cannot see the shadow of the axe when it is hanging over my own neck.”
“There is no axe,” Ned told his king. “Only the shadow of a shadow, twenty years removed ... if it exists at all.”
“If?” Varys asked softly, wringing powdered hands together. “My lord, you wrong me. Would I bring lies to king and council?”
Ned looked at the eunuch coldly. “You would bring us the whisperings of a traitor half a world away, my lord. Perhaps Mormont is wrong. Perhaps he is lying?”
“Ser Jorah would not dare deceive me,” Varys said with a sly smile. “Rely on it, my lord. The princess is with child.”
“So you say. If you are wrong, we need not fear. If the girl miscarries, we need not fear. If she births a daughter in place of a son, we need not fear. If the babe dies in infancy, we need not fear.”
“But if it is a boy?” Robert insisted. “If he lives?”
“The narrow sea would still lie between us. I shall fear the Dothraki the day they teach their horses to run on water.”
The king took a swallow of wine and glowered at Ned across the council table. “So you would counsel me to do nothing until the dragonspawn has landed his army on my shores, is that it?”
“This ‘dragonspawn’ is in his mother’s belly,” Ned said. “Even Aegon did no conquering until after he was weaned.”
“Gods! You are stubborn as an aurochs, Stark.” The king looked around the council table. “Have the rest of you mislaid your tongues? Will no one talk sense to this frozenfaced fool?”
Varys gave the king an unctuous smile and laid a soft hand on Ned’s sleeve. “I understand your qualms, Lord Eddard, truly I do. It gave me no joy to bring this grievous news to council. It is a terrible thing we contemplate, a vile thing. Yet we who presume to rule must do vile things for the good of the realm, howevermuch it pains us.”
Lord Renly shrugged. “The matter seems simple enough to me. We ought to have had Viserys and his sister killed years ago, but His Grace my brother made the mistake of listening to Jon Arryn.”
“Mercy is never a mistake, Lord Renly,” Ned replied. “On the Trident, Ser Barristan here cut down a dozen good men, Robert’s friends and mine. When they brought him to us, grievously wounded and near death, Roose Bolton urged us to cut his throat, but your brother said, ‘I will not kill a man for loyalty, nor for fighting well,’ and sent his own maester to tend Ser Barristan’s wounds.” He gave the king a long cool look. “Would that man were here today.”
Robert had shame enough to blush. “It was not the same,” he complained. “Ser Barristan was a knight of the Kingsguard.”
“Whereas Daenerys is a fourteen-year-old girl.” Ned knew he was pushing this well past the point of wisdom, yet he could not keep silent. “Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of children?”
“To put an end to Targaryens!” the king growled.
“Your Grace, I never knew you to fear Rhaegar.” Ned fought to keep the scorn out of his voice, and failed. “Have the years so unmanned you that you tremble at the shadow of an unborn child?”
Robert purpled. “No more, Ned,” he warned, pointing. “Not another word. Have you forgotten who is king here?”
“No, Your Grace,” Ned replied. “Have you?”
“Enough!” the king bellowed. “I am sick of talk. I’ll be done with this, or be damned. What say you all?”
“She must be killed,” Lord Renly declared.
“We have no choice,” murmured Varys. “Sadly, sadly…”
Ser Barristan Selmy raised his pale blue eyes from the table and said, “Your Grace, there is honor in facing an enemy on the battlefield, but none in killing him in his mother’s womb. Forgive me, but I must stand with Lord Eddard.”
Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat, a process that seemed to take some minutes. “My order serves the realm, not the ruler. Once I counseled King Aerys as loyally as I counsel King Robert now, so I bear this girl child of his no ill will. Yet I ask you this— should war come again, how many soldiers will die? How many towns will burn? How many children will be ripped from their mothers to perish on the end of a spear?”
He stroked his luxuriant white beard, infinitely sad, infinitely weary. “Is it not wiser, even kinder, that Daenerys Targaryen should die now so that tens of thousands might live?”
“Kinder,” Varys said. “Oh, well and truly spoken, Grand Maester. It is so true. Should the gods in their caprice grant Daenerys Targaryen a son, the realm must bleed.”
Littlefinger was the last. As Ned looked to him, Lord Petyr stifled a yawn. “When you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it,” he declared. “Waiting won’t make the maid any prettier. Kiss her and be done with it.”
“Kiss her?” Ser Barristan repeated, aghast.
“A steel kiss,” said Littlefinger.
Robert turned to face his Hand. “Well, there it is, Ned. You and Selmy stand alone on this matter. The only question that remains is, who can we find to kill her?”
“Mormont craves a royal pardon,” Lord Renly reminded them.
“Desperately,” Varys said, “yet he craves life even more. By now, the princess nears Vaes Dothrak, where it is death to draw a blade. If I told you what the Dothraki would do to the poor man who used one on a khaleesi, none of you would sleep tonight.” He stroked a powdered cheek. “Now, poison ... the tears of Lys, let us say. Khal Drogo need never know it was not a natural death.”
Grand Maester Pycelle’s sleepy eyes flicked open. He squinted suspiciously at the eunuch.
"Poison is a coward’s weapon,” the king complained.
Ned had heard enough. “You send hired knives to kill a fourteen-year-old girl and still quibble about honor?” He pushed back his chair and stood. “Do it yourself, Robert. The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. Look her in the eyes before you kill her. See her tears, hear her last words. You owe her that much at least.”
“Gods,” the king swore, the word exploding out of him as if he could barely contain his fury. “You mean it, damn you.” He reached for the flagon of wine at his elbow, found it empty, and flung it away to shatter against the wall. “I am out of wine and out of patience. Enough of this. Just have it done.”
“I will not be part of murder, Robert. Do as you will, but do not ask me to fix my seal to it.”
For a moment Robert did not seem to understand what Ned was saying. Defiance was not a dish he tasted often. Slowly his face changed as comprehension came. His eyes narrowed and a flush crept up his neck past the velvet collar. He pointed an angry finger at Ned. “You are the King’s Hand, Lord Stark. You will do as I command you, or I’ll find me a Hand who will.”
“I wish him every success.” Ned unfastened the heavy clasp that clutched at the folds of his cloak, the ornate silver hand that was his badge of office. He laid it on the table in front of the king, saddened by the memory of the man who had pinned it on him, the friend he had loved. “I thought you a better man than this, Robert. I thought we had made a nobler king.”
Robert’s face was purple. “Out,” he croaked, choking on his rage. “Out, damn you, I’m done with you. What are you waiting for? Go, run back to Winterfell. And make certain I never look on your face again, or I swear, I’ll have your head on a spike!”
Ned bowed, and turned on his heel without another word. He could feel Robert’s eyes on his back. As he strode from the council chambers, the discussion resumed with scarcely a pause. “On Braavos there is a society called the Faceless Men,” Grand Maester Pycelle offered.
“Do you have any idea how costly they are?” Littlefinger complained. “You could hire an army of common sellswords for half the price, and that’s for a merchant. I don’t dare think what they might ask for a princess.”
The closing of the door behind him silenced the voices. Ser Boros Blount was stationed outside the chamber, wearing the long white cloak and armor of the Kingsguard. He gave Ned a quick, curious glance from the corner of his eye, but asked no questions. Andrei stood opposite the balding knight, tall and sturdy where the knight was short and fat.
The Kossar, as the warrior liked to call himself, had his hand on his axe and gave Ned a grim nod. Not for the first time, he tilted his head up slightly to match his swornsword’s cold, flinty eyes. Eyes that must have seen the horrors of war a thousandfold, Eddard knew.
He had fought in two wars in his lifetime, and grew up with soldiers. He had fought in the Rebellion at nine-and-ten, leading men and fighting battles he had never been meant to. And when his king and friend called, Ned frowned at that reminder, he had brought Ice to the Iron Isles. Yet, when he stared into the eyes of the Kossar, he saw a man that knew only war.
Kislev, Andrei had told him, a land of ice and snow and empty plains much like the North. A realm ruled by hard men and cold queens, a nation beset upon by vicious foes but graced with stalwart allies. An entire continent to the far west, Ned had mused often when he had the time.
He remembered his Maester’s lessons and the lengthy discussions he would oft do with his lady wife and Luwin of taxes, tariffs and trade. Yet, with his thousand responsibilities as Hand, the investigation surrounding Jon Arryn’s death that seemed to go nowhere, the trouble from his own children, he had found little time to raise the issue to Robert.
Little time and little desire, he confessed.
With Andrei’s stunning victory in the melee, word had spread that the man was a champion of the North. Robert, the gods damn him, had asked loudly where the warrior before him hailed from. The North, Andrei had grunted out. Like wildfire, the word of that spread through the streets of King’s Landing. The Starks had a great warrior that won the melee in King’s Landing, women whispered and men boasted in taverns of seeing the duel.
The crowned bear on his swornsword’s shield had drawn curious eyes in court as well, Ned knew. Already, there were whispers of Yeltska being the long-lost descendent of some old Mormont king in times past. A savage, unbeatable foe, a terror on the battlefield. The Bear of Ice, a song sung in rowdy inns to commemorate the victory, was wildly popular as well and he had heard some of his own guardsmen humming the tune.
“Did you hear much?” Ned asked wryly.
Andrei was silent for a moment. Other lords might have found disrespect in that gesture but he was used to his swornsword’s struggle with speaking.
“King angry?” Andrei grunted, his voice thick with his accent.
Ned sighed. “Furious.” He kept his words bare and little, cautious of the ears in the walls.
The day felt heavy and oppressive as he crossed the bailey back to the Tower of the Hand. He could feel the threat of rain in the air. Ned would have welcomed it. It might have made him feel a trifle less unclean.
The soft clink of chainmail and rustling of leather accompanied him. As he entered his solar, Andrei moved to stand by the door but Ned shook his head. “Enter.” He commanded softly and the warrior obeyed, standing behind him silently.
Barely three minutes passed and Vayon Poole stood before him, the aging steward sweating and staring at him curiously. “You sent for me, my lord Hand?”
“Hand no longer,” Ned told him. “The king and I have quarreled. We shall be returning to Winterfell.”
“I shall begin making arrangements at once, my lord. We will need a fortnight to ready everything for the journey.”
“We may not have a fortnight. We may not have a day. The king mentioned something about seeing my head on a spike.” Ned frowned. He did not truly believe the king would harm him, not Robert. He was angry now, but once Ned was safely out of sight, his rage would cool as it always did.
Always? Suddenly, uncomfortably, he found himself recalling Rhaegar Targaryen. Fifteen years dead, yet Robert hates him as much as ever. It was a disturbing notion ... and there was the other matter, the business with Catelyn and the dwarf that Yoren had warned him of last night. That would come to light soon, as sure as sunrise, and with the king in such a black fury...Robert might not care a fig for Tyrion Lannister, but it would touch on his pride, and there was no telling what the queen might do.
“It might be safest if I went on ahead,” he told Poole. “I will take my daughters and a few guardsmen. The rest of you can follow when you are ready. Inform Jory, but tell no one else, and do nothing until the girls and I have gone. The castle is full of eyes and ears, and I would rather my plans were not known.”
“As you command, my lord.”
As his steward departed, Ned rubbed his pounding temple.
“Perhaps I ought to thank Robert.” He mused softly. “Perhaps I ought to have never left Winterfell. Bran falling, that matter with Sansa’s wolf…”
He heard the slight shuffling of his swordsword, hesitant to speak. Ned turned to him.
“Take a seat, Yeltska. And speak your mind. I would have honest words around me.”
The bear of a man hesitantly found his way to the seat across Ned’s table and sat down gingerly. “Even in Kislev…” He began clumsily. “South is…” He grasped at a word he could not voice out.
Ned nodded. “Starks melt in the south.” He shook his head bitterly. “I have heard that saying aplenty.”
Perhaps he and Catelyn would make a new son together when he returned, they were not so old yet. And of late he had often found himself dreaming of snow, of the deep quiet of the wolfswood at night.
And yet, the thought of leaving angered him as well. So much was still undone. Robert and his council of cravens and flatterers would beggar the realm if left unchecked ... or, worse, sell it to the Lannisters in payment of their loans. And the truth of Jon Arryn’s death still eluded him. Oh, he had found a few pieces, enough to convince him that Jon had indeed been murdered, but that was no more than the spoor of an animal on the forest floor. He had not sighted the beast itself yet, though he sensed it was there, lurking, hidden, treacherous.
He gave the warrior in front of him a long, cool look and the Kossar met his eyes without fear. Could he share those secrets with the warrior before him? Should he?
Though a stranger and foreigner in his land, Yeltska had slew savage wildlings to defend a Northerner. He had upheld a guest’s courtesy in Winterfell, and rode quietly with them to King’s Landing. He had guarded and escorted Arya dutifully, much to his daughter’s annoyance, and threatened the Hound to his face for Sansa. And when the ten thousand gold dragons of the melee came, in the form of ten heavy oak chests, he had quietly asked if the Starks could hold it for him.
Aye, Ned thought, the man could be trusted. A lesser man would have taken the gold and left his service. A man could do much with ten thousand gold after all, and Ned would not have begrudged him.
“Yeltska.” He started quietly. “What I will say must not leave this room.”
The Kossar did not blink, and nodded.
“Back in Winterfell,” Ned told him. “A letter came from Lysa, my wife’s sister and the wife of Jon Arryn. Accusations that the Lannisters had poisoned him, the Hand of the King. Madness, treachery and mystery in ink.”
And so he spoke, of the visits that Jon Arryn and Stannis Baratheon paid to Tobho Mott’s armoury and the brothel, of his suspicions and worries.
It struck him suddenly that he might return to Winterfell by sea. Ned was no sailor, and ordinarily would have preferred the kingsroad, but if he took ship he could stop at Dragonstone and speak with Stannis Baratheon. Pycelle had sent a raven off across the water, with a polite letter from Ned requesting Lord Stannis to return to his seat on the small council.
As yet, there had been no reply, but the silence only deepened his suspicions. Lord Stannis shared the secret Jon Arryn had died for, he was certain of it. The truth he sought might very well be waiting for him on the ancient island fortress of House Targaryen.
“I do not know what would make a man like Lord Stannis retreat from King’s Landing.” He admitted quietly. “But I know that this city has become more dangerous, too dangerous to remain.”
Ned slid the dagger that Catelyn had brought him out of the sheath on his belt. The Imp’s knife. Why would the dwarf want Bran dead? To silence him, surely. Another secret, or only a different strand of the same web?
“Baelish told my wife and I that Tyrion Lannister sent a catspaw for Bran’s life, armed him with his own dagger.” He handed the slim Valyrian Steel knife to Andrei, who took it carefully and gave the blade a curious, wondering look.
“What do you make of that?”
“Small man but clever.” Andrei grunted. “Too clever.”
Ned nodded. “Arming a mere assassin with one’s own dagger. A dagger of Valyrian Steel.”
Andrei moved to return the dagger but Ned shook his head. “Keep it.” He said with amusement, watching the stoic warrior blink. “A reward for dutiful service, and I believe you can make use of that better than I can.”
Andrei’s lips twitched in amusement. “I know someone… better with daggers. My thanks, lord.”
Ned waved it off, tearing his eyes away from the dagger. He had grown weary of its constant presence, and reminder. Could Robert be part of it? He would not have thought so, but once he would not have thought Robert could command the murder of women and children either.
Catelyn had tried to warn him. You knew the man, she had said. The king is a stranger to you. The sooner he was quit of King’s Landing, the better. If there was a ship sailing north on the morrow, it would be well to be on it. He summoned Vayon Poole once more.
“The King…” Ned mused out loud. “Do you know why we quarreled?”
Andrei was silent at that.
“Daenerys Targaryen, a girl of four-and-ten. The last of the dragons, married to a horselord on the far side of the world.” Ned sighed. “Still, the shadow of the dragons looms over Robert.”
The Kislevite understood. “King wants her dead.”
“And I would have no part in that.”
Andrei nodded uncomfortably. “Will… king harm you?” He asked solemnly.
Ned gave him a quiet, strained look. “I do not believe so.” He assured himself.
Poole arrived once more, tired but at attention. “Find me a fast ship with a skilled captain,” he told the steward. “I care nothing for the size of its cabins or the quality of its appointments, so long as it is swift and safe. I wish to leave at once.”
Poole had no sooner taken his leave than Tomard announced a visitor. “Lord Baelish to see you, m’lord.”
Ned was half-tempted to turn him away, but thought better of it. He was not free yet; until he was, he must play their games. “Show him in, Tom.”
Andrei moved to stand behind him once more.
Lord Petyr sauntered into the solar as if nothing had gone amiss that morning. He wore a slashed velvet doublet in cream-and-silver, a grey silk cloak trimmed with black fox, and his customary mocking smile.
Ned greeted him coldly. “Might I ask the reason for this visit, Lord Baelish?”
“I won’t detain you long, I’m on my way to dine with Lady Tanda. Lamprey pie and roast suckling pig. She has some thought to wed me to her younger daughter, so her table is always astonishing. If truth be told, I’d sooner marry the pig, but don’t tell her. I do love lamprey pie.”
“Don’t let me keep you from your eels, my lord,” Ned said with icy disdain. “At the moment, I cannot think of anyone whose company I desire less than yours.”
The quiet report that Yeltska had given him of Baelish’s attention upon Sansa at the tourney had rankled and infuriated him.
“Oh, I’m certain if you put your mind to it, you could come up with a few names. Varys, say. Cersei. Or Robert. His Grace is most wroth with you. He went on about you at some length after you took your leave of us this morning. The words insolence and ingratitude came into it frequently, I seem to recall.”
Ned did not honor that with a reply. Nor did he offer his guest a seat, but Littlefinger took one anyway. “After you stormed out, it was left to me to convince them not to hire the Faceless Men,” he continued blithely. “Instead Varys will quietly let it be known that we’ll make a lord of whoever does in the Targaryen girl.”
Ned was disgusted. “So now we grant titles to assassins.”
Littlefinger shrugged. “Titles are cheap. The Faceless Men are expensive. If truth be told, I did the Targaryen girl more good than you with all your talk of honor. Let some sellsword drunk on visions of lordship try to kill her. Likely he’ll make a botch of it, and afterward, the Dothraki will be on their guard. If we’d sent a Faceless Man after her, she’d be as good as buried.”
Ned frowned. “You sit in council and talk of ugly women and steel kisses, and now you expect me to believe that you tried to protect the girl? How big a fool do you take me for?”
“Well, quite an enormous one, actually,” said Littlefinger, laughing.
“Do you always find murder so amusing, Lord Baelish?”
“It’s not murder I find amusing, Lord Stark, it’s you. You rule like a man dancing on rotten ice. I daresay you will make a noble splash. I believe I heard the first crack this morning.”
“The first and last,” said Ned. “I’ve had my fill.”
“When do you mean to return to Winterfell, my lord?”
“As soon as I can. What concern is that of yours?”
“None ... but if perchance you’re still here come evenfall, I’d be pleased to take you to this brothel your man Jory has been searching for so ineffectually.” Littlefinger smiled. “And I won’t even tell the Lady Catelyn.”
Ned was silent for a long moment. The faces of his wife and children flashed across his mind, of Winterfell and snow, of Robb’s grin and Bran’s smile and Rickon’s laugh. And of Jon. Then, he thought of his youth in the Vale, and the booming laughter of Robert Baratheon, still a boy before the war made him a king, and of the calm smile of Jon Arryn behind them.
“I will be there.” Ned nodded stiffly.
Baelish gave him a playful smile and rose, bowing mockingly. “I shall await your arrival, my lord.” The Master of Coin smiled at him, his eyes gleaming.
As he left, Ned stared at the hard wood of his table, brooding in silence.
“I will bring two guards with me to this brothel,” he eventually broke. “You will follow me as well.”
“Double.” Andrei spoke quietly.
Ned raised an eyebrow.
“Double… guards.” Andrei continued, meeting his eyes. “Not hurt if more.”
Ned tried to smile. “Good advice.” He leaned against the back of his chair and rubbed his temple once more. “Was your homeland much like this?”
Andrei stared at him, and shook his head. “Kislev was … simple. For Kossars at least. Stand and fight.” He gestured at his axe.
“And your lords and ladies?” Ned asked curiously.
“Too busy fighting…” He grasped at the words, scrunching his face in concentration. “Savages. Raiders. Hard land, hard people.”
Like the North, Ned thought. Once again, he regretted his decision to ever leave Winterfell.
Suddenly, Andrei blinked. “When we go North…” He asked hesitantly. “Bring friend?”
Ned gave him a confused look. “Who?”
Andrei scratched his beard. “Trusted. Companion. In city. Good hands.” Andrei praised quietly
Ned blinked. “So you’ve found one of your companions, then?”
“Aye.”
“When was this?”
“When we came to city.” Andrei responded.
Ned thought for a moment. “I would be glad to have another warrior like yourself in my household.” He wondered what this man would be like.
Andrei blinked. “He is… good with daggers.”
“So, the men of your homeland favour daggers as well?” Ned asked. “I had the impression that axes and maces were favoured.”
Andrei shook his head. “Not Kislevite.” He scratched his head. “South. From Empire.”
Ned gave him a curious look. Empires were rare. The Valyrian Freehold could have been considered one, as did the Ghiscari of old, but both were but shadows of their former glory. “What was this Empire called?” He poured them both cool, Northern wine from a near forgotten pitcher on his desk.
Andrei smiled mirthfully. “Empire of Man.”
Ned laughed slightly. “A grand title. Even an arrogant one.”
Andrei shrugged. “Bigger than Kislev. Richer. More men.” He took a sip from the wine. “Older. Some are soft, but many… good soldiers.” The Kislevite gave a rare praise. “Strong allies.”
Would that the South was like that here, Ned sighed.
“And their Emperor?” Ned continued, finding himself eager to learn. “What is he like?”
Andrei finished his drink. “Karl Franz.” He spoke with a tone of respect. “Good warrior, mighty emperor. Not like…” The Kossar seemed to remember himself and halted, nodding his head apologetically.
Ned waved it off. “Not like Robert?”
He nodded hesitantly. Ned sighed.
“Truthfully, he is not the man I knew.” Ned said softly. “Not anymore.”
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 33
little conversation chapter :3
Chapter 19: Gunther III
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Heard some Myrish merchant’s bought a new warehouse by the River Row.” Len muttered out as he chewed on a loaf of bread.
“Where’s Myr again?” Gunther replied lazily from his bedroll. He flicked a gold dragon up and caught it, letting it reflect the sunlight streaming in through the boarded windows.
“Somewhere to the east.” Len finished his bread. “One of them Free Cities.”
Gunther flicked his forehead and the young boy swatted at his hand. “Don’t talk while you’re chewing. What about the warehouse?”
“Could be wine,” Len shrugged. “Or lace. I heard there’s someone in the Street of Silk we can sell those to.”
Gunther rose slowly, stretching and yawning. Their little hideout had seen much improvement as of late. He had bought candles with their stolen coin, and two bedrolls and a firm lock for the flimsy door.
“We can take a look.” He shrugged. “Let me teach you how to case a place.”
“What’s that mean?” Len asked curiously as they walked out.
Gunther shook his head. “Take a guess.”
“Watch?”
Gunther smirked. “Aye.”
The two of them strolled out into the dirty, messy streets of Flea Bottom. It was a slow morning, and even the sunlight seemed hesitant to approach the slums of the city. Gunther kept his hands close to his daggers. His pistol remained hidden by his cape, tucked away at his lower hip. Len had grown to emulate him, and kept one hand on the little knife that he had been learning to throw.
Gradually, the horrid stink of Flea Bottom gave way to the slightly more tolerable buzz and blood of the Butcher’s Row. Both of them kept walking, ignoring the calls of the blood-stained butchers. “Fresh cuts of boar! Freshly butchered! You’ll find no better cuts and prices in the city.” A portly man called out, swinging his cleaver.
“City seems emptier today.” Gunther muttered under his breath.
“The tourney, remember.” Len playfully reminded him. “Today’s the joust. Heard knights from all over the realm are here.”
Gunther scoffed quietly to himself. Knights.
At least the knights back home could match their haughty arrogance with valour and skill. The Knights of the Blazing Sun had passed through the streets of Nuln regularly, and he remembered the stars in the eyes of street urchins as those knights of the sun rode by in their armour of black and gold.
“Whatever,” Gunther waved his hand. “Where’s this warehouse again?”
“Not too far from Fishmonger’s Square.” Len yawned.
“How big is it?”
Len thought for a moment. “Two storeys, I think. As big as six of those shops over there put together.” He pointed.
Gunther glanced at him. “What kind of warehouse is that small?”
Len shrugged. “Maybe he’s not that rich?”
Gunther looked away. Or he has something to hide.
They made their way south, passing by merchants on wagons and labourers and sellswords. The city felt emptier, indeed. Several food vendors that he would have bought from were not here. Raising their prices at that tourney, no doubt.
If only Lucia were here, he thought. She’ll give those knights a good kicking.
He snickered to himself. After all, it was not like Andrei would participate in gaudy displays like these. Then, his companion nudged his arm.
“There it is.” Len whispered, and he subtly turned to look.
Just like Len had said, it was a relatively small warehouse. Old, rotting wooden walls held the world outside at bay, like a decrepit woman clutching at her pearls. It had a crumbling, timbered roof and a bored mercenary in boiled leather watching the door.
“Two pies. The one with fish.” Gunther called out to a passing baker, who accepted his coins and handed two warm fish pies to him with a smile. He handed one to Len and munched on the other, as they leaned against an alley wall. “Alright,” Gunther drawled. “What do you see?”
Len looked at him confused. “One guard.”
“What about the guard?” Gunther continued.
Len squinted. “Boiled leather. Longsword. Knife behind him. Looks bored.”
“Look at his eyes.”
Len took another bite and blinked.
The sellsword by the door leaned against the wall, and took a swig from his wineskin. Once again, the man glanced at a nearby tavern across the street, where another man watched. Clad in chainmail and leather, and with a crossbow on his back, the second guard watched from across the street like a hawk.
“That one can see the alleyways beside the warehouse.” Len realised.
“Aye.” Gunther smirked. “And that one’s yours.”
‘What!” The boy nearly shouted. “He’s going to shoot me.” Len argued.
“Shoot a street urchin in broad daylight?” Gunther countered.
“He’ll chase you, no doubt, let him. Does he look like he’s from here?” Gunther continued.
Len took a look at the man, and shook his head. “Looks like a Stormlander, me thinks.”
“Lose him in the alleyways and the crowds. I’ll meet you back at the house.” Gunther gave the boy a playful smile. “Unless you can’t do it?”
Len puffed his chest out. “Of course.”
Gunther slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go.”
They walked out of the alleyway. Gunther slowed his steps while Len took a right. The young boy darted forward, deliberately crashing into the man with the crossbow. Gunther smirked as Len snatched the man’s coinpouch.
“Hey!” The man called out, reaching out to grab the little urchin. Len dodged him with ease and ran. The sellsword cursed and followed behind. The guard by the door looked at his fellow sellsword with confusion and uncertainty, and Gunther slipped into the sidestreet by the warehouse with ease.
He leapt in through an open window and ducked behind a large wooden crate. One, two, three. He counted. Silence greeted him.
Gunther threw out a quick prayer and peeked over the crate. The room was empty of life. Wooden crates were arranged neatly around the sides of the room, each one bearing a mark of a green eye. Some were longer while some were taller but each was locked.
Gunther grinned, pulling out his lockpicks. He glanced about the room, like a child with new toys. He strolled towards a long chest and quickly picked its bronze lock. Softly and gently, he released the clasp and opened the chest.
Gunther scowled at the expensive Myrish carpet in the chest, rolled up neatly. It was a scarlet red with gold threads sewn in the shape of some beast but he could not make it out. He closed the chest and moved on to the next one.
A chest of thick cotton blankets seemed to mock him, and then one of glass mirrors and another with pale green wine. Right, how am I supposed to bring these with me? Gunther grumbled to himself.
He opened a fourth chest and blinked. Long rolls of soft, white lace, as pristine as snow. Instinctively, he looked around before he took two of the rolls and shoved them in his pouches. He crept towards a fifth chest. This one was the smallest of the chests and secured with two locks. The second lock barely slowed him.
Gunther opened the chest, and he blinked.
A crossbow, smaller than a standard one, sat on a cushion of gold cloth. The wood of the crossbow was a smooth, polished midnight black and the drawstring seemed to glint at him. Silver engravings in the tongue of Myr decorated the sides of the handheld weapon. A small hip quiver with a dozen bolts of lethal steel sat to the right along with a dark leather holster.
Gunther grinned broadly. Ranald, thank you.
He quickly strapped the holster to his belt, and the hip quiver to his right. The crossbow found its new home on his left thigh. He smiled like a cat and turned towards the window, and he froze as the floorboards creaked above.
“Again, I must thank you for this opportunity.” An accented voice spoke on the second floor.
A smooth, refined voice replied with a laugh. “No matter, my friend. We are both businessmen here.”
The accented voice continued. “So that favour you wanted carried out…”
He heard the sound of footsteps approaching the stairs. He cursed to himself and closed the chest before throwing himself behind and under it.
He could hear their voices closer and clearer now, just a few feet away from him.
“My associates will arrive within the moon.” The man with the accent spoke.
“I trust they will be as good as you say they are.”
“They are the best that I know of in Myr. Better mummers and watchers you will not find.”
He heard the sound of a shoulder being clapped, and the exchange of a pouch.
“Enjoy a night at Chataya’s, friend. On me.”
The accented voice laughed and he heard the sound of the door opening. The other man lingered for a moment. Then, he heard the creaking of the stairs as the man walked up.
All of Gunther’s instincts screamed at him to leap out of the window across the room, to leave this warehouse behind and to forget about that conversation. He glanced down at the crossbow by his thigh and the daggers at his hip.
Andrei was in the Red Keep where the King and his nobles danced on a dagger’s edge, and Ranald alone knew what the others were doing. Something was afoot, he knew. Gunther scowled, clutching at the grip of his daggers. He had to do something, right?
He drew a dagger and gripped it in his right hand and held the loaded crossbow with his left. He drew up his black cloth mask and covered the bottom half of his face before pulling his hood up. Night Prowler, bless me.
Gunther kept himself low and silently crept up the stairs, like a quiet spirit haunting some long dead manor. He knew just where and how to place his feet to avoid the creaking of the steps. He kept his breathing regulated and his limbs loose but controlled, and concentrated his hearing.
The second floor was surprisingly lavish. A purple carpet and rows of torches lined the hallway, and he could see four doors of dark wood. He stepped silently towards one of the doors and placed his ear against the door and heard nothing but silence. He slowly opened the door and glanced at the interior. A simple bedroom.
He quietly closed the door. He repeated the process again, and found a small pantry room with wine and food. A simple brown wooden table was placed in a corner, with a pitcher of wine and three goblets and a basket of fruits. The sound of footsteps came from down the hallway and Gunther quickly ducked beside the door to the room.
Fuck.
A well-dressed man walked into the room. He was short and slender, in a plum-coloured doublet, and a silver satin cape. The man hummed to himself as he approached the table, still not noticing Gunther.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Then, the man turned and his smile froze on his face. There was a short, sharp beard on his chin, and he had dark hair with threads of grey running through it. On his plum doublet was a mockingbird embroidered in black silk. The man kept his eyes on Gunther and a friendly smile on his face.
“I am unarmed.” He called out. “Would you like a drink, friend? Arbor gold, Dornish red, vintages from the east. Assassin’s work must be thirsty work, no?” He laughed, but his voice was just strained ever slightly so.
Gunther kept silent and pointed his crossbow at him.
The man raised both of his hands, his eyes widening slightly. “Whoever paid you has not valued your talents enough, good man. I will pay you double to walk away, triple to kill him in return. How much were you offered? A thousand gold dragons, perhaps? Two thousand?” The man continued.
Gunther grunted. “Go on.”
“Surely, you must know the trouble that will come with killing the Master of Coin? I drink with the King and converse with the high lords daily, my friend. Whatever lowlife has hired you, it is not worth it, I assure you. Unless, of course, it was someone higher than mine own position who bought your service?”
The Master of Coin. He remembered Len’s words. That sly fellow, who writes the taxes. Heard he runs most of the brothels.
“The fact that you have not shot me shows that you’re a man of intelligence.” He pressed on. “I could use a man like you. What could I offer you? Gold? Women? Prestige? A castle may be difficult but I could get you a manse in the city with no trouble.” He laughed.
Gunther kept his distance, keeping his crossbow firmly aimed at the man’s throat. “Gold to blind me with, women who will stab me in my sleep, a manse to bury me in.” He snarked back. What am I doing?
“You sound young and yet already so talented. I can help you, my friend. Work with me and you will become the most feared assassin in Westeros.” The man smiled but Gunther could see the fear building in his eyes.
“Help me, huh?” Gunther drawled, pointing his crossbow at the man’s crotch. “Alright, coin master, how will you do so?”
The man blinked before letting out a forced laugh. “Why, you shall be given the best arms and armour money can buy. Daggers of Valyrian steel, a crossbow of ironwood, leather and chainmail made from the smiths of Qohor. You can inflict terror upon all the lords of the realm. Perhaps, you can even visit the Queen herself in her bedchambers.” The man winked at him.
Despite himself, Gunther found himself admiring the man’s courage. “Triple to kill the man who hired me, you say?”
The man nodded. “Triple to bring me his head.”
Gunther smirked under his mask. “I want … a taste first.” He nodded to the coinpouch by the man’s hip. Without hesitation, the Master of Coin grabbed his pouch and tossed it at Gunther. He sheathed his dagger and caught the heavy, bulging pouch of coin. Gunther whistled in appreciation.
“Like you said, that is just a taste.” The man said with a smile. “Bring me the head of the man who hired you and I shall pay you triple of what he offered.”
“Deal.” Gunther bowed mockingly and slowly walked out of the room, keeping his crossbow pointed at him. He backed out into the hallway before turning and dashing down the stairs and out of the window, his heart beating like it was trying to flee from his own body.
He ran down that alleyway, quickly slinging the crossbow where it should be. He shoved the coinpouch in a compartment beneath his leather vest, and pulled his hood and mask down. As he stepped out of the alleyway, he slowed his steps. Not a soul bothered to spare him a glance as he walked amongst the crowd.
Gunther took a deep breath and let it out. As he walked past a legless beggar staring at him pitifully, a black cat by his side, Gunther stopped. He glanced about, seeing no one looking his way. He drew the satin pouch from his vest and untied it. Inside, there were over fifty gold dragons. Gunther grinned and tossed one of the coins at the beggar.
“Feed the cat well.” He told the confused but grateful beggar. “That’s the tithe.”
He placed the pouch back under his vest and strolled off. Gunther whistled lightly to himself as he sauntered through the streets of King’s Landing. The sky had begun to darken as he delved back into the dark alleyways and filthy streets of Flea Bottom. He knocked thrice on the door, and he heard the sound of light feet scrambling from inside. The heavy lock was unlocked and Len opened the door with wide eyes.
“What took you so long? Thought you got caught!” Len exclaimed.
Gunther waved him off. “Had to be careful.” He withdrew the satin pouch and placed it on the table. Len gawked at it and, then, noticed the crossbow by his thigh. “That’s not fair, where’s mine?” He whined.
Gunther rolled his eyes as he took the two rolls of snow white lace from his pouch.
“You said there’s someone we can sell this to?” Gunther yawned.
Len scratched his head. “A brothel, I think. I know the way.”
Gunther nodded. “Tomorrow, then.” He stretched his arms and walked towards the bucket of water in the corner. He cupped a handful of cool water and washed his face with it.
“You’re resting already?” Len said. “It’s just sunset.”
“That warehouse belonged to the Master of Coin, apparently.” Gunther waved his hand. “What was his name again?”
Len nearly dropped the cup of water in his hands. “Lord Baelish?” He whispered. “That was Lord Baelish’s warehouse?”
Gunther glanced at him. “Could be his. He was there, talking to some merchant.”
Gunther grabbed a half loaf of bread from the table. Next to it was a platter of ham and a chunk of hard cheese. He sliced a piece of ham and cheese and ate it with his bread. “That’s why we’re laying low. That brothel, is it owned by him?”
Len gulped down his water. “I don’t think so.”
Gunther chewed on his bread and swallowed. “Get some rest, then.”
Len muttered a soft, uncertain acknowledgement and Gunther crashed into his bedroll, the day’s exhaustion claiming him. As he drifted to sleep, his thoughts lingered on the smoke-covered skies of Nuln. How are they doing? Gunther thought.
His oldest brother, Erich, should still be in Stirland, standing guard wherever he had been assigned. Eva, his useless bard of a sister, was somewhere out there in the Old World, he knew. The two rascals, Kristoff and Klara, were still back home with their mother and father. Could the four of them survive on the income of a washerwoman?
Ever since the accusations of thievery had claimed his father’s arms, his family had lived on a knife’s edge. When he had still been there, they managed to scrape by but now?
Gunther shook his head. Lorenzo will figure something out. And he fell asleep.
He rose just as the tendrils of light from the morning sun came. Len stirred beside him and Gunther rubbed his tired eyes.
“Come on, brat,” Gunther called out, covering his mouth as he yawned. He washed his face and checked his equipment. Len sliced a piece of ham and chewed on it before they walked out.
“Heard it’s the melee today,” Len said. “Apparently, the winner gets ten thousand gold dragons. Imagine that!”
Gunther blinked. “Ten thousand…Where do they even get that much money?”
Len shrugged. “King’s generous.”
They continued their walk quietly, heading for the Street of Silk.
“Say, why do you think they want lace?” Len asked curiously.
Gunther glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Len scratched his cheek. “Aren’t they usually just… wearing nothing?”
Gunther laughed. “Not if they want to seem more exquisite, and expensive.”
Len looked at him. “How do you know?”
Gunther looked at the dark sky above. “A friend I knew.” Slow, grumbling clouds had rolled above the city. “Might rain.” Gunther muttered. “Let’s hurry.”
“It’s just down the street,” Len complained. “That one over there, see?”
It was two stories tall with a stone ground floor and a timber upper floor, with many leaded windows. Over the door swung an ornate lamp of gilded metal and scarlet glass. Gunther looked at him. “Stay here.”
Len grumbled but nodded. Inside the entrance, the air smelled of exotic spice. A mosaic of two women entwined in love displayed itself on the floor. Behind an ornate screen carved with flowers and dreaming maidens was the common room, where sunlight poured through a leaded coloured glass window.
A man sat by the corner playing pipes, while girls in flowing silks giggled with flushed men. A tall, elegant woman with ebon skin in a green, feathered gown looked at him.
“Welcome,” She smiled. Her voice was smooth and melodious, with an accent he had not heard yet. Her eyes inspected his attire and daggers, searching for his coinpouch. Gunther gave the room a quick glance and sat across from her.
“Nice silks.” He said. “Where did you get them?”
The woman laughed. “The men who come here usually care more for the flesh beneath the silk.”
Gunther shrugged, withdrawing the two rolls of lace from his pouch. “Perhaps lace will make them look more at the attire?”
The woman laughed once more, a melodious song of amusement. She picked up one of the rolls and gave it a scrutinising stare before nodding.
“Two gold.” The woman smiled. Gunther scoffed. “No way. Four.”
The woman shook her head. “Three.”
Gunther stared at her. “Good Myrish lace, lady. Three dragons and a handful of stags.”
She smiled again. “Very well.” She extended a hand. “Chataya.”
Gunther fought the urge to blink. “Rand.” He accepted her graceful hand.
She drew three gold dragons and a dozen silver stags from a green, silk purse and placed them carefully on the table, stacking the gold and silver separately. Gunther grinned as he swiped the coins into his hand. “Pleasure doing business with you.” He rose and turned to leave.
“Come back again anytime.” She called out.
Gunther whistled to himself as he left the brothel. Len was still outside, leaning against a low wall and he beamed at seeing Gunther.
“How much did you get?” Len asked.
“Three gold and a handful of silvers.” Gunther shrugged. “Better than nothing.”
Len’s eyes widened. “For two rolls of that?”
“Some things are worth more than their weight in gold, kid.” Gunther laughed. “Come on, let’s go get something to eat.”
They made their way to the Hook, for a tavern they frequented when they felt like having a warm, decent meal. The South Boar it was called, and it was a simple two-story tavern with a warm hearth inside and plenty of tables. Despite the plain exterior and barren decorations, the food was a delight.
“What’s to eat today?” Len called out to the innkeeper with an impish grin. The man was in his forties, with the beginnings of a belly, and he was always friendly. His wife handled the cooking while his daughter helped with bringing the food.
“Martha made a good stew. Boar.” Alton said with a smile. “Meat pie too.”
Gunther nodded and his stomach seemed to agree. “Two bowls and two pies. Ale for me, juice for the kid.” He slid two silver stags across the counter.
“Wonder who won the melee,” Len muttered, glancing about the room. “Heard that madman with the flaming sword is in.”
“What?” Gunther turned to him.
“Some fire priest from the east, I heard.” Len shrugged as the food was placed before them. Two bowls of warm, steaming stew with chunks of boar meat and carrots. Two freshly baked pies served on platters, a mug of ale and a mug of fresh juice. Gunther took a sip of the stew and sighed in satisfaction.
“We should come here more often.” Len said.
Gunther hummed in thought. “Why not.”
More men started to stream into the tavern as the sky darkened outside. Fishermen, tailors and dyers loudly talked amongst themselves, complaining and drinking.
A pair of sellswords who had just entered the tavern called for their drinks.
One of them laughed at the other. “How long did you even survive in the melee?”
His companion scowled. “Long enough. You saw those two at the end. That madman with his flaming sword and that great bear of a man.”
Gunther blinked before shaking his head. Probably just some burly brute.
“Diving and knocking down a man whose sword was on fire.” The first sellsword gulped his ale greedily. “I know they say Northerners are savage berserkers but still. Wonder where House Yeltska is. Can’t say I ever heard of it.”
His companion grumbled. “So far north that no one knows probably. What’s a Northerner going to do with ten thousand gold?”
Gunther stared at his stew in frozen silence.
Len noticed and nudged him. “Got a bug in your stew?” The boy asked while chewing his meat pie.
Gunther blinked and slowly shook his head. “Nothing.” He muttered under his breath and continued eating. Ten thousand gold. Gunther thought mutedly, still in shock.
What?
They finished their meal and hurried back through the winding streets. “Wonder what I would do with ten thousand gold. Say, the winner of the melee has to be some knight right? The Kingslayer maybe?” Len wondered to himself.
Three days later, after stealing rolls of lace from another Myrish merchant, urgent knocks came to the door an hour before midday. Gunther kept his finger on the trigger of his crossbow as he slowly opened the door.
Andrei stared at the crossbow in his hand and at him.
Gunther scowled, holstering his crossbow. “Ten thousand gold dragons, huh?”
Andrei placed his hand on Gunther’s shoulder. “You can ride horse and fight knight next time.” He responded in Reikspiel. “I come in?”
Gunther glared at him and stepped aside. “You’ve been busy.”
Andrei nodded with a neutral expression. “I am Stark guard now.”
“What?” Gunther exclaimed.
Andrei continued, as if he had never spoken. “Lord Stark is…King’s Hand. Powerful. Can know things.” Andrei gestured with his hand, and noticed Len watching from his bedroll.
“Who’s that?” Len asked curiously.
“A friend of mine.” Gunther waved him away. “Go to sleep.”
“I am trying to.” Len scowled at him before turning around.
Andrei barely gave the boy a glance. “Court dangerous.” Andrei muttered, placing his weight on the flimsy wooden stool that Gunther sat on usually.
“What’s new?” Gunther muttered.
Andrei shook his head. “Lord Stark say last Hand poisoned. Maybe by Lannisters. We investigate. Stark’s son almost killed by assassin. Littlefinger say Lannisters hired assassin.”
“Littlefinger?” Gunther glanced at him with confusion. “Who’s that?”
Andrei scratched his beard. “Coin master.”
His eyes widened. “The Master of Coin? Baelish?”
“You know him?” Andrei asked.
“Might have… visited one of his warehouses the other day. He thought I was an assassin.” Gunther smirked. “Took his pouch.” He gestured to the coin pouch on the table. Andrei laughed. “He scared. Ran to King.”
“Shit.” Gunther cursed to himself.
“He never see face?” Andrei asked curiously. Gunther shook his head.
Andrei nodded. “Maybe you can be good assassin.” He said and Gunther could not tell if he were joking. Andrei drew a dagger from his hip and Gunther stared at the dark, smoky blade. It had a smooth, bone hilt and he could tell that the steel was sharp. Gunther blinked. “Can I have that?” He asked instinctively.
Andrei huffed. “Assassin used this dagger for Stark son. Baelish said Lannister imp gave it to assassin.”
“What sort of fool arms an assassin with his own dagger?” Gunther laughed.
Andrei nodded grimly. “Yes.”
Gunther blinked. “Huh. Lannister imp? Tyrion Lannister? Is his mind stunted?”
Andrei shook his head. “No.”
“Oh.” Gunther realised.
“King angry with Stark.” Andrei continued. “Lord Stark not hand now. Might leave city soon. Ship back to north. You can come.”
Gunther stared at him and glanced back at the snoring Len. “You want him come?” Andrei asked curiously.
Gunther kept his eyes on the boy. “I’m sure he will be fine without me. What ship is that you’re taking?” He turned to Andrei. “Wait, the North is bloody cold right?”
“Not as cold as Kislev.” Andrei tried to smile and Gunther stared in horror. “I accompany Lord Stark to investigate at sunset. We may leave this night, or tomorrow. Will come find you.”
Gunther stared at Andrei and nodded. The Kossar patted his shoulder and turned to leave. Gunther gave his retreating back a long stare.
“What did you two talk about?” Len turned around from his bedroll.
Gunther sighed. “Nothing.” He gave the kid a good look. “Want to eat at the Boar? My treat.”
Len beamed at him. “Wonder what they have today.”
Gunther was quiet as they walked and just as silent when they entered the South Boar. He picked at the roast chicken before him and took small sips of his mushroom soup. “Is your chicken raw?” Len asked with his mouth full of chicken.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Gunther replied, irritated.
Len rolled his eyes and chewed his food before swallowing. “You barely ate.” The young boy pointed out.
Gunther sighed once more. “Might have to leave the city soon.”
Len blinked. “Oh.”
The two of them stared at their plates quietly.
“Might have to go to the North.” Gunther continued softly. “It’s bloody cold up there.”
Len kept his eyes on his chicken. Gunther smacked his back and the young boy glared at him with teary eyes. “Come on,” Gunther said, gesturing for the door. Len followed quietly. “Look at that merchant,” Gunther whispered. “What do you see?”
Len glanced at the same man he was looking at. A merchant in a red tunic and white breeches, with a bulging coinpouch. “His pouch is coming loose.” Len said softly.
“Right, and that sellsword over there?”
Len squinted. “His coin pouch is almost empty.”
“What do you think that means?”
“His real one is somewhere else on his body.”
Gunther laughed and Len smiled slightly. “I don’t have much else to teach you, lad.” Gunther smiled awkwardly. Len huffed. “Do you really have to go to the North?”
Gunther looked up at the darkening skies. “I do.” He said.
Len tried to smile. “Will you steal a wolf fang?”
“What?”
“A wolf fang.”
“I can try.” Gunther shrugged. Len laughed.
“Come on. Let’s go sell the lace.” Gunther patted him on the head.
As they crossed over to the Street of Sisters once more, a light drizzle began to fall upon King’s Landing. “It’s finally raining,” Len said, looking up and letting the rain wash his face. Gunther held his hand out and watched the falling droplets crash against the leather vambraces. In Nuln, the clouds of industrial smoke and smog were so thick that the skies were blotted out. Not even sunlight could pierce through that grey shield and only rain could break it.
Not like it made it any brighter. Gunther scoffed to himself.
As they crossed through an alleyway, his instincts screamed at him. Gunther ducked, avoiding a heavy wooden club as it soared through the air. He drew both of his daggers swiftly, good Imperial steel both. A bald man snarled at him and swung the club once more. Gunther stepped to the side, letting the club hit nothing but air.
Finally, he recognised the man. “Oh, I stole from you, right.” The thug before him roared with rage and swung his club again. Gunther took a step back. Len screamed behind him and Gunther stiffened. He turned his head and saw another man storming towards the boy with a vicious smile. Gunther ducked under another club swing and plunged one dagger into his attacker’s throat and the other into his heart.
He left them there and turned swiftly, drawing his crossbow. The second thug hissed in pain as Len slashed his palm with a small knife. “You little shit.” He cursed. He reached for the boy once more and then froze. His body seemed to shudder and twitch before collapsing limply, a bolt emerging from his eye.
“Prick,” Gunther muttered to himself. He reclaimed both of his daggers and cleaned them on the stained tunic of the first man. Then, he strolled towards the second and gripped his bolt. With a firm tug, he pulled his bolt free from the man’s eye. He cleaned the blood and pieces of eye on the man’s hair with a grimace before returning the bolt to his quiver.
Len stared at him with wide eyes, still clutching his bloodied knife.
“You okay, kid?” Gunther asked. Len blinked and nodded hesitantly. “That was amazing.” He breathed. “Where did you learn that?”
Gunther stared at him. “Here and there.” He waved.
“Where is there?” Len pressed. “Where are you from?”
Gunther rubbed his face and smirked at him. “Don’t think you’ve heard of the place. It’s a city called Nuln.” He puffed his chest out.
“Nuln?” Len tested the word curiously.
“Aye, it’s a city of art and invention and bl-” Gunther cut himself off. “It’s where I grew up.” And where I need to go.
“Did you learn from someone?” Len continued.
Gunther scratched his head. Did Randolph, his old fence, count? Or was Hans, his old companion for gang violence, his ‘mentor’ for fighting. “You’ll just pick these things up as you go.” Gunther grinned.
“You’ve gotten pretty good, you know,” Gunther continued. “Just keep practicing safely and you’ll improve. By Ranald, you were better than me when I was your age.” Gunther smirked. He had started stealing at fourteen.
“Who’s Ranald?” Len stared at him curiously.
Gunther glanced at the sky. The rain had gotten heavier and the sky was so dark they could not tell the time. “He’s a …” Gunther trailed off, thinking on the words.
“He’s a God of Luck.” He decided. “A patron of thieves. Pray to him for fortune and freedom. If you deserve it, He will gift you with luck. And if you want to start, then remember to give one in ten coins to Him.”
“How do I do that?” Len asked.
Gunther shrugged. “You’ll figure it out.”
The two of them left the alleyway. “Where is this Nuln? Is it a free city?” Len asked again. Gunther laughed. “Something like that.” Then, his laughter died.
The streets were dark and empty, Gunther realised, and a sinking feeling grew within the pits of his stomach. “What’s wrong?” Len asked.
A pair of men walked past them in a hurry, away from the direction they were walking. Gunther stared at them, catching a singular word that they said over the heavy thunder and rain. Fight.
“Something’s wrong. A fight ahead, I think.” He whispered. “Stay close.”
“Fights are common in Flea Bottom.” Len said uncertainly. “In the Street of Silk…”
Gunther hushed him and clutched his dagger. The rain made visibility poor and the sound of the raindrops crashing against the street, and the occasional thunder, meant that he could hear little. They were close to Chataya’s brothel now, he knew, recognising some of the familiar buildings on the street.
Then ahead, he started to see it.
A fight. A score of armoured soldiers, clad in chainmail and steel and metal helms with golden lions. Their red cloaks were darkened with rainwater and looked like capes of blood. He saw who they were fighting, and his heart seemed to freeze.
Five gruff Northerners in boiled leather, a grim man with a sword, and Andrei who was fighting like a man possessed, howling with fury.
Notes:
things start to spiral
Chapter 20: Bonus Chapter and Announcement
Notes:
Right, this is meant to be more of a little announcement but I decided to throw in a short bonus chapter anyways as a little gift. As you all know, the characters of the party are all the player characters of a DND game I am running, set within the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy. Each of their backstories, personalities and characterisations have been the hard work and genius roleplaying of the players (and my brilliant DMing of course)
I had already written some short prose pieces for the characters, within the context of Warhammer, so I decided to put them together for a short side story that I am posting. It's titled Old World Tales and you can find it in my profile! Hope that helps you all understand these characters better :D
Without further ado, here is a little peek at what everyone's favourite fire lady has been up to.
Chapter Text
She peered into the fire, the red flames dancing and crackling.
Bless me with your wisdom of fire, O Lord of Light. Melisandre prayed. Show me the bleeding star and the last song, show me the Prince That Was Promised.
The fire sang to her, the tendrils of flame twisting and moving. Figures formed within the orange-red hues and Melisandre looked.
Green eyes peered at her curiously, like emeralds shining amidst the fire. She stared back fearlessly, for the servants of light and fire held no fear in their heart. The fire sang songs of seas and doves to her and Melisandre tilted her head curiously.
“Show me more.” Melisandre whispered.
She saw the docks of some queer, rich city. Azure waters twinkled like diamonds and buildings of white marble loomed behind them. Braavos? She thought and dismissed that notion. Braavos paled to the beauty she saw before her. A banner fluttered in the gentle breeze, stripes of red and white with a golden beast in the centre encircled with a golden laurel wreath. A leopard?
She saw a green and red hummingbird soaring away from this ancient city, finding an eagle with torn wings, bleeding from a thousand cuts. The hummingbird sang a warm, gentle song and the eagle screeched, flying along with the hummingbird. The cry of the eagle rang with golden light and the fire twisted in the form of a spear’s head.
Melisandre blinked, waving her head and restoring the fire.
The scene before her changed. She saw a black bear guarding a pack of wolves in a snake’s den, roaring furiously against lions and birds as a spider watched and spun its web. She saw a grey shadow stalk a dark street, with one dragon’s fang, and a wolf cub following him.
The fire roared to life and she saw a stone dragon stirring. Eagle and hummingbird watched the garden embrace a stag with a flower crown. The lions roared, the krakens stirred and the vipers hissed while dragons woke.
A faceless figure swirled to life in the fire, a figure in a waste of snow.
“Show me Azor Ahai.” She prayed, and she saw nought but the dark figure in the snow.
“Show me the Prince That Was Promised.” She prayed once more and the fire blessed her.
Amidst the flickering flames, she saw a blazing comet with twin tails of fire. She saw a white wolf and a crowned bear roaring in winter, and heard the rattling of dice and the crashing of the sea’s waves. She saw an eagle with golden light and a dove with white light, and smelled the scent of the forests and fields. Owls flew above her, and a ghostly, deathly rattle rasped to her.
“Burn not the statue.” It warned her.
“Who are you?” Melisandre whispered cautiously.
Ravens cawed and the fire seemed to burn quieter, with black tinges and dark embers. She saw a garden with black roses bloom within the flame, and a hooded figure in a black cloak tending to the flowers.
A ghostly rattle answered her. The hood fell and a skull gazed at her with empty eye sockets. From its hollow mouth came the silent sound of Death.
Melisandre breathed, clutching her fist and willing the fire to dance to her command.
“The Great Other.” She whispered.
“Is to the North.” Death responded.
“Who are you?” She asked once more.
“Melisandre of Asshai.” came the voice of a quiet woman, impossibly wise and ancient. A blind, beautiful woman stood in the fire, a golden sword in one hand and a set of scales in the other. “Melony.”
Melisandre’s jaw clenched. “Enough.” She called. “Enough.” She begged.
Then came the rattling of dice and the sound of a coin being flipped. “You did say you wanted to be shown.” A smooth, laughing voice mocked playfully.
The fire had grown now, and blazed with white-hot heat. She saw a clearing in a forest and saw a man in black die in snow, his lifeblood pooling around him.
R’hllor, God of Flame and Shadow, Lord of Light and Heart of Fire, bless your servant with fire, envelop me in light, protect me from the whispers of the dark and from the servants of the Great Other.
Silence enveloped the room as the fire dimmed.
Melisandre breathed heavily, feeling the sweat on her temple. She wiped it with one long, pale finger and stared at the bead of sweat on her finger.
When was the last time she had sweated?
Hesitantly, she walked towards the fireplace in her room, peering cautiously.
Then the fire roared to life once again, and Melisandre saw.
Chapter 21: Lucia IV
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“What.” Lucia stared at the bard before her, annoyance flickering across her face.
It was a moonlit night, with dancing, glimmering stars decorating the black sky. Lorenzo sat on a bench of pale crimson wood, with gold carvings of flowers, while she paced before him. He strummed lightly on his lute, giving her a soft smile and turned to look at the fountain in the garden. A small babe of white marble was frozen in his dance above that fountain, playing on a harp of polished stone. Gleaming blue waters flowed and trickled, adding to the melody of the songbirds.
Groves of olive and orange were clustered neatly through the garden, one of many within Highgarden, as were berry bushes and small fields of flowers. She wondered how much gold had been wasted.
Lorenzo gave the green heaven before them a wistful sigh. “You will have to be more specific than that, my dear friend.” He said softly in Estalian, staring at a butterfly with red and yellow wings fluttering over a hedge row.
“How are you here?” She growled. “Why are we here? Where are the others? How do we get back?” She tended to speak faster when she was angry, and more of her Magrittan accent revealed itself.
“I walked here,” Lorenzo smiled, staring at her with emerald eyes that did not blink. “I do not know why we are here, though I have some theories, nor do I know where the others are or how we return to… home.”
Lucia stared back. “Theories?”
“We were walking past Altdorf’s Colleges of Magic, no?” Lorenzo laughed. “Perhaps a spell gone awry?”
Lucia glared at him. “Be serious.”
Lorenzo’s smile never faded, nor did his eyes blink. “I am. If it were not Imperial magic, then it could be the work of the gods.” He offered, strumming a low, dark tune. “I have had dreams.”
She suppressed a groan. “What did you see this time?”
He shook his head, his gold locks falling to shadow his face. “Too much.” He stared at the mosaic tiles. “Before I awoke, I saw a three-eyed raven. It asked me who I was and why I was here, and I flew along with it. I flew across the continent, I believe, and then to the east where I saw three dragons. We would have flown north if not for a one-eyed crow attacking us but doves fought it off. A voice called to me and said a single word. North.”
Lucia stared at him. She was no stranger to Lorenzo’s dreams. Even before their entry into the Empire and joining with the others, they had travelled together. An unarmed bard had strolled into the dangerous, dry Sombra Woods of Magritta and stumbled upon a dying warrior. He had sung a song and she still remembered all she felt when her wounds slowly dissipated. Ever since then, and through their trek in miserable Bretonnia, he had spoken of dreams and visions.
It had only grown more once they had started to travel with the others through the Reikland, and as they entered Altdorf. Yet, this?
Lorenzo gave a strained smile. “There is more.” He brushed his hair away from his face. “Some time later, after I had found myself a guest of the Tyrell,” he gestured to the garden of beauty around them.
“You better explain that.” She muttered quietly.
He continued, as if she had never spoken. “A white owl came to my room, and when I looked at it, I saw.” He paused, tuning his lute absent-mindedly. “I saw, what I believe, this Rebellion that I hear about. The one that saw the dragon’s dynasty fall.”
Lucia nodded. Oberyn had told her stories, but his face darkened whenever King’s Landing was mentioned and he would stop there.
“I saw an island of stone dragons, and the three-eyed raven from before returned.” He smiled with amusement. “I saw the others. I saw you, with your mace held high with glowing light, as bright as the sun.”
She blinked. He continued.
“I saw a stag die, and I felt the land crack. I saw a wolf die, and I heard a woman cry. I saw a kraken die, and I saw the one-eyed crow once more.” He intoned, his smile vanishing. “Then, the owl and the raven brought me north and I saw a wall of ice.”
Lorenzo was silent for a long moment, his green eyes far and away.
“And?” Lucia asked quietly.
“Death was marching on that wall.” Lorenzo said softly.
“Death?” She gave him a puzzled look.
He sighed. “I do not know, my friend. I do not know if that was a warning, or a command.” He stared at her, and she fought the urge to blink.
“How have things been?” Lorenzo gave her a curious smile.
She scowled, and sat on the bench next to him. Lorenzo winced slightly at the groan that the bench gave but she ignored him. “I woke up in a cave, in a desert. Dorne.”
Lorenzo laughed. “I have read about the Dornish. I must say, it must have felt like home, no?”
Home. Lucia thought bitterly. Was home the brothel that her mother worked and died in? Was it Magritta where she and all the angry youths around her had howled like hounds each night in a dance of violence? Was it the forests of the Estalian hinterlands where her Hounds had waged their own war against the wealthy and the powerful? It might be that forest where she had nearly died, where she should have died, after the Hounds turned into a rabid, biting beast. Lucia kept her gaze on the night sky.
“Where did you wake up?”
Lorenzo shrugged. “A few hours from Highgarden. Ranald must have been generous. Tell me about your journey. How did you come to Highgarden from Dorne?”
Lucia smiled slightly at that. She spoke of her march through the desert, and the fight with the man they had called Darkstar. She spoke of Sunspear and the Red Viper and Ellaria, and of the Water Gardens and Doran Martell. She spoke of the Sunkiss, and the sea journey, and of Oldtown and her ride through the Reach where she had joined with Ser Garlan’s retinue on their way to Highgarden.
All the while, Lorenzo listened quietly with a small smile. “The Red Viper…” He mused. “The Princes of Dorne.”
“What of it?” Lucia grunted. “Right, he wanted me to convey his greetings to a Willas Tyrell.”
Lorenzo blinked, and he laughed with amusement. “I have spoken much with the young lord. I find myself enjoying those conversations. You sound like you enjoyed your time with the Martells.”
Did she? “I guess.” She said uncomfortably.
“I wonder if our friends are as blessed as us with their company…” He trailed off.
“Nevermind that, what is the story you have told them?” He asked.
“Sellsword from the east.” She responded.
Lorenzo gave her an incredulous stare. “I suppose that is sufficient. Which city?”
Lucia shrugged. He sighed. “You would not believe the stories I had to tell. I was born in Braavos and grew up with sailors and visited a hundred ports in my youth. I wandered through the Stormlands and the Reach, I told them, but had forgotten their tongue and needed a refresher.” He blinked. “Did you know Braavosi is the same as Classical Tilean?”
“What?” She stared at him. He nodded.
“That dead language that only scholars speak,” He glanced at the gardens, where Ser Garlan strolled towards them.
“Well met.” The knight nodded and flashed them a casual smile. She nodded slowly, and watched as Lorenzo gave his charming smile.
“Well met, Ser.” Lorenzo spoke in Westerosi, with nary an accent. “Your brother has spoken much about you.”
Garlan gave an exaggerated shudder. “I dread the tales that Willas had shared,” He looked at her. “I see the two of you are acquainted?”
She gave Lorenzo a look and the bard smiled. “We travelled together back home,” He lied smoothly.
“One day, you must tell me some of those tales,” Garlan laughed. “I wanted to speak to each of you.” He extended a gloved hand towards Lorenzo, who accepted it gracefully.
“Willas told me much of you as well,” Garlan said. “Other than the Red Viper,” the knight frowned, “There are few men my brother speaks of fondly. You are one of them.”
Lorenzo bowed his head. “It is an honour.” Lucia rolled her eyes.
Garlan waved it off. “My father sang praises of you as well. More of your voice and songs, than of your mind, truth be told. I came to express my thanks.”
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow, as did she.
“It must not have been easy, what my father asked of you.” Garlan explained.
“For a lesser bard, perhaps.”
The knight before them laughed. “It was a brilliant song, and I was told you had but hours to write it. I look forward to your future work.” He turned his gaze to Lucia.
“I will admit, my lady,” Garlan flashed her a smile. “I am curious as to how well you swing that mace. You have the eyes of a seasoned warrior. I came to ask for a spar, perhaps in the yard tomorrow?”
Lucia stared at him, and nodded. The knight bowed. “I shall be there an hour before noon,” Garlan promised.
The two of them watched quietly as the gallant knight left.
“What do you make of him?” Lorenzo asked softly, in Estalian.
Lucia was silent for a moment. “There are worse knights,” She eventually said.
Lorenzo smiled wryly at her. “I think you are too harsh,” He chided. “This land is closer to Bretonnia than the Empire when it comes to respect for women warriors. Women in general, I think. Ser Garlan’s gallantry means even more considering that.”
Lucia nodded begrudgingly. She shook her head and sighed. “When are we leaving?” She asked.
Lorenzo strummed a playful sound. “When the gods tell us to.”
“And when will that be?” She asked impatiently, scowling.
Lorenzo merely smiled. His strumming continued and from the seeds of the tuning grew a slow song of home and adventure. He hummed gently as he played, and she allowed herself to close her eyes.
A part of her wondered what the others were doing. Another howled in preparation for the duel tomorrow, eager to test her steel against the gallant knight. She opened her eyes just as Lorenzo’s song ended.
“Let us resume our conversation tomorrow?” Lorenzo offered. He covered a soft yawn with a gentle, elegant hand.
Lucia shrugged. “Where am I sleeping?” She realised.
Lorenzo blinked.
In the end, a passing servant directed her to a white stone tower where guests stayed. Lorenzo had smiled charmingly at the young maid and asked for a warm bath and fresh clothes, and the giggling, blushing servant agreed without hesitation.
“No need to thank me.” Lorenzo smiled at her before walking away. Lucia stared at his back and shook her head.
She gave the room a passing glance. A simple, comfortable bed with green and gold sheets and soft, silk pillows sat at a corner. Next to it was a small oak nightstand with candles. On the other end of the room was a polished table, with gilded carvings of roses, with more lighted and scented candles. There were slits in the stone walls, and she looked down to see a dark, empty courtyard.
She placed her helmet, which she had hooked to her belt, on the nightstand. Then, she removed the pauldrons. She struggled to unclasp the leather binds of her chestplate but pushed through, and set her armour pieces on the table gingerly. Then came a knock on the door. Instinctively, Lucia placed a hand on the dagger by her back hip as she opened the door.
The same young servant stood there with four buckets of steaming water. There were three other girls, young and doe-eyed, two were holding heavy buckets and the third had a pair of breeches and a simple tunic. The servant girl stared at her in apprehension and wonder. “For your bath, my lady.” She stuttered.
Lucia released her hand from her dagger and stepped aside. “Let me.” She offered, taking the buckets from the stunned servant.
“The bath is right there, my lady.” The young girl said softly, gesturing towards a gilded divider. She guided the other two servants in pouring the hot water in the bath and Lucia did the same.
“My thanks.” Lucia said quietly and the meek servant bowed.
The steam of the bathtub rose lazily and tantalizingly. Lucia removed her gauntlets next, placing the heavy metal gloves on the table, to the right of the breastplate. She took a seat on the soft bed, and slowly removed her steel boots. She rose, placing them neatly by the bed.
She felt oddly naked, even with the chainmail shirt over her red tunic and brown breeches. She shrugged off the feeling, unbuckling the dark leather belt and resting it on the green, gold sheets of the bed. Then, she removed the heavy shirt of mail, tugging it over her head, and she ignored how it cluttered her hair messily.
The cloth left her body, and she lowered herself into the bathtub gently.
She stared at the strictures adorning her armour solemnly.
Act With Honour And Dignity In All Matters, one demanded. Preserve the Weak From the Horrors of War, another decreed.
She closed her eyes, leaning back and allowing herself to rest.
She had left one kingdom and entered the flowery heart of the other, and found one of her companions, and yet she still was at a loss.
“No.” She murmured to herself. The others are there. Somewhere. Lorenzo is already getting his damned visions. We’ll get an answer.
She rose, stiff and sudden like a protruding blade. Uncaring of the water streaming down her tanned skin and soaking the soft carpets, she knelt on the floors and closed her eyes, clasping her hands together tightly. She faced east, where the morning sun would rise in but a few hours.
“Our Lady of War,” She began her prayer. “Watch over your servant in this foreign land. Blessed Goddess, lend me your strength. Grant me the will to protect the weak, grant me the fire to cleanse the corrupt.”
Despite the water and the cold, night wind, she felt a warmth bubble inside her, growing slowly like the birth of a campfire.
“By the Eagle and the Sun, I pledge to the coming battles. I vow not to waver, and not to fall. I swear on your holy light to stand as a bastion of humanity, as a champion of the pure.” She intoned. The comforting warmth swelled, and seemed to roar like a blazing bonfire in her.
Her voice rose in fervour. “I pledge to stand tall against the fire of perdition, to drive back the shadow of Chaos. Grant us the grace to know thy enemy, and the honour to slay them in honourable battle. Keep our shields steady and our armour unbreakable. Guide us to home, and to victory.” She prayed.
She opened her eyes and for a brief, fleeting moment, she saw a glint of golden light reflecting from the cold steel of her cuirass. She blinked, and it was gone. She muttered a quick prayer for her companions, though she said the least words for Andrei. The old Kossar could handle anything thrown his way, she felt.
She rose slowly, drying herself with a towel and putting on the clothes that the servants had provided. Over the comfortable cloth, she draped herself in the cold steel of her chainmail, and wore her gauntlets. She placed her dagger under her pillow, and her mace on the nightstand, and allowed herself to drift to sleep.
Morning came, and with it, a melodious rapping on her door. Three fast knocks, two slow ones, and another trio of fast knocks.
She opened her eyes, giving the green-painted ceiling a glance. She took her dagger, snuggled under the silk pillows, and walked for the door. She opened it slowly, revealing Lorenzo’s irritatingly cheery grin. She glanced at the windowslit behind her, and at the rising sun, before turning back to him. The bard seemed immaculate, as ever, and held a silver tray of food in his hands.
“I came from breakfast with the servants,” He explained calmly and strolled into the room. He left the platter on the table and took a seat by the edge of the bed.
She ignored him and sat on the bright chair. The wood was rose-coloured, with a built-in cushion of gold silk. Everything here was too bright, she grimaced. The platter upon the food sat was a bright silver, with a knife and fork of polished steel. She ignored the cutlery and took the loaf of warm bread, tearing it in half.
There was a cut of cold butter on a smooth wooden plate, and slices of ham and cheese on another one. She stabbed the butter with the knife, piercing it and slathering it on the bread. “So what’s the plan?” She spoke as she chewed.
Lorenzo looked aghast. “The plan,” He eyed her. “Soon, I will have tarts and tea with the ladies of the court. After that, Willas Tyrell has invited me for luncheon, we shall both watch your duel with Ser Garlan with great interest. In the late afternoon, I will write a new song to commemorate Lord Mace’s victory seventeen years ago.”
Lucia stared at him. “You’re working here now?” She said with displeasure.
Lorenzo merely laughed. “Do you know who the king’s brothers are?” He replied.
Lucia gave him a flat look. “Don’t change the topic.”
He shook his head. “Tell me what you know of the king’s brothers.” He said again, quietly. “Of young Renly and grim Stannis.”
She looked at the melting butter on the bread in her hands and chucked the last chunk into her mouth. She reached for the mug of watered wine and took a long drag of the fruit wine. She remembered the few words of disdain Oberyn had thrown around when it came to the House of Baratheon. “Not much.” She admitted.
“Did you know Renly is…” He smiled. “Close with Ser Loras? Garlan’s younger brother. Did you know the Lord Stannis has not been in the city for moons, and rumours have it that he has taken a witch of fire as an advisor? A witch from a place they call Asshai.” He seemed to test and taste the word.
“Magic?” She looked at him.
“Perhaps,” He shrugged. “I do not just sing, my dear friend, I talk and I listen. Where else can one learn and gather information than in a high court? Look around,” He gestured to the bed. “Gold threads for a guest’s bed, and not even a lordly or knightly guest.” He raised an eyebrow.
“House Tyrell is the second richest house on this continent,” He said plainly. “The first is the House of Lannister. I believe I bear some resemblance to their features.”
Lucia finished her drink, ignoring his look of utter amusement. “You want me to ingrain myself with that knight.” She said flatly.
“Whatever would make you think so?” He placed his hands on his chest and smiled but his green eyes bore into hers. For a brief second, a ray of warm sunlight spilled into the room. It seemed to illuminate Lorenzo’s face, and the emeralds of his eyes seemed to radiate inhumanly. Then, the sun continued on its path and the light faded from the room.
Was that Myrmidia’s sign? Lucia mused as she stared at Lorenzo, who only offered her a soft, slight smile.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “What do I need to do?”
“What you do best,” Lorenzo beamed at her. He rose, and smoothened his cape and breeches. “Now, I believe I have a most important meeting to attend to.”
Lucia rolled her eyes as he made to leave. “Wait,” she barked.
Lorenzo halted by the door, turning and giving her a curious look. She handed him the silver tray, and gave his shoulder a pat. He shook his head, and walked away with the platter in hand.
She turned her attention to her armour. The knight seemed a decent fighter, she thought, she would meet him with all she had.
Her cuirass was the first, then she slowly secured her steel pauldrons. The tasses followed, and the greaves. She buckled her leather belt on, and slid both the dagger and the gilded mace into them. She strapped her heavy kite shield to her back and gingerly wore her steel helm, the basinet weighing heavy and cold upon her.
She left her room, and grimaced when a startled servant nearly dropped her basket of clothes. She knelt to help the girl who seemed terrified. “A-apologies, my lord,” the girl stammered.
Lucia shook her head. “No lord here. Not a knight either.” She said quietly in Westerosi. “How to go to courtyard?”
The girl blinked, and pointed to a tower stairway at the end of the hallway.
She gave the girl a pat on the shoulder and walked away, leaving the confused servant alone. Lucia made her way down the stone stairs quietly.
Not for the first time, she wondered how Lorenzo did it. All the talking and thinking that he did with ease, weaving his way into the Tyrell’s flowery web and singing the songs they wanted to hear. She shook her head, finding comfort in the shield on her back and the mace by her side. All I need.
She found Ser Garlan by the edge of the courtyard, which was ringed by roses. He sat on a stool, sharpening his blade on a whetstone. The knight was armoured in plate much like her. On the cuirass were vines engraved opon the steel that seemed to stretch upwards. Polished pauldrons, brassards and gauntlets covered his arms, and a cape of gold and green fluttered in the wind.
Layered steel tasses covered his thighs, and below them was faded green cloth, and cuisses and greaves. A round steel shield leaned against his knee, green with two golden roses emblazoned on it.
The knight gave her an easy smile. “Good morning,” he greeted.
Lucia nodded. “I am ready.”
Garlan Tyrell laughed. “Give me but a moment, my lady. I fear my blade has been blunted as of late.”
She glanced at the steel that seemed to flash in the daylight. A simple but fine longsword with a brown hilt and a pommel of a golden rose. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. “You have used it much?” She asked.
“My men and I rode out to exterminate a camp of brigands,” he explained. “Not a glorious battle for sure, but necessary work. They had grown bold, and started to hide along the river banks to ambush passing barges.”
A grimace spread across her face and she thanked Myrmidia for her helmet. There was but a single river close to the Sombra Woods where she and her men had prowled. Most of their banditry had been committed along swampy roads. She gave him a slow nod, unsure of a response.
“I must admit, when I saw you, I had wondered if you were Lord Selwyn’s daughter.”
Lucia glanced at him, and remembered that he could not see her face. “Lord Selwyn?” She asked.
“I have heard tales of his daughter. A fierce warrior.” His face turned grim. “One who no doubt struggles more when away from the sparring yard.”
Lucia scoffed quietly and she rose. “I am ready, knight.” She said.
Garlan smiled and placed his greathelm upon his head. He rose, holding his shield with his left and leveraging his blade with his right. They walked slowly to the courtyard and stood ten feet away from each other.
“May the Warrior guide your mace,” Garlan said affably.
She nodded, twirling her weapon. Her metal kite shield was in her left hand, and her mace in the right.
Garlan raised his shield and rested his blade flat against the top of the shield, and slowly approached her from her right, where her shield could not cover. Then, his sword came biting forward, as fast as the Red Viper’s spear.
She caught it with the edge of her shield, and brought her mace down upon it but the knight withdrew the blade swiftly. A testing clash came from her left and she parried it with her shield but Garlan leapt to the side, towards her right. He thrusted his steel forward and she swung her mace.
A loud shriek rang throughout the yard as their weapons clashed. The sword, the symbol of the gallant knight. The mace, a blunt instrument of death.
Without hesitation, she brought her shield forward, smashing the steel edge forward. Garlan raised his shield in time but groaned at the impact. He took a few graceful steps back. By now, their spar had garnered a growing audience. A dozen men-at-arms, a few knights and their squires, and even a few servants had gathered to watch. She could see, by the windowslit of a white tower, Lorenzo watching her with amusement as he dined and drank with Willas Tyrell.
She ignored them all and thrusted the flanged head of her mace at Garlan’s helmet. He weaved and his blade flashed, catching the sunlight. It raked against her gauntlet uselessly, singing naught but a steel song. She kicked him in the cuirass and the knight stumbled back. He caught himself swiftly, parrying her mace with his shield.
She ducked under the blade. I could just tackle him now. Sit on his hands and beat his face in with the shield. In a fight to the death, she would do just that. Despite her misgivings for the knightly sort, she found herself enjoying the clashing of steel.
She took a step back and twirled her mace, stretching her wrist.
She could hear Garlan’s muffled chuckle. “You are brilliant,” He praised. “Where did you learn to fight?” He asked, curious and genuine.
She was silent for a moment. “An old fighter.”
“He must have been a master,” Garlan said lightly.
“He was,” She agreed, and the two leapt at each other once more.
She blocked a thrust and countered with a swing of her mace, which Garlan deflected with his own shield. His leg lashed out at her knee but her shield was there, catching the kick. Before she could exploit that, his sword came soaring for her helmet and she raised the shield to catch it.
It was a feint, she realised, as the knight twisted the blade to slash at her right. She smiled savagely under her helmet, catching the blow with her mace. Again, their steel clashed and rang aloud. Thrice more, and sevenfold, mace and blade danced a flurry of swings, thrusts and parries.
Ser Garlan ducked under a swing and his blade came soaring like a star. She knocked it aside but his grip was strong. She swung her mace but the knight ducked once more. For a moment, both warriors stood still, giving their opponent a stare.
Then, they raised their weapons once more, and stopped at the sound of clapping.
They both turned to see Lady Margaery and half a dozen ladies in dresses of pink and yellow and green. Margaery led the applause, giving Garlan a soft smile while the ladies around her giggled. The cheer grew raucous when the men joined in, cheering and hollering.
“I have never seen my gallant brother fighting so fiercely,” Margaery praised her, “Even when he is fighting three or four men at once.”
Garlan laughed, removing his helmet and shaking the sweat from his matted brown hair. “I dare say she is as good as seven men at once!” He exclaimed.
The applause died, as did the cheering from the men.
Margaery blinked, and Ser Garlan grimaced. Lucia sighed under her helmet and gave the knight a nod before she turned to walk away.
Loud, clanking footsteps stopped her.
“Lady Lucia,” Garlan said politely. “I would ask for another spar, at the same time on the morrow. Of all the men,” He blinked and corrected himself. “Of all the warriors I have fought, I dare say you are amongst the best.”
Lucia stared at him. Slowly, she removed her helm, resting it between her armoured arm and cuirass. “On the morrow, then.” She nodded. Ser Garlan bowed slightly.
“I am no lady.” She said quietly.
The gallant knight looked at her curiously but nodded at the intensity in her olive eyes. “Lucia,” He said slowly. “I shall look forward to the continuation of our duel.”
“As will I,” She grunted. “Ser.”
She nodded once more, and turned to leave. As she walked away, she groaned to herself at the approaching Lorenzo. To his right was Willas Tyrell, walking with a gilded cane.
Willas Tyrell gave her a curious look. “Well fought,” he praised. “I see my brother has found a worthy opponent.”
She nodded stiffly. “Your brother is a good fighter.”
The heir to Highgarden smiled. He turned to Lorenzo. “Tomorrow, then? I look forward to further discussion on Maester Theron’s work.”
Lorenzo bowed slightly. “I shall read the Strange Stone again in preparation.” He said with a slight smile. The clacking of the cane faded as Willas walked away, towards his siblings. Lorenzo gave her a look, his smile unfading.
“A worthy fight indeed,” he declared. “You looked like you enjoyed yourself?”
Lucia glanced at him. “You’re one to talk.” Lorenzo smiled irritatingly.
Lucia looked up at the sun, which seemed gentle as it blazed its warmth. “He’s a good fighter.” She admitted. “He’s not on von Liebnitz’s level,” she winced slightly, remembering the Hero of the Empire who had fought both Andrei and her at the same time, and won. “But he is good.”
Lorenzo hummed. “High praise coming from you,” he laughed. “Come, I believe there is still food and drink left. You could use a bath too. Would you accompany me as I write Lord Mace his song?” Lorenzo gave her a strained smile.
Lucia glanced at him and shrugged. “Maybe,” she smiled.
Notes:
had some time over a short break so here's a look at what the other two have been up to :D
Next chapter will swing back to the climactic fight between Stark and Lannister. Watch and wait...
Chapter 22: Eddard III
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
He found Littlefinger in the brothel’s common room, chatting amiably with a tall, elegant woman who wore a feathered gown over skin as black as ink. By the hearth, Heward and a buxom wench were playing at forfeits. From the look of it, he’d lost his belt, his cloak, his mail shirt, and his right boot so far, while the girl had been forced to unbutton her shift to the waist.
Jory Cassel stood beside a rain-streaked window with a wry smile on his face, watching Heward turn over tiles and enjoying the view. Tom sat on the couch, drinking from a wineskin while Harwin and Andrei stood by the door.
Ned paused at the foot of the stairs and pulled on his gloves. “It’s time we took our leave. My business here is done.”
Heward lurched to his feet, hurriedly gathering up his things. “As you will, my lord,” Jory said. “I’ll help Wyl bring round the horses.” He strode to the door. Harwin and Andrei both quietly followed by his side.
Littlefinger took his time saying his farewells. He kissed the black woman’s hand, whispered some joke that made her laugh aloud, and sauntered over to Ned. “Your business,” he said lightly, “or Robert’s? They say the Hand dreams the king’s dreams, speaks with the king’s voice, and rules with the king’s sword. Does that also mean you fuck with the king’s—”
“Lord Baelish,” Ned interrupted, “you presume too much. I am not ungrateful for your help. It might have taken us years to find this brothel without you. That does not mean I intend to endure your mockery. And I am no longer the King’s Hand.”
“The direwolf must be a prickly beast,” said Littlefinger with a sharp twist of his mouth.
A warm rain was pelting down from a starless black sky as they walked to the stables. Ned drew up the hood of his cloak. Jory brought out his horse. Young Wyl came right behind him, leading Littlefinger’s mare with one hand while the other fumbled with his belt and the lacings of his trousers. A barefoot whore leaned out of the stable door, giggling at him.
“Will we be going back to the castle now, my lord?” Jory asked. Ned nodded and swung into the saddle. Littlefinger mounted up beside him. Jory and the others followed.
“Chataya runs a choice establishment,” Littlefinger said as they rode. “I’ve half a mind to buy it. Brothels are a much sounder investment than ships, I’ve found. Whores seldom sink, and when they are boarded by pirates, why, the pirates pay good coin like everyone else.” Lord Petyr chuckled at his own wit.
Ned let him prattle on. After a time, he quieted and they rode in silence. The streets of King’s Landing were dark and deserted. The rain had driven everyone under their roofs. It beat down on Ned’s head, warm as blood and relentless as old guilts. Fat drops of water ran down his face.
“Robert will never keep to one bed,” Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm’s End. “I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.” Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.”
The girl had been so young Ned had not dared to ask her age. No doubt she’d been a virgin; the better brothels could always find a virgin, if the purse was fat enough. She had light red hair and a powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and when she slipped free a breast to give her nipple to the babe, he saw that her bosom was freckled as well. “I named her Barra,” she said as the child nursed. “She looks so like him, does she not, milord? She has his nose, and his hair ...”
“She does.” Eddard Stark had touched the baby’s fine, dark hair. It flowed through his fingers like black silk. Robert’s firstborn had had the same fine hair, he seemed to recall.
“Tell him that when you see him, milord, as it... as it please you. Tell him how beautiful she is.”
“I will,” Ned had promised her. That was his curse. Robert would swear undying love and forget them before evenfall, but Ned Stark kept his vows. He thought of the promises he’d made Lyanna as she lay dying, and the price he’d paid to keep them.
“And tell him I’ve not been with no one else. I swear it, milord, by the old gods and new. Chataya said I could have half a year, for the baby, and for hoping he’d come back. So you’ll tell him I’m waiting, won’t you? I don’t want no jewels or nothing, just him. He was always good to me, truly.”
Good to you, Ned thought hollowly. “I will tell him, child, and I promise you, Barra shall not go wanting.
She had smiled then, a smile so tremulous and sweet that it cut the heart out of him. Riding through the rainy night, Ned saw Jon Snow’s face in front of him, so like a younger version of his own. If the gods frowned so on bastards, he thought dully, why did they fill men with such lusts? “Lord Baelish, what do you know of Robert’s bastards?”
“Well, he has more than you, for a start.”
“How many?”
Littlefinger shrugged. Rivulets of moisture twisted down the back of his cloak. “Does it matter? If you bed enough women, some will give you presents, and His Grace has never been shy on that count. I know he’s acknowledged that boy at Storm’s End, the one he fathered the night Lord Stannis wed. He could hardly do otherwise. The mother was a Florent, niece to the Lady Selyse, one of her bedmaids. Renly says that Robert carried the girl upstairs during the feast, and broke in the wedding bed while Stannis and his bride were still dancing. Lord Stannis seemed to think that was a blot on the honor of his wife’s House, so when the boy was born, he shipped him off to Renly.”
He gave Ned a sideways glance. “I’ve also heard whispers that Robert got a pair of twins on a serving wench at Casterly Rock, three years ago when he went west for Lord Tywin’s tourney. Cersei had the babes killed, and sold the mother to a passing slaver. Too much an affront to Lannister pride, that close to home.”
Ned Stark grimaced. Ugly tales like that were told of every great lord in the realm. He could believe it of Cersei Lannister readily enough... but would the king stand by and let it happen? The Robert he had known would not have, but the Robert he had known had never been so practiced at shutting his eyes to things he did not wish to see. “Why would Jon Arryn take a sudden interest in the king’s baseborn children?”
The short man gave a sodden shrug. “He was the King’s Hand. Doubtless Robert asked him to see that they were provided for.”
Ned was soaked through to the bone, and his soul had grown cold. “It had to be more than that, or why kill him?”
Littlefinger shook the rain from his hair and laughed. “Now I see. Lord Arryn learned that His Grace had filled the bellies of some whores and fishwives, and for that he had to be silenced. Small wonder. Allow a man like that to live, and next he’s like to blurt out that the sun rises in the east.”
There was no answer Ned Stark could give to that but a frown. For the first time in years, he found himself remembering Rhaegar Targaryen. He wondered if Rhaegar had frequented brothels; somehow he thought not.
The rain was falling harder now, stinging the eyes and drumming against the ground. Rivers of black water were running down the hill when Jory called out, “My lord,” his voice hoarse with alarm. And in an instant, the street was full of soldiers.
Ned glimpsed ringmail over leather, gauntlets and greaves, steel helms with golden lions on the crests. Their cloaks clung to their backs, sodden with rain. He had no time to count, but there were ten at least, a line of them, on foot, blocking the street, with longswords and iron-tipped spears. “Behind!” he heard Wyl cry, and when he turned his horse, there were more of them, cutting off their retreat. Jory’s sword came singing from its scabbard. “Make way or die!”
Andrei brought his horse close to him. “Twenty-seven, and him.” Andrei nodded at their leader.
“The wolves are howling,” the man said. Ned could see rain running down his face. “Such a small pack, though.”
Littlefinger walked his horse forward, step by careful step. “What is the meaning of this? This is the Hand of the King.”
“He was the Hand of the King.” The mud muffled the hooves of the blood bay stallion. The line parted before him. On a golden breastplate, the lion of Lannister roared its defiance. “Now, if truth be told, I’m not sure what he is.”
“Lannister, this is madness,” Littlefinger said. “Let us pass. We are expected back at the castle. What do you think you’re doing?”
“He knows what he’s doing,” Ned said calmly.
Jaime Lannister smiled. “Quite true. I’m looking for my brother. You remember my brother, don’t you, Lord Stark? He was with us at Winterfell. Fair-haired, mismatched eyes, sharp of tongue. A short man.”
“I remember him well,” Ned replied.
“It would seem he has met some trouble on the road. My lord father is quite vexed. You would not perchance have any notion of who might have wished my brother ill, would you?”
“Your brother has been taken at my command, to answer for his crimes,” Ned Stark said.
Littlefinger groaned in dismay. “My lords-”
Ser Jaime ripped his longsword from its sheath and urged his stallion forward. “Show me your steel, Lord Eddard. I’ll butcher you like Aerys if I must, but I’d sooner you died with a blade in your hand.” He gave Littlefinger a cool, contemptuous glance. “Lord Baelish, I’d leave here in some haste if I did not care to get bloodstains on my costly clothing.”
Littlefinger did not need to be urged. “I will bring the City Watch,” he promised Ned. The Lannister line parted to let him through, and closed behind him. Littlefinger put his heels to his mare and vanished around a corner. He heard Andrei let out a scoff beside.
Ned’s men had drawn their swords and axe, but they were six against twenty-eight. Eyes watched from nearby windows and doors, but no one was about to intervene. His party was mounted, the Lannisters on foot save for Jaime himself. A charge might win them free, but it seemed to Eddard Stark that they had a surer, safer tactic. “Kill me,” he warned the Kingslayer, “and Catelyn will most certainly slay Tyrion.”
Jaime Lannister moved to poke at Ned’s chest with the gilded sword that had sipped the blood of the last of the Dragonkings. In a blur, Andrei’s axe was there and met the cold blade with a deafening clash. Andrei growled slightly and Jaime smirked.
“Would she? The noble Catelyn Tully of Riverrun murder a hostage? I think … not.” He sighed. “But I am not willing to chance my brother’s life on a woman’s honor.” Jaime slid the golden sword into its sheath. “So I suppose I’ll let you run back to Robert to tell him how I frightened you. I wonder if he’ll care.” Jaime pushed his wet hair back with his fingers and wheeled his horse around. When he was beyond the line of swordsmen, he glanced back at his captain. “Tregar, see that no harm comes to Lord Stark.”
“As you say, m’lord.”
“Still... we wouldn’t want him to leave here entirely unchastened, so”—through the night and the rain, he glimpsed the white of Jaime’s smile—“kill his men.”
“No!” Ned Stark screamed, clawing for his sword. Jaime was already cantering away down the street as he heard Wyl shout. Men closed from both sides. Ned rode one down, cutting at phantoms in red cloaks who gave way before him. Jory Cassel put his heels into his mount and charged. A steel-shod hoof caught a Lannister guardsman in the face with a sickening crunch.
A second man reeled away and for an instant Jory was free. Wyl cursed as they pulled him off his dying horse, swords slashing in the rain. Ned galloped to him, bringing his longsword down on Tregar’s helm. The jolt of impact made him grit his teeth. Tregar stumbled to his knees, his lion crest sheared in half, blood running down his face. He turned and saw Tom and Harwin with their blades flashing, guarding Wyl as he stumbled to his feet.
Andrei leapt off his horse. In one hand was his sharp axe and in the other was his heavy shield. The warrior who had won the melee charged with a roar, deflecting a spear thrust and smashing his shield against the throat of a Lannister soldier. The Westerman gurgled his dying breath from his crushed throat as Andrei caught a sword with his shield.
Heward was hacking at the hands that had seized his bridle when a spear caught him in the belly. Suddenly Jory was back among them, a red rain flying from his sword. “No!” Ned shouted. “Jory, away!” Ned’s horse slipped under him and came crashing down in the mud. There was a moment of blinding pain and the taste of blood in his mouth.
He saw them cut the legs from Jory’s mount and drag him to the earth, swords rising and failing as they closed in around him. Then, Andrei was there, roaring like an enraged beast. A spear was thrown at him and he parried it with his shield, the crowned bear on the thick wood snarling in royal defiance. The man charged forward, hooking a sword thrust with his axe.
The blade flew out of the hands of the Lannister guard who barely had the time to blink before his throat was slashed open. Andrei ducked under a wild swing of a blade and buried his axe in the man’s face before blocking another stab.
“To Lord Stark!” He heard Harwin cry out.
“No, go.” He wanted to shout but his voice was weak.
Harwin and Wyl guarded him fiercely but he could see Tom’s body on the ground, his dead eyes staring at him. Where a jolly smile usually sat, there was now a red, bloody one. He has a son back in Winterfell. Ned thought suddenly. Heward’s body was being dragged along the street by his fleeing mount.
“Jory, Andrei.” He whispered.
The Lannister men were arrayed in a wide circle now, each holding their spears and swords tightly. Each seemed hesitant to be the one to fight the wild warrior before them who seemed unkillable. “KINGKILLER!” Andrei roared, loud enough for his voice to rumble down the street.
Ned saw Jaime Lannister. The man had wheeled his horse around to watch the fight and now rode back to them with an amused smirk.
Jory ripped his sword from the belly of a Lannister man and turned to Andrei who glared at the Kingslayer and pointed his axe at the smirking Kingsguard. The snarling bear’s head on his axe seemed to roar in challenge. Jaime Lannister laughed, and dismounted from his horse.
Ned’s horse lurched weakly and he groaned in pain. He looked down at the bone protruding from his calf. Wyl and Harwin both noticed and grimaced, and they stood closer to him, their swords drawn. Jory kept his eyes on the Lannister men and slowly backed up to where they were. Ned clenched his fists tightly. I am not so weak that I will faint while my men fight and die for my folly. He gritted his teeth. He forced himself to look. The street was littered with corpses, and blood joined with the black water flowing down the street.
“I was curious when they said one of the Northerners won the melee.” Jaime drew his gilded sword, and it seemed to glint in the rain. “How many of my men did you kill?” He glanced at the street. “Six? Seven?”
Andrei grunted. “Nine.”
Jaime gave him an appraising look before pointing his sword at him. The two men watched each other as the rain continued to assault them. Jaime Lannister was one of the best swordsmen in the realm, Ned knew, and his voice was too weak to even say that.
“You. Me. Your men away.” Andrei demanded and the Kingslayer laughed. Jaime waved his sword, the bright steel flashing in the rain. “Very well.”
Then, they leapt at each other, like a lion and a bear in some child’s tale.
The gilded sword soared through the air so quickly he could hardly see it and then it met the blade of an axe. Andrei thrusted his shield at Jaime’s face but the smirking knight ducked under and gave a lazy, testing slash that Andrei evaded.
A blinding thrust came next and it was parried but the Kingslayer danced back with a laugh and stabbed at Andrei thrice. Each time, the Kossar caught it with the steel edge of his shield and deflected it. Jaime Lannister was faster and had the longer reach, but he had yet to draw blood.
Andrei roared as he slashed with his axe towards Jaime’s right wrist but the Kingslayer sidestepped and thrusted his blade forward. It tore through the leather and chainmail on Andrei’s right and blood poured greedily forth, streaming down his armour and the gilded blade.
Andrei grunted once and slashed his axe at Jaime’s face. The Kingslayer threw his head back but the axe bit deeply across the elegant face of the lion knight, leaving a long, wicked slash on his right cheek. Jaime stumbled back a few steps and blinked.
Then, four of the Lannister guardsmen charged forward.
“No!” Ned wanted to shout but the Kingslayer’s voice was louder. Two more of the Lannister men moved to steady the knight but he swatted their hands away.
The first of the four lion’s men thrusted his spear for Andrei’s face but the Kossar grunted and deflected it with his shield, slashing the man’s throat open. He parried a sword and blocked a spear thrust but the last of the men wheeled to his blind spot.
Ned raised his hand weakly as that guard readied to thrust his spear. Then, there was a soft thud and he seemed to go limp, and collapsed on the floor.
Andrei had hardly noticed, smashing his shield in the face of the swordsman while deflecting the spear once more with his axe. He saw the Kossar step to the side of the swordsman, leaving the spearman unable to attack.
One second passed, and the sword was deflected.
Another second, and the axe cut open the man’s throat.
The third second passed, and Andrei kicked the dying man, sending him crashing into the stunned spearman. Then, he turned to parry the Kingslayer’s blade. “Stay out of this, you fools.” Jaime Lannister laughed madly. The blood pouring from his slashed cheek covered his face with crimson, and the man seemed half a devil, dancing amidst the rain with his golden sword flashing.
“Yuri!” Andrei roared, and Ned blinked in confusion as he started to fade in and out of consciousness. The last thing he saw was Andrei and Jaime Lannister fighting in the pouring rain, their steel flashing like gems and torches, each ring seeming to grow louder while they laughed and roared.
When he opened his eyes again, he noticed the smell first. The rain had stopped but the street was still wet. Rainwater, sewage filth and blood coated the street in a filthy mixture of black and red. Close to twenty bodies were on the ground, their blood pooled around them. Faces watched from candlelit windows, and people began to emerge from alleys and doors. Harwin and Wyl were not there and he turned to look. He saw Jory by him, nursing a cut on his arm. “Where…” Ned rasped.
Jory leapt to his feet, and winced. “My lord!” He exclaimed, rushing for Ned.
“Where are the others?” Ned whispered.
“Harwin and Wyl went to find a litter or a maester or the Watch.” Jory said before his face fell. “We’ve gathered Tom and Heward over there.” He nodded to the side of the street where the two were on the ground, their eyes closed. “Andrei is there, talking to someone.” He said with a tone of respect.
Ned raised his head weakly and saw his swornsword talking to a young man in dark leather armour. Andrei bled from a dozen wounds and his armour seemed to have been slashed open at five different points. His shield was a wreck of splintered wood and dented metal but still, Andrei talked as if he was merely scratched.
“What happened?” He said weakly.
“Andrei took the Kingslayer on, my lord. They fought for near half an hour. As bad as he may look,” Jory gestured at Andrei. “The Kingslayer looked just a mess. His plate was dented in a dozen places, his pauldrons were nearly smashed in, and he took a few deep slashes too.”
By now, Andrei and the young man were approaching them. Jory continued. “Another of the Lannister soldiers charged in but he fell dead, with a bolt in the back of his throat. The Kingslayer gave up and stormed off, rode off with the rest of his men. All four of them.” Jory chuckled darkly. “That one over there was the one who was shooting at the Lannisters.” Jory nodded at the young man, who gave him an awkward nod back.
Ned took a glance at the figure. He stood two heads shorter than Andrei and was clad in dark leathers. He could see two daggers by his hip, and a black crossbow by his thigh. Ned blinked. “Is this the companion…” He wheezed in pain. “You spoke of?”
Andrei nodded silently, uncaring of the blood pouring from a dozen wounds. “You both have my gratitude, from this day on.” Ned spoke slowly, wincing at the pain.
“My job.” Andrei grunted. He drew the Valyrian steel dagger from his hip. “Lord Stark, I give dagger to him? He use it better than I.”
The young man blinked owlishly and stared at Andrei, the dagger, then at him. Ned chuckled, and then grimaced in pain. “Have it, lad.” He said softly. He turned to Andrei as the Kossar handed the dagger to the grinning young man.
“How did you…” Ned trailed off.
Andrei shrugged. “Good fighter. Better with sword than I can be but I fight worse.”
Then, they turned to see an approaching host of men.
From down the street, Littlefinger came with two dozen men of the City Watch. With them were Harwin and Wyl, and a litter as well. He felt Andrei’s hand on his shoulder, and the gruff man spoke. “Rest, lord. You safe now.”
The trip back to the castle was a blur of agony, and Ned lost consciousness more than once. He remembered seeing the Red Keep looming ahead of him in the first grey light of dawn. The rain had darkened the pale pink stone of the massive walls to the color of blood.
Then Grand Maester Pycelle was looming over him, holding a cup, whispering, “Drink, my lord. Here. The milk of the poppy, for your pain.” He remembered swallowing, and Pycelle was telling someone to heat the wine to boiling and fetch him clean silk, and that was the last he knew.
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 35
wooo, here we are. first slightly major divulgence from canon.
I thought deeply about the fight between Andrei and Jaime. Undeniably, Jaime is a skilled swordsman, one of the best in the realm. He is faster, more agile, and extremely talented with his blade. What Andrei has going for him is twenty years of experience fighting against horrors that Jaime can't even imagine. And truthfully, I dare say that Jaime has not had that much experience fighting against live opponents with proper steel, at least in a battlefield context (other than the Greyjoy Rebellion?)
If you were confused by the name Yuri, he was an opponent that the party had to fight during our campaign. Yuri was a savage Ungol, like Andrei, who ended up working for unsavoury individuals in Altdorf. If you have been to Altdorf in any Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay games, you might have encountered Yuri Popov as well. He made for quite a good parallel to Andrei. Both were Ungols far from the Motherland. Yet, while Yuri was violent and savage like wildfire, Andrei was tempered from years of service. Anyways, during that moment, Andrei had a duel to the death with Yuri, and he shouted out for the party to not intervene. Here, in his fight, he knew that Gunther was around and he trusted Ol' Gunty to understand what that meant.
hope you enjoyed!
Chapter 23: Andrei V
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“So,” Gunther asked in Reikspiel. “What now?” The thief moved subtly to hide behind Andrei’s great bulk upon seeing the approaching Littlefinger.
Andrei stared at the sight of Eddard Stark’s unconscious body gently being lifted into the litter. “I don’t know.” He clenched his fists tightly.
His armour was an utter wreck, parts of the chainmail and metal scales having been hacked apart or cut through. He bled from a dozen wounds and his shield was a mess of splinters. He gave the sturdy shield a mournful look. The wounds ached fiercely but he shoved them aside with a swig of strong, cool Northern wine.
Gunther looked ready to dart. Andrei placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered. “Go, I find you when time.”
Gunther glanced at him and nodded, quickly disappearing into the shadows of an alleyway. Andrei turned to look at the cooling bodies of the two dead Northmen.
Fat Tom, as Andrei had called him once, was now silent and pale where he had been joyous with life and food. His thick fingers, which often wielded drumsticks and roasts, still clutched at the hilt of his blade. His ginger-coloured whiskers were now crimson, his throat having been slashed open. Heward, stout and brown-haired, was next to him. Three holes were visible on his chest, where three Lannister spears had punched through his flesh and leathers.
Tom had been the first of the Stark guards to talk to him back in Winterfell, sharing tales of his little son in Wintertown. The man had offered Andrei his first sip of Northern wine. Heward had played a few games of dice with Andrei back at the barracks when they had little to do, and spoke easily of a girl he was sweet on back in Winterfell.
And now both of their glassy, lifeless eyes stared silently at the sky.
He looked down at his blood-stained gloves and the snarling bear head of his axe. The steel was now coated in scarlet. Slowly, he felt a cold, burning feeling swelling in him. Jaime Lannister’s smug grin and careless words burnt in his mind, as did the proud lion on the crest of the red cloaks as they slashed at Tom and impaled Heward.
“Yeltska,” Jory started hesitantly. “Come on. We’re heading back to the Tower. We need to get you looked at.” The captain of the guards looked at him and Andrei saw something in his eyes. A flicker of shame.
Andrei looked at him. “Jory,” He grumbled uncertainly. “You… fight well.”
Jory Cassel gave the retreating City Watch a glance. “Did I?” He asked softly. “Two of my own men are dead, never to see their family again. My lord was made a cripple and I would have, should have, died, if not for you.”
Andrei was silent at that, and the two limped along with the City Watch back to the Red Keep. Blood trickled from his wounds as he walked, leaving a trail of red behind.
Night had come when they finally returned, and even from afar, he could see a flurry of activity. He kept his hand close to his axe, expecting the golden knight to emerge with his gilded blade at any corner. No such trouble came however, and Lord Stark was brought back to the Tower of the Hand in a hurry.
Sansa had cried when she saw her father, pale and unconscious, while Arya stomped towards him.
“You were supposed to protect him!” Arya said furiously, the few teardrops on her face wiped away. “You-” The words on her tongue froze when she saw the extent of his wounds.
“Andrei did his best,” Jory defended tiredly. “If not for him, we would all be dead.”
Arya stared at the ground stubbornly. Andrei placed a bloodied hand on her shoulder and the young Stark hesitantly turned to look at him with a face of worry and fear.
“Wolf lord is strong,” Andrei said slowly. “His daughters strong too.”
Arya Stark blinked away her tears and Jory led her away. Andrei looked at the bed, where a bleary-eyed Grand Maester Pycelle had arrived with his acolytes. Andrei stood by the door dutifully and watched as they tended to the unconscious Stark lord. Slowly, he felt the strength drain from his body. Even now, blood trickled down onto the floor.
Vayon Poole came to him soon, and gave him a stern look. “Your wounds, Yeltska, need to be looked at by the Maester.”
Andrei glanced at the Stark lord but his vision blurred for a moment. He swayed on his feet, and reached out to place a hand on the wall to steady himself but he missed. He started to fall, like a great wall collapsing, nearly crushing the old steward before him who struggled to hold onto him.
Andrei heard the shouting of men around him, and saw only the flickering of the candles before he knew no more.
When he opened his eyes once more, he reached for his axe but all he held in his hand was a small square of white silk. He blinked away the blurriness in his eyes and held it close. It was a silk cloth and embroidered on it was a brown bear striding with a pack of grey and white wolves.
What? He thought to himself, confused. He shot the room around him a quick glance and found it empty. It was his room, he realised. The room in the Tower of the Hand. He looked down and grimaced. He was wearing naught but a simple shift, and he felt the many bandages below him. Lorenzo had shared stories of the undead Nehekharan kings once, and Andrei wondered if he looked like one.
He slowly rose, wincing in pain as his bones creaked and his wounds flared furiously. The Kingslayer had been a dangerous foe. Not nearly the most dangerous opponent he had faced, but an incredibly skilled swordsman. Andrei opened his fists and closed them, repeating the simple gesture. He looked at the table and saw his axe upon it but his armour and shield, ruined as they were, were nowhere to be seen.
He moved to stand by the window slit, and covered his eyes from the bright sun. The blazing rays of the midday sun invaded the room and, once again, he was reminded of why he detested the south. Slowly, he walked towards the table and clutched his axe tightly. The Red Keep felt silent, deathly so.
He glanced at his axe, and realised that someone had cleaned the blood from it. Then, the door creaked open and Andrei turned, axe in one hand and a silk cloth in the other. A pair of men entered, a young servant with a platter of food and Jory, who held a pitcher and two mugs.
“Just there,” Jory gestured for the table and the male servant nodded, placing the tray on the table and quickly leaving.
“What day?” Andrei asked, as he took a seat. There was a long loaf of bread on a wooden plate, and a leg of roast chicken, slices of cheese and ham. He took the chicken and tore a huge bite from it.
“It has been two days and two nights,” Jory said as he poured a bright brown ale into the two mugs. Andrei nodded gratefully, and took his mug. He gulped from his mug greedily, like a man dying of a thirst.
Jory glanced at the silk cloth that Andrei had placed gingerly on the table, and smiled in amusement. “The Lady Sansa embroidered that for you,” He said. Andrei was silent and grunted in acknowledgement. Jory remained quiet and sipped at his ale as Andrei ate savagely, tearing through the bread and meat.
He belched loudly as he finished the meal, and downed the rest of his drink.
“How lord?” Andrei asked, placing his mug down.
“Still unconscious,” Jory said quietly. “His daughters are worried near to death.”
“Lannister.” Andrei growled. “He say … Lady Stark take brother?”
Jory nodded. “The word has spread through the keep and, I assume, the city. Lady Catelyn took Tyrion Lannister. Though where she is bringing him to, no one seems to know.” He said grimly.
Andrei found he had no response to that. “Where armour, and shield?”
“Sent them for repair for you,” Jory said. “You’ll get them tomorrow or the day after.”
Andrei nodded. Jory rose and frowned. “Best to stay in the Tower for now, Yeltska. I heard the servants talking. The Queen was not happy with how you savaged the Kingslayer. Only the King’s words stopped her from throwing your unconscious body into the Black Cells.”
Andrei sighed but nodded once more. As Jory left, he stared at his axe. Gunther would be fine, he knew, no one could find him if he was determined to stay hidden. He slowly rose and walked towards the bed before collapsing into it. His back sank into the soft bed and his eyes closed.
He dreamt of a wintry realm beset upon by figures of fire. He saw a glacial crown and a sword of ice, and the cold sneer of a queen of frost. He saw men riding bears and warriors with swords of fire and bows of ice. I should be there. Andrei thought. The Motherland…
The sound of knocking woke him once more. He blinked and clutched his axe tightly below the sheets. The knocking continued, soft and gentle. “In!” He grumbled
The door opened and, once again, a pair of figures entered his room. Sansa and Arya Stark stepped in and Andrei moved to stand.
“Please,” Sansa said. “Rest, ser.”
Arya, meanwhile, moved to sit on the seat by the table, ignoring Sansa’s frown.
“Is it true?” Arya asked darkly. “Harwin said you killed ten men during the fight.”
“Arya!” Sansa called out but her sister ignored her once more.
Andrei thought for a moment and counted to himself. “Eleven.”
Sansa blinked and worry settled on her face while Arya stared at him curiously.
“Are all men in Kesliv fighters?” She asked.
“Kislev,” Andrei corrected. “Many fight.”
“Are they all knights?” Sansa asked as well, her earlier annoyance for Arya vanished and replaced with wonder. Andrei shook his head.
“Some fight on horse, lady. Winged Lancers. Good warriors. Not knight.” He pointed at himself. “Kossar. Soldier.”
Sansa nodded slowly. She opened her mouth to speak but Arya spoke first.
“Where is Kislev?” She asked.
Andrei gestured meaninglessly with his hand. “Far from here. Ask Lord Stark.”
Arya scowled and looked ready to argue but Sansa cleared her throat. “We came to thank you for saving our lord father, Ser Yeltska.” She said, smiling at him.
“And Jory too. He said you saved his life.” Arya finally smiled.
Andrei tried to smile, remembering Fat Tom’s smile and Heward’s easy grin. “My job.” He looked at Sansa and took the silk cloth from under the sheets. “My thanks, lady wolf.” He said slowly.
Sansa giggled. “A simple gesture, Ser.”
Andrei stirred uncomfortably and shook his head. “Not knight.”
Sansa tilted her head and looked at him. “I think you should be one.” She turned to Arya excitedly. “Maybe father can ask one of the Kingsguard to knight hi-” Sansa stopped and a frown slowly spread across her youthful face.
One of the King’s own royal guards had slew Stark men and caused her father to be crippled. She idolised knights, Andrei had realised, and her fairytale had just been shattered.
“Knights are stupid,” Arya scoffed. “The Kingslayer is a knight. You should have killed him,” She said bitterly. Sansa looked uncomfortable. Andrei looked at her. “Go, lady. Lord Stark needs you more.” He said. Sansa looked at him, almost startled, but she took a breath and nodded. “Come, Arya.” She said.
Arya almost frowned but rose from her chair. Sansa gave him a curtsy. “May the Maiden kiss your wounds with mercy.” She said softly before leaving. Arya shrugged and gave him a wave as they walked out.
“The Maiden…” Andrei muttered to himself.
Salyak was the goddess of healing, mercy and comfort in Kislev. He had seen many of them across the battlefields he had fought in. Often, the priests of Salyak tended to the soldiers, healing them where possible, giving them Salyak’s Mercy when their wounds were fatal. For the first time, with little else to do, Andrei found himself thinking of the gods. The Gods of Kislev, of the Old World, and of this strange world.
The more he thought, he realised, the more terror he felt.
The next few days passed in a blur. A servant would bring him food in the morning and he would eat silently in his room. He spent the day resting or walking about the Tower. Occasionally, Jory or Arya would find him and stop him for a chat.
He remembered the sight of Arya balancing on one foot. He had stared at her quizzically. “Water dancing.” She had said quietly and Andrei had slowly nodded before walking away.
Jory had come to his room two days after the first time he had awoken. In his hands, he carried Andrei’s armour. A long, heavy brigandine of metal scales, mail and thick leather. On his back, Jory wore his shield. The tall kite shield had been repaired, with the steel edges smoothened of its dents and the wood replaced. It was painted a dark grey with a white crowned bear and Kislev was painted above the crown.
Andrei had smiled at that and clasped hands with an exhausted Jory who smiled weakly at him. “That armour is bloody heavy,” Jory had complained.
“Heavy is good,” Andrei grumbled. “Heavy protects.”
He found strength in the crowned bear, and with the armour on his body. His wounds had mended, leaving nought behind but more ugly, long scars. Briefly, he wondered if Salyak, or the Maiden, had blessed him. It did not matter, he decided.
By the fifth day of his recovery, he found himself back in the courtyard, slowly swinging his axe and shield against one of the many straw targets. By the sixth day, he deemed himself ready to fight and won a bout with Harwin and Alyn. By the seventh day, he wore his armour with no pain and stood silently by Eddard Stark’s side once more, looming outside of the lord’s chambers quietly.
Vayon Poole came, with a platter of food and a pair of Stark men behind him.
“They’re here to take over you,” The steward explained. “Come.”
Andrei blinked but followed Vayon into the room. Inside, Lord Stark slumbered still. The sheets were tangled, his leg splinted and plastered. The steward placed the platter on the table by the bed. Porridge and fruit water again, Andrei glanced at it, food for a man who had been unconscious for days.
Andrei took a seat by the side and watched as Vayon prepared to feed his lord. He glanced out of the window and gave another silent prayer to Salyak.
Then, he heard a slight murmur. “No,” Eddard Stark whispered to himself as he stirred slowly.
“Lord Eddard.” Vayon said carefully and with hope.
“I promise,” The lord whispered. “Lya, I promise…”
Andrei turned to stare at him. Eddard Stark slowly opened his eyes, his hair clinging to his sweat.
“Lord Eddard?” Vayon spoke.
“How… How long?” Lord Stark asked slowly.
““Six days and seven nights.” The steward held a cup to Eddard’s lips. “Drink, my lord.”
“What ...?”
“Only water. Maester Pycelle said you would be thirsty.”
He drank eagerly. The water must taste as sweet as honey, Andrei thought.
“The king left orders,” Vayon Poole told him when the cup was empty. “He would speak with you, my lord.”
“On the morrow,” Eddard said. “When I am stronger.”
“My lord,” Poole said, “he commanded us to send you to him the moment you opened your eyes.” The steward busied himself lighting a bedside candle.
“Tell him I’m too weak to come to him. If he wishes to speak with me, I should be pleased to receive him here. I hope you wake him from a sound sleep.” Lord Stark said weakly.
Vayon nodded and bowed and left.
Lord Stark was silent for a moment. “How do things stand?”
Andrei grunted. “Kingslayer gone. To gold castle in west, Jory say. He is busy, more guards around Tower. Everybody talking. Lady Stark, holding… Lannister.”
“My daughters?”
“Here, every day. Sansa prays.” Andrei said. “Arya angry. Fierce.”
A strange expression settled on the lord’s face, between a frown and a smile. “Whatever happens, I want my daughters kept safe. I fear this is only the beginning.”
Andrei was silent but he nodded.
“Tom and Heward?” Eddard grimaced.
“Jory sent to silent sisters, send north. To Winterfell.” Andrei spoke. “Lord.”
Eddard tried to smile. “You helped my daughter,” He said firmly. “You fought as fiercely as ten men to protect me and my men. Men have been made knights and lords for less. I would proclaim you as a friend to House Stark, Andrei.”
Andrei stirred uncomfortably. “My thanks.”
Eddard Stark looked at him and moved to speak when Vayon Poole returned.
The steward bowed low. “His Grace is without, my lord, and the queen with him.”
Lord Stark pushed himself up higher, wincing as his leg trembled with pain. “Send them in, and leave us. What we have to say should not go beyond these walls.” Poole withdrew quietly.
“Stay,” He commanded softly as Andrei moved to leave. He turned to look at the lord. “I fear I shall find few friendly faces,” Eddard said softly as the king entered.
The king had taken time to dress. He wore a black velvet doublet with the crowned stag of Baratheon worked upon the breast in golden thread, and a golden mantle with a cloak of black and gold squares. A flagon of wine was in his hand, his face already flushed from drink. Cersei Lannister entered behind him, a jeweled tiara in her hair.
“Your Grace,” Lord Stark said. “Your pardons. I cannot rise.”
“No matter,” the king said gruffly. “Some wine? From the Arbor. A good vintage.”
"A small cup,” Stark said. “My head is still heavy from the milk of the poppy.”
“A man in your place should count himself fortunate that his head is still on his shoulders,” the queen declared. She turned to glare at Andrei and he held her gaze cooly. “And his dog as well.”
“Quiet, woman,” Robert snapped. He brought the wolf lord a cup of wine. “Does the leg still pain you?”
“Some,” Eddard said.
“Pycelle swears it will heal clean.” Robert frowned. “I take it you know what Catelyn has done?”
“I do.” He took a small swallow of wine. “My lady wife is blameless, Your Grace. All she did, she did at my command.”
“I am not pleased, Ned,” The fat King grumbled.
“By what right do you dare lay hands on my blood?” Cersei demanded. “Who do you think you are?” She turned to sneer at Andrei once more. “By what right do you dare wound my blood?”
“The Hand of the King,” Eddard told her with icy courtesy. “Charged by your own lord husband to keep the king’s peace and enforce the king’s justice. And my guard did nought but protect me from your brother’s savagery.”
“You were the Hand,” Cersei began, “but now-”
“Silence!” the king roared. “You asked him a question and he answered it.” Cersei subsided, cold with anger, and Robert turned back to Ned. “Keep the king’s peace, you say. Is this how you keep my peace, Ned? Over a dozen men are dead…” The king gave Andrei a glance of heavy annoyance, and a tinge of respect.
“Two more.” The Queen corrected. “Tregar died this morning, of the blow Lord Stark gave him. Willem too, from the savagery of the Northman.”
“Abductions on the kingsroad and drunken slaughter in my streets,” the king said. “I will not have it, Ned.”
“Catelyn had good reason for taking the Imp—”
“I said, I will not have it! To hell with her reasons. You will command her to release the dwarf at once, and you will make your peace with Jaime.”
“Two of my men were butchered before my eyes, because Jaime Lannister wished to chasten me. Am I to forget that?”
“My brother was not the cause of this quarrel,” Cersei told the king. “Lord Stark was returning drunk from a brothel. His men attacked Jaime and his guards, even as his wife attacked Tyrion on the kingsroad.”
“You know me better than that, Robert,” Eddard said. “Ask Lord Baelish if you doubt me. He was there.”
“I’ve talked to Littlefinger,” Robert said. “He claims he rode off to bring the gold cloaks before the fighting began, but he admits you were returning from some whorehouse.”
“Some whorehouse? Damn your eyes, Robert, I went there to have a look at your daughter! Her mother has named her Barra. She looks like that first girl you fathered, when we were boys together in the Vale.”
Robert flushed. “Barra,” he grumbled. “Is that supposed to please me? Damn the girl. I thought she had more sense.”
“She cannot be more than fifteen, and a whore, and you thought she had sense?” Lord Stark said, incredulous. “The fool child is in love with you, Robert.”
The king glanced at Cersei. “This is no fit subject for the queen’s ears.”
“Her Grace will have no liking for anything I have to say,” Ned replied. “I am told the Kingslayer has fled the city. Give me leave to bring him back to justice.”
The king swirled the wine in his cup, brooding. He took a swallow. “No,” he said. “I want no more of this. Jaime slew two of your men, and you sixteen of his. Sixteen! Now it ends.”
“Is that your notion of justice?” Eddard flared. “If so, I am pleased that I am no longer your Hand.”
The queen looked to her husband. “If any man had dared speak to a Targaryen as he has spoken to you—”
“Do you take me for Aerys?” Robert interrupted.
“I took you for a king. Jaime and Tyrion are your own brothers, by all the laws of marriage and the bonds we share. The Starks have driven off the one, had their dog savage him, and seized the other. This man dishonors you with every breath he takes, and yet you stand there meekly, asking if his leg pains him and would he like some wine.”
Robert’s face was dark with anger. “How many times must I tell you to hold your tongue, woman?”
Cersei’s face was a study in contempt. “What a jape the gods have made of us two,” she said. “By all rights, you ought to be in skirts and me in mail.”
Purple with rage, the king lashed out, a vicious backhand blow to the side of the head. She stumbled against the table and fell hard, yet Cersei Lannister did not cry out. Her slender fingers brushed her cheek, where the pale smooth skin was already reddening. On the morrow the bruise would cover half her face. “I shall wear this as a badge of honor,” she announced.
“Wear it in silence, or I’ll honor you again,” Robert vowed. He shouted for a guard. “The queen is tired. See her to her bedchamber.” The knight helped Cersei to her feet and led her out without a word.
Robert reached for the flagon and refilled his cup. “You see what she does to me, Ned.” The king seated himself, cradling his wine cup. “My loving wife. The mother of my children.” The rage was gone from him now; in his eyes Andrei saw something sad and scared. “I should not have hit her. That was not ... that was not kingly.” He stared down at his hands, as if he did not quite know what they were.
“I was always strong ... no one could stand before me, no one. How do you fight someone if you can’t hit them?” Confused, the king shook his head. “Rhaegar . . . Rhaegar won, damn him. I killed him, Ned, I drove the spike right through that black armor into his black heart, and he died at my feet. They made up songs about it. Yet somehow he still won. He has Lyanna now, and I have her.” The king drained his cup.
“Your Grace,” Ned Stark said, “we must talk ...”
Robert pressed his fingertips against his temples. “I am sick unto death of talk. On the morrow I’m going to the kingswood to hunt. Whatever you have to say can wait until I return.”
“If the gods are good, I shall not be here on your return. You commanded me to return to Winterfell, remember?”
Robert stood up, grasping one of the bedposts to steady himself. “The gods are seldom good, Ned. Here, this is yours.” He pulled the heavy silver hand clasp from a pocket in the lining of his cloak and tossed it on the bed. “Like it or not, you are my Hand, damn you. I forbid you to leave.”
Eddard picked up the silver clasp. “The Targaryen girl—”
The king groaned. “Seven hells, don’t start with her again. That’s done, I’ll hear no more of it.”
“Why would you want me as your Hand, if you refuse to listen to my counsel?”
“Why?” Robert laughed. “Why not? Someone has to rule this damnable kingdom. Put on the badge, Ned. It suits you. And if you ever throw it in my face again, I swear to you, I’ll pin the damned thing on Jaime Lannister.”
With that, the King stood steady. He glanced at Andrei as if just remembering him. “Damn you, Yeltska.” Robert grumbled with admiration in his eyes. “Killing a dozen men like that. You would not believe the nagging I went through.” He shook his head. “How did it feel? To cut down all those men, the rain crashing down on you, your head pounding with blood.”
Robert Baratheon’s eyes were alive, Andrei realised. For a moment, the shadow of a warrior stood before him. Andrei looked into those faded blue eyes.
“Alive.” He said without hesitation. “Killing lions,” Andrei said with a savage smile. “Was good hunt.”
Robert roared with laughter and slapped his shoulder. Andrei winced slightly. By Ursun, the man is strong. He watched as the king walked out of the room, with a slow, grudging respect for the warrior that once was.
Andrei turned to a weary, exhausted Eddard Stark who merely gave him a tired look.
“The Queen will not lay her hands on you,” Eddard Stark promised.
Andrei nodded slowly. “What now, lord?”
Lord Stark closed his eyes, rubbing his face and sighing. “We shall see.”
Through the high narrow windows of the Red Keep’s cavernous throne room, the light of sunset spilled across the floor, laying dark red stripes upon the walls where the heads of dragons had once hung. Now the stone was covered with hunting tapestries, vivid with greens and browns and blues.
Ned Stark sat high upon the ironwork monstrosity of spikes and jagged edges and grotesquely twisted metal that they called the Iron Throne. Power, it radiated certainly but nothing more. The Ice Throne in Kislev City was a symbol as well, of arcane might and power and elegance. This ugly thing, Andrei thought, was nothing more than a cadaver of steel.
“You are quite certain these were more than brigands?” Varys asked softly from the council table beneath the throne. Grand Maester Pycelle stirred uneasily beside him, while Littlefinger toyed with a pen. They were the only councillors in attendance. A white hart had been sighted in the kingswood, and Lord Renly and Ser Barristan had joined the king to hunt it, along with the irksome Prince Joffrey and his burnt guard, Sandor Clegane.
Andrei stood quietly along the side of the throne room, watching. The petitioners clustered near the tall doors, the knights and high lords and ladies beneath the tapestries, the smallfolk in the gallery. The villagers were kneeling: men, women, and children, alike tattered and bloody, their faces drawn by fear. The three knights who had brought them here to bear witness stood behind them.
“Brigands, Lord Varys?” A knight spoke, his voice dripping with scorn. “Oh, they were brigands, beyond a doubt. Lannister brigands.”
Andrei peered at the man curiously. Unease grew in the hall, as high lords and servants alike strained to listen.
Another knight spoke, one with a winestain birthmark on his face. He gestured at the kneeling villagers. “This is all the remains of the holdfast of Sherrer, Lord Eddard. The rest are dead, along with the people of Wendish Town and the Mummer’s Ford.”
“Rise,” Eddard Stark commanded the villagers. “All of you, up.”
In ones and twos, the holdfast of Sherrer struggled to its feet. One ancient needed to be helped, and a young girl in a bloody dress stayed on her knees, staring blankly at one of the Kingsguard. Andrei sighed softly to himself. Already, he could smell it. The smoke of war, of burnt villages and razed fields.
Whenever the Northmen descended upon Kislev, they brought with them fire and ruin. Kislev’s sons answered always with ice and steel.
But, Andrei thought forlornly, Sherrer had no Kossars to hold the line with axe and mace and shield. This Wendish Town had no Winged Lancers to sweep in at the last, dying moment to crush the enemy with lance and horse. The Mummer’s Ford had no Ice Witches to rain frost and death upon the savage foe. No heroes, Andrei thought, only men who fought and died.
“Joss,” The first knight said to a plump balding man in a brewer’s apron. “Tell the Hand what happened at Sherrer.”
Joss nodded. “If it please His Grace—”
“His Grace is hunting across the Blackwater,” Eddard said.
The Stark lord was clad in a white linen doublet with the direwolf of Stark on the breast; his black wool cloak was fastened at the collar by his silver hand of office. Black and white and grey, all the shades of truth. “I am Lord Eddard Stark, the King’s Hand. Tell me who you are and what you know of these raiders.”
“I keep... I kept... I kept an alehouse, m’lord, in Sherrer, by the stone bridge. The finest ale south of the Neck, everyone said so, begging your pardons, m’lord. It’s gone now like all the rest, m’lord. They come and drank their fill and spilled the rest before they fired my roof, and they would of spilled my blood too, if they’d caught me. M’lord.”
“They burnt us out,” a farmer beside him said. “Come riding in the dark, up from the south, and fired the fields and the houses alike, killing them as tried to stop them. They weren’t no raiders, though, m’lord. They had no mind to steal our stock, not these, they butchered my milk cow where she stood and left her for the flies and the crows.”
“They rode down my ’prentice boy,” said a squat man with a smith’s muscles and a bandage around his head. He had put on his finest clothes to come to court, but his breeches were patched, his cloak travel-stained and dusty. “Chased him back and forth across the fields on their horses, poking at him with their lances like it was a game, them laughing and the boy stumbling and screaming till the big one pierced him clean through.”
The girl on her knees craned her head up at the Hand of the King, high above her on the throne. “They killed my mother too, Your Grace. And they . . . they . . . ” Her voice trailed off, as if she had forgotten what she was about to say. She began to sob.
The knight took up the tale. “At Wendish Town, the people sought shelter in their holdfast, but the walls were timbered. The raiders piled straw against the wood and burnt them all alive. When the Wendish folk opened their gates to flee the fire, they shot them down with arrows as they came running out, even women with suckling babes.”
Fire danced in his eye. Once again, he could almost smell the smoke and hear the cries. Thatch and timber were consumed by a hungry blaze, men and women were cut down with bright steel by cold men, and he had rode away.
Andrei kept his gaze on Eddard, who grimaced but kept a stern gaze upon the knights and their smallfolk. The northern lord leaned forward, the cruel steel of the Iron Throne clutched tightly between his fingers.
“What proof do you have that these were Lannisters?” he asked. “Did they wear crimson cloaks or fly a lion banner?”
“Even Lannisters are not so blind stupid as that,” a young angry knight snapped.
“Every man among them was mounted and mailed, my lord,” the second knight answered calmly. “They were armed with steel-tipped lances and longswords, with battle-axes for the butchering.” He gestured toward one of the ragged survivors. “You. Yes, you, no one’s going to hurt you. Tell the Hand what you told me.”
The old man bobbed his head. “Concerning their horses,” he said, “it were warhorses they rode. Many a year I worked in old Ser Willum’s stables, so I knows the difference. Not a one of these ever pulled a plow, gods bear witness if I’m wrong.”
“Well-mounted brigands,” observed Littlefinger. “Perhaps they stole the horses from the last place they raided.”
The man’s voice was neutral but there was a flare of amusement on his face, as he gazed between the petitioners and Eddard Stark.
“How many men were there in this raiding party?” Eddard asked.
“A hundred, at the least,” Joss answered, in the same instant as the bandaged smith said, “Fifty,” and the grandmother behind him, “Hunnerds and hunnerds, m’lord, an army they was.”
“You are more right than you know, goodwoman,” Lord Eddard told her. “You say they flew no banners. What of the armor they wore? Did any of you note ornaments or decorations, devices on shield or helm?”
The brewer, Joss, shook his head. “It grieves me, m’lord, but no, the armor they showed us was plain, only . . . the one who led them, he was armored like the rest, but there was no mistaking him all the same. It was the size of him, m’lord. Those as say the giants are all dead never saw this one, I swear. Big as an ox he was, and a voice like stone breaking.”
“The Mountain!” said the young knight loudly. “Can any man doubt it? This was Gregor Clegane’s work.”
The Mountain That Rides, Andrei mused. The man stood near as tall as a Beastlord of a Brayherd, and near as savage and brutal. It would be a dangerous fight, he knew, if he had to face him, but far from the most deadly.
He heard muttering from beneath the windows and the far end of the hall. Even in the galley, nervous whispers were exchanged. Even he knew what that meant. The Mountain was Tywin Lannister’s dog and dogs bite at their master’s call.
Grand Maester Pycelle rose ponderously from the council table, his chain of office clinking. “Ser Marq, with respect, you cannot know that this outlaw was Ser Gregor. There are many large men in the realm.”
“As large as the Mountain That Rides?” The second knight said. “I have never met one.”
“Nor has any man here,” Ser Raymun added hotly. “Even his brother is a pup beside him. My lords, open your eyes. Do you need to see his seal on the corpses? It was Gregor.”
“Why should Ser Gregor turn brigand?” Pycelle asked. “By the grace of his liege lord, he holds a stout keep and lands of his own. The man is an anointed knight.”
“A false knight!” Ser Marq said. “Lord Tywin’s mad dog.”
“My lord Hand,” Pycelle declared in a stiff voice, “I urge you to remind this good knight that Lord Tywin Lannister is the father of our own gracious queen.”
“Thank you, Grand Maester Pycelle,” Eddard said. “I fear we might have forgotten that if you had not pointed it out.”
He could see men slipping out the door at the far end of the hall. Then, he caught a glimpse of Septa Mordane in the gallery, with Sansa beside her. Briefly, Andrei wondered if he should stand with them, as a guard should. Then, he caught the Septa looking at him disapprovingly and he sighed to himself.
At the council table below, Petyr Baelish lost interest in his quill and leaned forward. “Ser Marq, Ser Karyl, Ser Raymun—perhaps I might ask you a question? These holdfasts were under your protection. Where were you when all this slaughtering and burning was going on?”
Ser Karyl Vance answered. “I was attending my lord father in the pass below the Golden Tooth, as was Ser Marq. When the word of these outrages reached Ser Edmure Tully, he sent word that we should take a small force of men to find what survivors we could and bring them to the king.”
Ser Raymun Darry spoke up. “Ser Edmure had summoned me to Riverrun with all my strength. I was camped across the river from his walls, awaiting his commands, when the word reached me. By the time I could return to my own lands, Clegane and his vermin were back across the Red Fork, riding for Lannister’s hills.”
Littlefinger stroked the point of his beard thoughtfully. “And if they come again, ser?”
“If they come again, we’ll use their blood to water the fields they burnt,” Ser Marq Piper declared hotly.
“Ser Edmure has sent men to every village and holdfast within a day’s ride of the border,” Ser Karyl explained. “The next raider will not have such an easy time of it.”
“If your fields and holdfasts are safe from harm,” Lord Petyr was saying, “what then do you ask of the throne?”
“The lords of the Trident keep the king’s peace,” Ser Raymun Darry said. “The Lannisters have broken it. We ask leave to answer them, steel for steel. We ask justice for the smallfolk of Sherrer and Wendish Town and the Mummer’s Ford.”
“Edmure agrees, we must pay Gregor Clegane back his bloody coin,” Ser Marq declared, “but old Lord Hoster commanded us to come here and beg the king’s leave before we strike.”
Grand Maester Pycelle was on his feet again. “My lord Hand, if these good folk believe that Ser Gregor has forsaken his holy vows for plunder and rape, let them go to his liege lord and make their complaint. These crimes are no concern of the throne. Let them seek Lord Tywin’s justice.”
“It is all the king’s justice,” Eddard told him. “North, south, east, or west, all we do we do in Robert’s name.”
“The king’s justice,” Grand Maester Pycelle said. “So it is, and so we should defer this matter until the king—”
“The king is hunting across the river and may not return for days,” Lord Eddard said. “Robert bid me to sit here in his place, to listen with his ears, and to speak with his voice. I mean to do just that . . . though I agree that he must be told.” He saw a familiar face beneath the tapestries. “Ser Robar.”
Ser Robar Royce stepped forward and bowed. “My lord.”
“Your father is hunting with the king,” Ned said. “Will you bring them word of what was said and done here today?”
“At once, my lord.”
“Do we have your leave to take our vengeance against Ser Gregor, then?” Marq Piper asked the throne.
“Vengeance?” Stark said. “I thought we were speaking of justice. Burning Clegane’s fields and slaughtering his people will not restore the king’s peace, only your injured pride.” He glanced away before the young knight could voice his outraged protest, and addressed the villagers. “People of Sherrer, I cannot give you back your homes or your crops, nor can I restore your dead to life. But perhaps I can give you some small measure of justice, in the name of our king, Robert.”
Every eye in the hall was fixed on him, waiting. So too did Andrei, who stared at the wolf lord silently, watching his cold, lordly face.
“The First Men believed that the judge who called for death should wield the sword, and in the north we hold to that still. I mislike sending another to do my killing ... yet it seems I have no choice.” He gestured at his broken leg.
“Lord Eddard!” The shout came from the west side of the hall as a handsome stripling of a boy strode forth boldly. Out of his armor, Ser Loras Tyrell looked even younger than his sixteen years. He wore pale blue silk, his belt a linked chain of golden roses, the sigil of his House. “I beg you the honor of acting in your place. Give this task to me, my lord, and I swear I shall not fail you.”
Littlefinger chuckled. “Ser Loras, if we send you off alone, Ser Gregor will send us back your head with a plum stuffed in that pretty mouth of yours. The Mountain is not the sort to bend his neck to any man’s justice.”
“I do not fear Gregor Clegane,” Ser Loras said haughtily.
Andrei gave the young Tyrell a look. Littlefinger was right, Andrei realised grudgingly. The boy was too young, too rash and too eager for glory and chivalry. From what Lorenzo and Lucia had sang and spat of Bretonnia, he knew there was a land of young men just like that. Andrei shook his head. Youths. Andrei thought forlornly. It did not feel so long ago that he had been a young, wild man, with a hot fire in his belly. It was all so cold and tiring now.
Eddard eased himself slowly back onto the hard iron seat of the misshapen throne. His eyes searched the faces along the wall. “Lord Beric,” he called out. “Thoros of Myr. Ser Gladden. Lord Lothar.” The men named stepped forward one by one. “Each of you is to assemble twenty men, to bring my word to Gregor’s keep. Twenty of my own guards shall go with you. Lord Beric Dondarrion, you shall have the command, as befits your rank.”
Twenty? Andrei thought. Eddard Stark had brought fifty of his household guards to King’s Landing. Two had been tasked with bringing the bones of Tom and Heward back to Winterfell. With twenty more men departed…
The young lord with the red-gold hair bowed. “As you command, Lord Eddard.”
Lord Stark raised his voice, so it carried to the far end of the throne room. “In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, by the word of Eddard of the House Stark, his Hand, I charge you to ride to the westlands with all haste, to cross the Red Fork of the Trident under the king’s flag, and there bring the king’s justice to the false knight Gregor Clegane, and to all those who shared in his crimes. I denounce him, and attaint him, and strip him of all rank and titles, of all lands and incomes and holdings, and do sentence him to death. May the gods take pity on his soul.”
When the echo of his words had died away, the Knight of Flowers seemed perplexed. “Lord Eddard, what of me?”
“No one doubts your valor, Ser Loras, but we are about justice here, and what you seek is vengeance.” He looked back to Lord Beric. “Ride at first light. These things are best done quickly.” He held up a hand. “The throne will hear no more petitions today.”
Alyn and Porther climbed the steep iron steps to help him back down, and Andrei moved to stand by them. At the base of the Iron Throne, Varys was gathering papers from the council table. Littlefinger and Grand Maester Pycelle had already taken their leave. “You are a bolder man than I, my lord,” the eunuch said softly.
“How so, Lord Varys?” Eddard asked brusquely.
“Had it been me up there, I should have sent Ser Loras. He so wanted to go... and a man who has the Lannisters for his enemies would do well to make the Tyrells his friends.”
“Ser Loras is young,” said Eddard. “I daresay he will outgrow the disappointment.”
“And Ser Ilyn?” The eunuch stroked a plump, powdered cheek. “He is the King’s Justice, after all. Sending other men to do his office . . . some might construe that as a grave insult.”
“No slight was intended. I remind you, the Paynes are bannermen to House Lannister. I thought it best to choose men who owed Lord Tywin no fealty.”
"Very prudent, no doubt,” Varys said. “Still, I chanced to see Ser Ilyn in the back of the hall, staring at us with those pale eyes of his, and I must say, he did not look pleased, though to be sure it is hard to tell with our silent knight. I hope he outgrows his disappointment as well. He does so love his work ... ”
The eunuch tittered and walked away, almost floating like a billowy spirit.
Eddard Stark shook his head grimly, as they left the throne room. They walked in silence, leaving the courtiers behind as they made for the Hand’s Tower.
“Tell me of the executioners in your homeland.” The lord said suddenly, as if trying to distract himself. Andrei looked at him with a slight, curious look.
“Two peoples. Ungol law…” Andrei chuckled to himself. “Colder. Hard laws for hard life in oblast. Killing with…” Andrei paused, thinking of the words. “Sword few. Punish with arrow, with hot helmet, with horse.”
Ned’s grimace grew at that and he shook his head slightly. “A conversation for another time, then. Not before luncheon. What do you think?”
“War coming.” Andrei said softly.
Ned’s eyes seemed to darken. “Do you think Tywin Lannister will escalate the conflict?” He asked quietly as they entered the Tower of the Hand.
Andrei remained silent. “Maybe,” he spoke slowly. “War coming anyways.”
“How do you know?”
“Fought … many.” Andrei looked into the eyes of the Northern lord and Eddard Stark seemed to understand, and he slowly nodded.
“I will send my daughters north,” Eddard said. “On a fast trading galley. The Kingsroad is soon to be a path of war. I will not lie to you, Andrei,” Eddard paused, painfully finding his seat. “Danger is afoot. I will not begrudge you if you join my daughters on the journey back to Winterfell or leave south, or across the Narrow Sea. You have fought and bled for mine own house.”
Eddard Stark’s grey eyes looked into his. “I will not ask you of you more, should you desire to leave and find the rest of your companions.”
Andrei looked into the eyes of the lord, the man before him, who had entrusted his daughters to him and fought alongside his own men. “You make good Tzar, Lord Wolf," Andrei rumbled slowly. “I fight with you.”
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 39, 43
things are progressing...
Chapter 24: Eddard IV
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
As dawn broke over the city and showered the Red Keep with light, three banners fluttered in the wind.
The crowned stag of Baratheon flew from the high staff, while the leaping direwolf of Stark and the forked lightning of Dondarrion shivered from shorter poles in the morning breeze. The golden glow of sunrise slanted through the bars of the portcullis as it jerked upward and a hundred men rode through, Beric Dondarrion at the head of the column.
A score of Winterfell men were with them, in their silvery mail and long grey cloaks, and Alyn led them, carrying the Stark banner. As they rode away from sight, Ned turned slowly, leaning on his cane. Andrei was beside him, with a heavy frown. Jory was shouting orders to the guards, instructions for patrols and drills and stations.
“Not enough men.” Andrei grunted as they walked slowly into the tower.
“I could not have sent them to hunt Ser Gregor without providing aid from my own house,” Ned said. Yet, he found no reproach within him. He had two dozen of his own household guards left within the city. “They will return,” he assured.
His dark wooden cane clacked against the floor of the tower, and then against the stairs. Damn these stairs. Ned thought sourly. The same stairs that Jon Arryn had climbed for near two decades before his death, and Aerys’ fools and lickspittles, and Tywin Lannister before them. He found his mood fouling more.
Andrei placed a mailed hand against his shoulder to stabilise him and Ned muttered his gratitude. They walked in silence to his chamber, and Andrei moved to stand by the door. Ned shook his head.
“Come in,” he said softly. “I would have your assistance.”
The Kossar grunted, holding the door open. As Ned stepped in, limping for his seat, Andrei slowly limbered in.
“Take a seat,” Ned said tiredly, resting down upon the comfortable chair. The accursed book was on the table, the huge leather-bound tome seemed to mock him. Its pages were heavy with the burden of history. And blood.
“Do you know why I have been reading this?” He said somberly. Andrei simply gave him a blank stare. The man’s flinty dark eyes seemed as tired as his, even more, Ned realised.
“Jon Arryn was reading this before his death,” Ned explained, feeling the cold within him. “He, a man of high honour, visited brothels and smithys with Stannis Baratheon, a man known to be as rigid and dour as cold steel. Then, he died and Stannis fled the city for Dragonstone.” He said grimly.
“What in… book?” Andrei said slowly.
“Lineages, of all the Great Houses.”
“Lineage?” Andrei asked unsurely.
Ned rubbed his face. The man had struggled to pick up the language of the land. Even now, he spoke with a heavy accent that seemed to terrify the servants.
“Family line,” he explained. “Parents, children and their children. Generations and generations.”
Andrei nodded slowly and remained staring blankly at him. Ned sighed once more.
“Let us resume that later,” Ned said softly. “Tell me, would Kislev’s ships be open to trade with the North? Granted, the Sunset Sea, as Maester Luwin theorised, must be a dangerous one.”
Andrei scratched his beard awkwardly. “I am, was, soldier.”
“Who knows a land better than the soldier who fights to defend it?” Ned asked wryly.
Andrei was silent at that, and Ned slowly poured them both Northern wine from a decanter. The Kossar nodded in gratitude, taking a long, loud drink from his goblet.
He sat it down with a heavy sigh. “Maybe. Seas not safe. Raiders. Savages.” Andrei said with a low rumble, a dark look in his eyes.
Ned felt a shiver run down his bones. “Ironborn?”
Andrei gave him a quizzical look. Ned explained. “The men of the Iron Islands. Reavers and corsairs all, proud people of the sea, a plague upon the waters.” He said grimly.
Andrei stared at him, with a strange look upon his face, and he nodded slowly. “They fight with axes and spears,” He rumbled. “Come in long boats. Burn coasts. Take women. Kill for their gods.” Ned could see the Kossar’s jaw clench and tighten. His eyes were ablaze with old hate and they seemed far away, as if remembering some great battle.
By the gods. Ned thought. Had the Ironborn brought fire to lands yet unknown to the rest of the continent? Horror and dread grew within him, like a blossoming Weirwood. He could scarcely imagine the repercussions that retaliation from a land like Kislev would bring. If Andrei was but one of many soldiers…
“Why have your… Tzars never invaded the Isles?” Ned asked.
Andrei blinked slowly, taking another long sip. “Too far,” he said slowly. “Too many enemies.”
“How long have the Ironborn plagued Kislev’s shores?” Ned asked with worry.
Andrei finished the rest of his wine. “Long.” He said grimly.
Ned leaned back against his chair and sighed. He had put off this conversation for too long, he cursed himself, he had busied himself with the investigation of Jon’s death, arguing with the Council, handling Robert’s frivolties, court, and his daughters.
“I will speak with Robert,” Ned promised, though he knew not what he would say or what they would do. He feared Robert would hunger for another war, like he did with wine and women.
They sat in grim silence. Ned filled their goblets once more. “Tell me of your companions. That young man with the crossbow, and how many else are there?”
“Two,” Andrei said quietly. “Was another but he had to… leave.”
“Are they from Kislev?”
Andrei shook his head slowly, with a small smile.
“Different,” the Kossar rumbled. “Singer. Fighter.”
“A singer?” Ned wondered.
Andrei took a sip of wine. “He sing good.”
“And the other man? The fighter?” Ned asked, curious. He wondered what sort of man the Kossar would call a companion.
Andrei shook his head. “Not man. Woman. She is good fighter. Mace. Better than me.”
Ned blinked. “Better than you?”
Andrei grumbled under his breath and drank once more. The man handled his drink well, Ned realised, far better than Robert did. Despite all Andrei drank, he had never seen the man drunk.
“Better with weapon… Better with fighting Man.” Andrei explained with great difficulty. “Kossar… learn how to fight in big battle. Against …” Andrei seemed to struggle for the words, pausing for a long moment. “Against everything.”
“She is a better warrior than you,” Ned realised. “More skilled with weapons. You are a soldier.”
Andrei nodded gratefully.
“Where is she from?” Ned asked. He thought of old Maege Mormont of Bear Island and her daughters and the women warriors of that wild island. He thought of the women of the Neck, each as skilled as their men. Ned thought of Lyanna, with her wildness and easy laughter, and of Arya, and his heart grew heavy.
“Estalia,” Andrei said. “Dry land. Hot. A lot sand.”
Ned found himself taking another sip of wine. Just like Dorne. He realised.
“And the lad? It took bravery, and skill, to interfere the way he did.”
Andrei smiled. “Empire.”
“Ah, yes,” Ned said. “That Empire you mentioned.” He moved to speak but a flurry of knocks came upon the door, swift and furious. Andrei rose instantly, his hand moving to his axe by his side. Ned found his vision obscured by the large, burly man. All he could see was the shield strapped upon his back, with the crowned bear, as well as his mail and scales, and the strange curved rod that he wore on a leather sheath of sorts on his lower back.
Luwin had tested the device, back in Winterfell, and found that it did nought but click uselessly when the trigger, shorter than a crossbow’s, was pressed.
“Lord Stark!” Septa Mordane cried out. “Your daughters, Arya, misbehaved most wildly at breakfast.”
Ned rubbed his temple. Andrei moved to open the door for the red-faced Septa, who gave him a brief nod. She entered the room. “Lord Stark,” She said. “Of late, Sansa has been near as bad as Arya!”
Andrei moved to stand by the corner of the room, watching her impassively.
“What did she do, Septa?” Ned asked tiredly.
“She asked a most inappropriate query,” she huffed. “Whether Lord Beric would spike Ser Gregor’s head on his own gate or bring it back here for the king! Then, they argued once more like wolves, and Arya threw a blood orange at Sansa.”
Ned stared bleakly at his table. “Will you fetch them here in two hours time? I have yet to break my fast.”
The Septa nodded. “I shall inform a servant to bring food, my lord.”
Andrei held the door for her as she left before turning to him. “I leave?” He asked.
“Stay.” Eddard said. “I am afraid our talks of leisure will have to continue another time. I have need of your counsel.” There were few left in King’s Landing that he could trust, and even then, he had no desire to place more men in danger.
Andrei nodded slowly as he sat. “I am soldier,” He said once more. “Not … advice.”
“I grew up with soldiers,” Ned smiled grimly. “I have found that they can give better advice at times than Masters. What do you think happened to Jon Arryn?”
Andrei stared at him. “Poison.” He said simply. He spoke with absolute certainty, no different in tone than he would have informing Ned than the sun had risen in the east. The man’s face gave nothing away, not even the barest hints of query or thought or worry. Dark eyes, as black as coal, gave him a blank look.
“You think someone poisoned Jon, because he was investigating?” Ned confirmed and Andrei nodded. Ned sighed. Just what was he investigating? Ned thought in frustration. The seed is strong, Ned remembered but knew little of what it meant.
“What secret… worth killing?” Andrei asked.
“Killing a Hand of the King…” Ned mused. Treason? Espionage? For whom?
“Jon, and Lord Stannis, were visiting Robert’s bastards.” Ned said bluntly. “Could someone have been planning to use them for ill intent? No, it makes no sense. They made no efforts to move them away from the city, they were not in danger.”
“They want … know?” Andrei asked.
“Know what?”
“Know them? Important is king’s blood?”
Ned nodded slowly. “They were important themselves,” Ned agreed. “But why?”
Andrei shrugged. “Lord Stannis know?”
“Aye, perhaps,” Ned said. “Though he has fled to Dragonstone, and has ignored all royal commands to return.” Once again, Ned found himself wondering what could frighten Stannis Baratheon so.
“If only he know… go Dragonstone ask?” Andrei said slowly, as if it were obvious.
Ned sighed. “There is wisdom in that. When Robert returns from his damned hunt, I will speak with him.” Ned found himself wondering how many things he would have to speak to the king with, and whether Robert would listen. “I will take a boat to Dragonstone to speak with Lord Stannis, and you will come with me.”
Andrei nodded plainly and they sat in silence. A servant came soon, with a tray of food. Warm loaves of bread, with platters of honey and butter, cheese and ham. Fried bacon and sausages and a double helping of eggs cooked with onions.
“Share these with me,” Ned said and the Kossar muttered appreciatively. He watched with amusement as Andrei took a loaf of bread and tore it in half. The kossar lathered each half with butter and placed cuts of ham and cheese before drizzling them with honey. A few streaks of bacon and three spoonfuls of eggs were added and Andrei placed the two halves together, taking a large, messy bite.
“Perhaps, talks of plans and war can wait.” Ned said softly. “For an hour, at least. Will you tell me of your home?”
“Kislev?” Andrei asked.
“Your village or your town, perhaps. Where you lived and came from?” Ned asked curiously.
Andrei gave him a flat, silent look and shook his head. “No village. No town. I… grow up with tribe. Move always.”
“A nomadic tribe?” Ned asked, surprised.
Andrei nodded. “Hard life in oblast.” He repeated. “Hunt. Fish. Fight. Eighteen, I go forth and join Kossars.” He said plainly.
Ned frowned. He had been eight-and-ten at Harrenhal, where all the smiles had died. And then, less than a year later, he was fighting in a war. Ned gave the hardened veteran before him a look.
“What of your family?” Ned asked. He wondered if the man before him had a wife waiting for him across the Sunset Sea, and daughters who quarelled, and sons to teach, and sisters and brothers.
Andrei only stared at him, and shook his head slowly.
“My sympathies,” Ned said softly, only for Andrei to give him a look of confusion.
“No family,” he clarified. “Tribe raised.”
Ah, Ned realised. Suddenly, Ned remembered. “How old are you, Andrei?” He asked, cutting a piece of the sausage and spearing it with his fork.
“Thirty eight.” Andrei said bluntly as he finished the rest of his bread. Ned raised an eyebrow. The Kossar grumbled to himself, as he reached for another sausage with his hand.
Thirty-eight, Ned mused. He would be that in two years. If the gods were good, he would not be Hand by then. He closed his eyes. He wanted to be in Winterfell, with Cat by his side and their children closeby. Robb would be trained to be the Lord of Winterfell. He thought of Sansa and her betrothal to Joffrey, and of Arya’s wildness, and of Bran. And of Jon.
Ned opened his eyes, his appetite melting like snow. There was still a loaf of bread, two sausages and a few cuts of ham. He gently pushed the tray towards Andrei, who only nodded silently. Ned sat staring, mulling over his thoughts.
When Robert returns, he thought, I will have to speak to him over supper when he is alone.
Dragonstone and Stannis, Cersei and Jaime and Tywin Lannister, Catelyn and Tyrion, the Mountain, the folk of Sherrer, Robb and Bran and Rickon, Sansa and Arya. It was all too much, Ned thought. He longed for the North, for Winterfell.
Andrei let out a belch, downing a long drag of the last of the wine. Ned blinked.
A part of him could not help but smile. Umber men ate and drank in similar ways. Not for the first time, Ned found himself wishing for more Northmen in this foul, dangerous city of liars. Then came a knock on the door once more. Almost instinctively, Andrei rose and moved to open it.
Septa Mordane marched into the solar, with Sansa in tow. Sansa had put on a lovely pale green damask gown and a look of remorse, and her eyes were red.
“Come here, Sansa,” he said, not unkindly, when the septa had gone for her sister. “Sit beside me.” Behind her, Andrei stood silent by the door. Sansa nodded quietly and sat.
Septa Mordane returned with Arya squirming in her grasp. “Here is the other one,” the septa announced.
“My thanks, Septa Mordane. I would talk to my daughters alone, if you would be so kind.” Ned said. The septa bowed and left.
“Arya started it,” Sansa said quickly. “She called me a liar and threw an orange at me and spoiled my dress, the ivory silk, the one Queen Cersei gave me when I was betrothed to Prince Joffrey. She hates that I’m going to marry the prince. She tries to spoil everything, Father, she can’t stand for anything to be beautiful or nice or splendid.”
Ned frowned once more. “Enough, Sansa.” He said, his voice sharp with impatience.
Arya raised her eyes. “I’m sorry, Father. I was wrong and I beg my sweet sister’s forgiveness.
For a moment, Sansa was speechless. “What about my dress?”
“Maybe... I could wash it,” Arya said doubtfully.
"Washing won’t do any good,” Sansa said. “Not if you scrubbed all day and all night. The silk is ruined.”
“Then I’ll ... make you a new one,” Arya said.
Sansa threw back her head in disdain. “You? You couldn’t sew a dress fit to clean the pigsties.”
Ned sighed. “I did not call you here to talk of dresses. I’m sending you both back to Winterfell.”
Both of his daughters seem to recoil. “You can’t,” Arya said.
“Please, Father,” Sansa managed at last. “Please don’t.”
Eddard Stark favored his daughters with a tired smile. “At last we’ve found something you agree on.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Sansa pleaded with him. “I don’t want to go back. Send Arya away, she started it, Father, I swear it. I’ll be good, you’ll see, just let me stay and I promise to be as fine and noble and courteous as the queen.”
His mouth twitched. “Sansa, I’m not sending you away for fighting, though the gods know I’m sick of you two squabbling. I want you back in Winterfell for your own safety. Two of my men were cut down like dogs not a league from where we sit, and what does Robert do? He goes hunting.”
Cersei Lannister’s cold stare lingered on his mind.
“Can we take Syrio back with us?” Arya chewed. He gave her a tired smile.
“Who cares about your stupid dancing master?” Sansa flared. “Father, I only just now remembered, I can’t go away, I’m to marry Prince Joffrey.” She tried to smile. “I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian. I want to be his queen and have his babies.”
By the gods, Ned thought.
Sweet one,” he said gently, “listen to me. When you’re old enough, I will make you a match with a high lord who’s worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. That boy is no Prince Aemon, you must believe me.”
“He is!” Sansa insisted. “I don’t want someone brave and gentle, I want him. We’ll be ever so happy, just like in the songs, you’ll see. I’ll give him a son with golden hair, and one day he’ll be the king of all the realm, the greatest king that ever was, as brave as the wolf and as proud as the lion.”
Arya made a face. “Not if Joffrey’s his father,” she said. “He’s a liar and a craven and anyhow he’s a stag, not a lion.”
Tears linked from Sansa’s eyes. “He is not! He’s not the least bit like that old drunken king,” she screamed at her sister.
Ned looked at her, feeling ice pooling in his stomach. Gendry, Barra. Jon Arryn and Stannis Baratheon’s investigation. Black of hair, blue of eye. The seed is strong.
He looked at the ponderous tome on the table and clenched his jaw. “Gods,” he swore softly, “out of the mouth of babes . . . ” He shouted for Septa Mordane.
He sat in silence.
Arya shifted and Sansa was still, sniffling quietly. A flurry of thoughts was rushing through his head, like a mounted charge. Eventually, he spoke.
“I am looking for a fast trading galley to take you home. These days, the sea is safer than the kingsroad. You will sail as soon as I can find a proper ship, with Septa Mordane and a complement of guards... and yes, with Syrio Forel, if he agrees to enter my service. But say nothing of this. It’s better if no one knows of our plans. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
Sansa cried as Septa Mordane marched them down the steps but Ned no longer heard her. “Sit.” He said softly, opening the book and flipping the yellowed pages.
“Read this.” He said urgently.
The Kossar squinted, narrowing his eyes. He spoke slowly. “Lyonel … Baratheon, black heir?”
“Black of hair.” Ned corrected.
“Stafon Baratheon, black of hair.”
“Steffon. King Robert’s father.”
Andrei nodded slowly. “Robert Baratheon, black of hair. Stannis Baratheon, black of hair. Renly Baratheon, black of hair. Joffrey Baratheon, gold of hair. Tommen Baratheon, gold of hair. Mar-Myrcella Baratheon, gold of hair.”
Andrei stared at the tome and blinked.
“The seed is strong.” Ned whispered softly. “The Baratheons all have black hair and blue eyes, the bastards as well.”
“King children…” Andrei said slowly. “Not his.”
Ned only stared at him. Andrei rubbed his beard and reached for the goblet, cursing when he realised it was empty.
“What do?” Andrei eventually asked.
Ned closed his eyes. “Robert must be told.” He declared grimly. “I will speak with the Queen before Robert returns from his hunt.”
“Chto?” Andrei exclaimed in his native tongue before remembering and slowly speaking in Westerosi. “You tell Queen? Why?”
Ned grimaced. “Her children are innocent. I do not wish for their blood. Robert’s wroth will be great.”
Ours is the Fury, the Baratheon words roared in his head. A fury that shattered a dynasty. Rhaegar had tasted that bitter dish and Ned could still hear the booming crash of Robert’s warhammer when it had broken the dragon prince. He thought of Elia Martell and her children, and Ned found a cold resolve.
Andrei looked at him, scrutinising him, before grunting. “As you … do.”
Ned tried to smile and he drew forth a sheet of parchment. In one hand, he took a white quill and gave it a long look. Andrei slowly rose, moving to stand by the door. Ned clenched his jaw, and he wrote.
“Pain is a gift from the gods, Lord Eddard,” Grand Maester Pycelle told him. “It means the bone is knitting, the flesh healing itself. Be thankful.”
“I will be thankful when my leg stops throbbing.”
He saw Andrei’s lips twitch ever so slightly behind the old maester. Pycelle set a stoppered flask on the table by the bed. “The milk of the poppy, for when the pain grows too onerous.”
“I sleep too much already.”
“Sleep is the great healer.”
“I had hoped that was you.”
Pycelle smiled wanly. “It is good to see you in such a fierce humor, my lord.” He leaned close and lowered his voice. “There was a raven this morning, a letter for the queen from her lord father. I thought you had best know.”
“Dark wings, dark words,” Ned said grimly. “What of it?”
“Lord Tywin is greatly wroth about the men you sent after Ser Gregor Clegane,” the maester confided. “I feared he would be. You will recall, I said as much in council.”
“Let him be wroth,” Ned said. Every time his leg throbbed, he remembered Jaime Lannister’s smile, and the glassy eyes of Tomard and Heward. “Let him write all the letters to the queen he likes. Lord Beric rides beneath the king’s own banner. If Lord Tywin attempts to interfere with the king’s justice, he will have Robert to answer to. The only thing His Grace enjoys more than hunting is making war on lords who defy him.”
Pycelle pulled back, his maester’s chain jangling. “As you say. I shall visit again on the morrow.” The old man hurriedly gathered up his things and took his leave. Ned had little doubt that he was bound straight for the royal apartments, to whisper at the queen. I thought you had best know, indeed ... as if Cersei had not instructed him to pass along her father’s threats.
He hoped his response rattled those perfect teeth of hers. Ned was not near as confident of Robert as he pretended, but there was no reason Cersei need know that.
Ned called for a pitcher of honeyed wine. That clouded the mind as well, yet not as badly. He needed to be able to think. A thousand times, he asked himself what Jon Arryn might have done, had he lived long enough to act on what he’d learned. Or perhaps he had acted, and died for it.
It was queer how sometimes a child’s innocent eyes can see things that grown men are blind to. Someday, when Sansa was grown, he would have to tell her how she had made it all come clear for him. He’s not the least bit like that old drunken king, she had declared, angry and unknowing, and the simple truth of it had twisted inside him, cold as death. This was the sword that killed Jon Arryn, Ned thought then, and it will kill Robert as well, a slower death but full as certain. Shattered legs may heal in time, but some betrayals fester and poison the soul.
Betrayal, Ned thought. The foulest killer of all.
“Tell me of your Tzar.” Ned asked suddenly.
Andrei looked at him and took three lumbering steps forward, pulling the chair with a slow drag and sitting on it. “Red Tzar,” Andrei slowly said as he poured them both cups of honeyed wine. It was sweet and light, like spring, and Ned allowed himself a few greedy sips.
“Tzar Boris. Warrior. Fire in him,” Andrei said with near reverence, “Reclaim land. Retrain army. Rebuild …” He gestured around him with his cup. “Everything.”
Ned felt a bitter chuckle emerging from him, like a cup of overflowing sour wine. Would that Robert was more than the Warrior.
“Kislev has a standing army?” Ned asked curiously.
“Da.” Andrei said simply.
Ned had heard him use the word enough times to know its meaning.
“How?” Ned pressed. “And all are loyal to the Tzar?”
Andrei scratched his coarse beard. “Men from all Kislev. Leave behind clan. Fight together. Rough men. Wild.” Andrei smiled.
A professional standing army, Ned thought, drawn from all over the realm and loyal to their Tzar. For a moment, he wondered if he should envy. “Are there no issues? No infighting? Allegiances to home and such.” He asked.
Andrei laughed, a harsh bark that came sudden. “In peace, yes! In war, all fight together. And…” He finished his wine, a dark, forlorn look in his eyes. “Kislev, little peace.” Andrei concluded.
Eddard nodded grimly at that. “You mentioned a Tzarin?”
“Tzarina.” Andrei rumbled. “Tzar daughter.”
Ned understood. He remained silent. He was almost startled when Andrei spoke.
“Tzar Boris… died.” He said somberly. “Fighting invader.” Andrei poured himself another cup and drank deeply. “I was … far from Motherland.”
“I was…” Ned trailed off, his ghosts haunting him once more. They sat in silence.
Littlefinger came calling an hour after the Grand Maester had left, clad in a plumcolored doublet with a mockingbird embroidered on the breast in black thread, and a striped cloak of black and white. “I cannot visit long, my lord,” he announced grandly as he entered. “Lady Tanda expects me to lunch with her. No doubt she will roast me a fatted calf. If it’s near as fatted as her daughter, I’m like to rupture and die. And how is your leg?”
“Inflamed.” Ned said brusquely. Andrei stood and made to leave but Ned raised his hand. The Kossar understood and quietly walked to stand by the door. Littlefinger only smiled.
“In future, try not to let any horses fall on it. I would urge you to heal quickly. The realm grows restive. Varys has heard ominous whispers from the west. Freeriders and sellswords have been flocking to Casterly Rock, and not for the thin pleasure of Lord Tywin’s conversation.”
“Is there word of the king?” Ned demanded. “Just how long does Robert intend to hunt?”
“Given his preferences, I believe he’d stay in the forest until you and the queen both die of old age,” Lord Petyr replied with a faint smile. “Lacking that, I imagine he’ll return as soon as he’s killed something. They found the white hart, it seems ... or rather, what remained of it. Some wolves found it first, and left His Grace scarcely more than a hoof and a horn. Robert was in a fury, until he heard talk of some monstrous boar deeper in the forest. Then nothing would do but he must have it. Prince Joffrey returned this morning, with the Royces, Ser Balon Swann, and some twenty others of the party. The rest are still with the king.”
“The Hound?” Ned asked, frowning. Of all the Lannister party, Sandor Clegane was the one who concerned him the most, now that Ser Jaime had fled to join his father.
“Oh, returned with Joffrey, and went straight to the queen.” Littlefinger smiled. “I would have given a hundred silver stags to have been a roach in the rushes when he learned that Lord Beric was off to behead his brother.”
“Even a blind man could see the Hound loathed his brother.”
“Ah, but Gregor was his to loathe, not yours to kill. Once Dondarrion lops the summit off our Mountain, the Clegane lands and incomes will pass to Sandor, but I wouldn’t hold my water waiting for his thanks, not that one. And now you must forgive me. Lady Tanda awaits with her fatted calves.”
On the way to the door, Lord Petyr spied Grand Maester Malleon’s massive tome on the table and paused to idly flip open the cover. “The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, With Descriptions of Many High Lords and Noble Ladies and Their Children,“ he read. “Now there is tedious reading if ever I saw it. A sleeping potion, my lord?”
For a brief moment Ned considered telling him all of it, but there was something in Littlefinger’s japes that irked him. The man was too clever by half, a mocking smile never far from his lips. “Jon Arryn was studying this volume when he was taken sick,” Ned said in a careful tone, to see how he might respond.
And he responded as he always did: with a quip. “In that case,” he said, “death must have come as a blessed relief.” Lord Petyr Baelish bowed and took his leave.
Eddard Stark allowed himself a curse. Aside from his own retainers, there was scarcely a man in this city he trusted. Littlefinger had concealed Catelyn and helped Ned in his inquiries, yet his haste to save his own skin when Jaime and his swords had come out of the rain still rankled. If the Kossar had not been there, Ned wondered, how many of his men would have died in vain?
The answer came to him coldly. All of them.
Varys was worse. For all his protestations of loyalty, the eunuch knew too much and did too little. Grand Maester Pycelle seemed more Cersei’s creature with every passing day, and Ser Barristan was an old man, and rigid. He would tell Ned to do his duty.
Time was perilously short. The king would return from his hunt soon, and honor would require Ned to go to him with all he had learned. Vayon Poole had arranged for Sansa and Arya to sail on the Wind Witch out of Braavos, three days hence. They would be back at Winterfell before the harvest. Ned could no longer use his concern for their safety to excuse his delay.
Yet last night he had dreamt of Rhaegar’s children. Lord Tywin had laid the bodies beneath the Iron Throne, wrapped in the crimson cloaks of his house guard. That was clever of him; the blood did not show so badly against the red cloth. The little princess had been barefoot, still dressed in her bed gown, and the boy ... the boy …
Ned could not let that happen again. The realm could not withstand a second mad king, another dance of blood and vengeance. He must find some way to save the children.
Robert could be merciful. Ser Barristan was scarcely the only man he had pardoned. Grand Maester Pycelle, Varys the Spider, Lord Balon Greyjoy; each had been counted an enemy to Robert once, and each had been welcomed into friendship and allowed to retain honors and office for a pledge of fealty. So long as a man was brave and honest, Robert would treat him with all the honor and respect due a valiant enemy.
This was something else: quiet poison in the dark, a knife thrust to the soul. This he could never forgive, no more than he had forgiven Rhaegar. He will kill them all, Ned realized and he could smell the smoke of war.
And yet, he knew he could not keep silent. He had a duty to Robert, to the realm, to the shade of Jon Arryn... and to Bran, who surely must have stumbled on some part of the truth. Why else would they have tried to slay him?
“Take me to the godswood.” He said to Andrei after a long moment of silence.
The Kossar seemed hesitant and unsure but he stood tall nevertheless. He extended a mailed hand to Ned and helped him stand.
“Are you sure, lord?” Andrei asked quietly.
“Perhaps not, but necessary.” Ned responded.
Andrei grunted and held him sturdy as they climbed the stairs of the Tower of the Hand. Jory came to their help.
With one arm around each man’s shoulders, Ned managed to descend the steep tower steps and hobble across the bailey. “I want the guard doubled,” he told Jory. “No one enters or leaves the Tower of the Hand without my leave.”
“We will be hard-pressed,” Jory said grimly. “With so many missing…”
“It will only be a short while. Lengthen the watches.”
“As you say, Lord Stark.” Jory responded softly. The man had been quiet and grim ever since the fight with the Lannisters by the brothel.
“Jory,” Ned said. The captain of his guards turned to him as they walked, each step a slow, careful one.
“It was not your fault,” he assured. Jory blinked.
“Two of my men died on my watch.”
“On my orders,” Ned reminded him, with haunted eyes.
“I failed to protect you, my lord.” Jory Cassel said quietly.
“Not even the Dragonknight could have,” Eddard said, shaking his head. “You fought well, Jory. You protected your men, fought to protect me and mine, and you have served House Stark with nought but leal loyalty.”
Your father, Ned wanted to say, would be proud. Martyn Cassel’s face came to him again, as did the others.
Jory blinked furiously and he tried to smile. “Thank you, my lord.”
The godswood was empty, as it always was here in this citadel of the southron gods. Ned’s leg was screaming as they lowered him to the grass beside the heart tree. “Thank you.” He drew a paper from his sleeve, sealed with the sigil of his House. “Kindly deliver this at once.”
Jory looked at the name Ned had written on the paper and nodded sternly, iron resolve in his eyes. He walked off, with his back straight, and Ned gave him a forlorn look.
“Wait for me outside.” He told Andrei.
The Kossar only nodded, his dark eyes unscrutanable.
How long he waited in the quiet of the godswood, he could not say. It was peaceful here. The thick walls shut out the clamor of the castle, and he could hear birds singing, the murmur of crickets, leaves rustling in a gentle wind. The heart tree was an oak, brown and faceless, yet Ned Stark still felt the presence of his gods. His leg did not seem to hurt so much.
She came to him at sunset, as the clouds reddened above the walls and towers. She came alone, as he had bid her. For once she was dressed simply, in leather boots and hunting greens. When she drew back the hood of her brown cloak, he saw the bruise where the king had struck her. The angry plum color had faded to yellow, and the swelling was down, but there was no mistaking it for anything but what it was.
“Why here?” Cersei Lannister asked as she stood over him.
“So the gods can see.”
She sat beside him on the grass. Her every move was graceful. Her curling blond hair moved in the wind, and her eyes were green as the leaves of summer. It had been a long time since Ned Stark had seen her beauty, but he saw it now. “I know the truth Jon Arryn died for,” he told her.
“Do you?” The queen watched his face, wary as a cat. “Is that why you called me here, Lord Stark? To pose me riddles? Or is it your intent to seize me, as your wife seized my brother?”
“If you truly believed that, you would never have come.” Ned touched her cheek gently. “Has he done this before?”
“Once or twice.” She shied away from his hand. “Never on the face before. Jaime would have killed him, even if it meant his own life.” Cersei looked at him defiantly. “My brother is worth a hundred of your friend.”
“Your brother?” Ned said. “Or your lover?”
“Both.” She did not flinch. “Since we were children together. And why not? The Targaryens wed brother to sister for three hundred years, to keep the bloodlines pure. And Jaime and I are more than brother and sister. We are one person in two bodies. We shared a womb together. He came into this world holding my foot, our old maester said. When he is in me, I feel... whole.” The ghost of a smile flitted over her lips.
“My son Bran ... ”
To her credit, Cersei did not look away. “He saw us. You love your children, do you not?”
Robert had asked him the very same question, the morning of the melee. He gave her the same answer. “With all my heart.”
“No less do I love mine.”
Ned thought, If it came to that, the life of some child I did not know, against Robb and Sansa and Arya and Bran and Rickon, what would I do? Even more so, what would Catelyn do, if it were Jon’s life, against the children of her body? He did not know. He prayed he never would.
“All three are Jaime’s,” he said. It was not a question.
“Thank the gods.”
The seed is strong, Jon Arryn had cried on his deathbed, and so it was. All those bastards, all with hair as black as night. Grand Maester Malleon recorded the last mating between stag and lion, some ninety years ago, when Tya Lannister wed Gowen Baratheon. Their only issue, an unnamed boy described in Malleon’s tome as a large and lusty lad born with a full head of black hair, died in infancy.
Thirty years before, a Lannister had taken a Baratheon maid to wife. She had given him three daughters and a son, each black-haired. No matter how far back Ned searched in the brittle yellowed pages, he found the gold yielding before the coal.
“A dozen years,” Ned said. “How is it that you have had no children by the king?”
She lifted her head, defiant. “Your Robert got me with child once,” she said, her voice thick with contempt. “My brother found a woman to cleanse me. He never knew. If truth be told, I can scarcely bear for him to touch me, and I have not let him inside me for years. I know other ways to pleasure him, when he leaves his whores long enough to stagger up to my bedchamber. Whatever we do, the king is usually so drunk that he’s forgotten it all by the next morning.”
How could they have all been so blind? The truth was there in front of them all the time, written on the children’s faces. Ned felt sick. “I remember Robert as he was the day he took the throne, every inch a king,” he said quietly. “A thousand other women might have loved him with all their hearts. What did he do to make you hate him so?”
Her eyes burned, green fire in the dusk, like the lioness that was her sigil. “The night of our wedding feast, the first time we shared a bed, he called me by your sister’s name. He was on top of me, in me, stinking of wine, and he whispered Lyanna .”
Ned Stark thought of pale blue roses, and for a moment he wanted to weep. “I do not know which of you I pity most.”
The queen seemed amused by that. “Save your pity for yourself, Lord Stark. I want none of it.”
“You know what I must do.”
“Must?” She put her hand on his good leg, just above the knee. “A true man does what he will, not what he must.” Her fingers brushed lightly against his thigh, the gentlest of promises. “The realm needs a strong Hand. Joff will not come of age for years. No one wants war again, least of all me.” Her hand touched his face, his hair. “If friends can turn to enemies, enemies can become friends. Your wife is a thousand leagues away, and my brother has fled. Be kind to me, Ned. I swear to you, you shall never regret it.”
“Did you make the same offer to Jon Arryn?”
She slapped him. “I shall wear that as a badge of honor,” Ned said dryly.
“Honor,” she spat. “How dare you play the noble lord with me! What do you take me for? You’ve a bastard of your own, I’ve seen him. Who was the mother, I wonder? Some Dornish peasant you raped while her holdfast burned? A whore? Or was it the grieving sister, the Lady Ashara? She threw herself into the sea, I’m told. Why was that? For the brother you slew, or the child you stole? Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?
“For a start,” said Ned, “I do not kill children. You would do well to listen, my lady. I shall say this only once. When the king returns from his hunt, I intend to lay the truth before him. You must be gone by then. You and your children, all three, and not to Casterly Rock. If I were you, I should take ship for the Free Cities, or even farther, to the Summer Isles or the Port of Ibben. As far as the winds blow.”
“Exile,” she said. “A bitter cup to drink from.”
“A sweeter cup than your father served Rhaegar’s children,” Ned said, “and kinder than you deserve. Your father and your brothers would do well to go with you. Lord Tywin’s gold will buy you comfort and hire swords to keep you safe. You shall need them. I promise you, no matter where you flee, Robert’s wrath will follow you, to the back of beyond if need be.”
The queen stood. “And what of my wrath, Lord Stark?” she asked softly. Her eyes searched his face. “You should have taken the realm for yourself. It was there for the taking. Jaime told me how you found him on the Iron Throne the day King’s Landing fell, and made him yield it up. That was your moment. All you needed to do was climb those steps, and sit. Such a sad mistake.”
“I have made more mistakes than you can possibly imagine,” Ned said, “but that was not one of them.”
“Oh, but it was, my lord,” Cersei insisted. “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”
She turned up her hood to hide her swollen face and left him there in the dark beneath the oak, amidst the quiet of the godswood, under a blue-black sky. The stars were coming out and Ned could only stare.
The stars slowly danced across the blanket of night, like a maiden’s embroidery.
There was the Crone’s Lantern and the King’s Crown, Ned observed. The last time he had done so was in the Vale, where Jon had sat Robert and him down.
“There is the Sword of the Morning, and the Swan.” Jon had pointed out.
“That doesn’t look like a sword,” the boy who became king laughed.
Jon had ignored him. “That is the Shadowcat and the Galley, the Sea Song and the Serpent, the Bear and the Ghost, and the Eagle and the Moonmaid.” Jon’s eyes shone like the stars he had pointed at, Ned remembered.
Leaves crunched and cracked under heavy leather boots, and Andrei looked at the dark shade by Eddard’s side, raising his eyebrow. Ned nodded. Andrei sank himself onto the soft soil and sat in silence. They looked at the night sky and the stars, lord and soldier alike, both far from home.
“Do you think of home?” Ned asked quietly, so soft that he could hardly hear himself.
Andrei was silent. Then, he reached deep into one of his pouches and drew forth a small metal flask that caught the moonlight. He held it before him, giving the foggy reflection on the cold metal a long look.
“Always.” Andrei grunted, twisting the cap of the flask and taking a small sip. He sighed deeply in satisfaction. Andrei seemed to hesitate before extending his hand, offering Ned the flask.
“Kvas,” Andrei said sourly. “From Kislev. Last one.”
Ned accepted the flask gingerly and nodded his thanks. He smelled the sweet, sour scent even before he drank.
Then, he took a sip.
Ned coughed immediately, feeling his throat burn. He held the flask to Andrei who only chuckled, taking the flask back carefully as Ned coughed. He blinked, feeling a fire within him. The dull ache in his leg seemed to ebb ever so slightly.
“What is…” Ned paused, “in that?”
Andrei looked at the flask and he shrugged. “Good, eh?” He chuckled. “In Kislev, we use for … cook and healing.” He scratched at his beard. “As many type as grass on oblast.”
The Kossar gave the drink a forlorn look before twisting the cap tightly and returning it to one of his pouches carefully. The man seemed to treat it with near as much reverence as he had for his axe, Ned thought wryly.
The Northmen would pay a king’s ransom for this kvas, Ned knew. He thought of men like the Greatjon and Rickard Karstark, and Ned smiled. He wondered what trade with Kislev would bring. Kvas and good steel and fierce warriors. Would that he had twenty Kossars with him, Ned thought.
“Your Maesters,” Ned paused. “Or learned men must have given those constellations a different name?”
Andrei looked at him and slowly nodded. “Da, learned man know. Not me.”
Then, Andrei glanced at the faceless oak tree and the man muttered to himself quietly. “Mog by poklyast'sya.” The Kossar slowly rose and seemed to squint at the tree. Ned turned, slowly and painfully, to see what had gotten the stoic, implacable man to react so strongly.
The Lord of Winterfell froze.
Where the wood had been smooth and faceless, there was now a fierce visage. From the brown oak snarled a bear’s face, royal and strong and proud. Eleven fangs jutted from the top, like a savage crown. Where the heart trees of the North had faces of men carved upon them, this was all beast. Andrei knelt reverently.
“Otets-medved,” Andrei breathed. “Ursun.”
Ned stood still, as silent as a statue, and stared at the royal bear in the oak.
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 44, 45
we are speeding towards the big conflict...
short jaime chapter soon to get a glimpse of what he has been faring before the event we all have been waiting for
you'll also notice the mention of Folke by Andrei here. Folke's player actually had to step away from the campaign as she had to move overseas. So, in our campaign, we explained it as that Folke left the party amicably to hunt for his revenge. For this story, it does give me some trouble when it comes to writing from his POV so moving forward, Folke will definitely still be present in the story but most likely not from his POV. You'll see what I mean in a few chapters. Enjoy!
Chapter 25: The Kingslayer
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
His shoulders ached.
His pauldrons had nearly been smashed in, and his shoulder blades had cracked, if the Maester had it true. And if the old man spoke true, then three of his ribs were in just as sorry a state. That, Jaime could believe. It hurt to even breathe. Each inhale felt like a vicious dagger stabbing him. He softly pressed his palm against the white cloth on his cheek, where beneath a red line sat viciously, pulsing painfully as if it were alive.
He was unarmoured. Not that he could wear the damned thing. It was dented at a dozen spots where that Northman had crashed his shield against him violently. Chunks of golden scale and mail had flown off where the axe had left its savage bite. Under his gold robe and the bloodied bandages, he bore three long, painful slashes. One was across his left arm, where the mail had broken. Another was just below his right underarm, where the axe had carved a line. The last was across his right thigh, and it made walking a living hell.
“... summoned to court to answer for the crime of your bannerman, Gregor Clegane, the Mountain,” the courier said nervously. “You are to arrive within the fortnight, or be branded an enemy of the crown. My lord.” The pale-faced messenger stood as still as death.
“Leave us.” His father eventually said, and the courier bowed, leaving like the wind.
“Poor Ned Stark,” Jaime quipped. “Brave man, terrible judgement.”
They were in a scarlet tent, amidst a sea of red. He had glimpsed it upon his arrival. Crimson and gold tents as far as the eye could see. An army of lions waiting for the hunt. Lord Tywin Lannister stood with his back to him, busying himself with the skinning of a stag. The tent was awashed with gold. The candlesticks were gilded, the table was adorned with golden lions and even the hilt of the skinning knife was bright.
His father sank the knife into the stag’s stomach. “Attacking him was foolish,” he said coldly.
Tywin Lannister remained silent and all Jaime could hear was the knife, sawing through the tough hide of the beast. The fur gave way and the steel pierced into the stag’s entrails. “Lannisters,” Lord Tywin said as he took the bloody entrails and organs, and threw them in a steel bucket, “do not act like fools.”
His scarlet gloves were even redder, Jaime thought.
Tywin Lannister threw him a contemptuous glance. “No clever wit to brandish? Have the Northmen taken your tongue as well?”
Jaime’s jaw twitched ever so slightly. He almost found himself gritting his teeth, like old Stoneface. “Catelyn Stark took my brother,” he said.
His father sank his gloved hands into a gilded pot of cool, clear fresh water. Instantly, the water was clouded with a red mist. Everywhere we go, Jaime thought, red follows.
“Why is he still alive?” Lord Tywin’s voice was ice.
“Tyrion?”
“Ned Stark,” was Tywin Lannister’s cold reply as he held a longer, serrated knife and placed it precisely against the stag’s hind leg. The Warden of the West dragged the cruel edge along the fur, sawing through hide and flesh and bone. His grip was steady, Jaime noticed.
How often, Jaime wondered, does Lord Tywin skin stags?
“His death was never my intent,” Jaime defended, “only his chastisement. I ordered Tregar to kill his men and to take him alive but…” He rose and, in a flash, he regretted the motion.
Pain flared through his thigh. He felt the blood seep from the wound, staining the bandages.
The Maester would throw a fit, Jaime thought, wincing.
Lord Tywin’s gaze was upon him now, two cold flecks of silent ice. For a moment, Jaime thought he saw concern flash in his father’s eyes. Then, it was gone.
“You wished to chastise the Warden of the North,” his father said drily, “and the chastisement has brought you defeat. Defeat and pain, clearly.”
Anger flared in his chest, as did a river of shame. “I did not lose,” he protested weakly, placing his hands upon the golden handles of the chair for support as he sat.
“You do not appear a victor,” Lord Tywin stated bluntly. His father looked at him, taking a golden pitcher and pouring a stream of dark red into a gilded goblet. “I had thought there were few men who could match you with steel besides the Cleganes and the Bold.”
“One of Stark’s men,” Jaime glanced at the wine but his father ignored him. “From the northern mountains, I would wager. A savage with a shield and an axe.”
“So I hear,” Lord Tywin drank slowly from his wine. Briefly, Jaime wondered how much the common man would have to toil for a single sip from that gold. “Andrei Yeltska. Not a single of the Northern Houses bear that name, nor the barbaric clansmen of their icy mountains.”
“A new house, then?” Jaime shrugged, almost recoiling at the pain in the movement. “Mayhaps he saved Stark from wolves. Did House Clegane not come about from a kennelmaster who saved-”
He froze.
Lord Tywin’s eyes were hoarfrost. His face was deathly still. Tytos Lannister, his grandfather, had been saved from a lioness by his lowborn kennelmaster and his pack of biting hounds. Yet another humiliation in a line of shame and from that shame rose the House of Clegane.
Jaime looked away. “Why does it matter?”
“It matters,” his father said coldly, “that Eddard Stark has found a man who can savage one of the greatest swordsmen of the realm. It matters that we know not where and when this man came from, and if there are more like him.”
“If there are more like him,” Jaime countered, “Stark would have brought all of them with him to King’s Landing.”
“If he had, you would not be alive.”
The words stung Jaime deeper than any blade could.
“Perhaps you are right,” Lord Tywin allowed begrudgingly, “if House Stark has a band of fierce warriors, it would not be a kept secret for long.”
Red wine swirled into a second gilded goblet. Jaime accepted it mutely.
“I suppose I should be thankful that something interfered with your recklessness.” Lord Tywin declared. His father stared at him coldly. “You will take fifteen thousand men. Crush the armies of Vance and Piper after the Golden Tooth. Shatter the riverland’s shield and march for Riverrun. You will lay siege to Catelyn Stark’s girlhood home and remind her that Lannisters pay their debts.” Tywin Lannister declared.
“A siege is dull work,” Jaime complained. “I never realised you placed such value on Tyrion’s life.”
“Dull?” Lord Tywin glared at him. “Do you envision yourself charging on horseback with a lance? You can hardly walk. And he is a Lannister. He may be the lowest of the Lannisters, but he is one. And every day he remains a prisoner, the less our name commands respect.”
Jaime nodded stiffly.
Tywin Lannister’s eyes did not soften, but the wintry glare warmed from a northern blizzard to a summer chill. “Your mother is dead,” he said softly. “And you, and your brother, and your sister and all of her children. All of us, dead. All of us, rotting in the ground with gold shrouds. Only the family name will live on. It is all that will live on. Not your personal glory, or chivalry or vain honour. Family.”
His father looked into his eyes. “Do you understand?”
Once again, Jaime could only nod. A sliver of contentment settled on Lord Tywin’s face, and he stood over Jaime. Jaime kept his hand still as a river of red streamed into the gold.
Gold and red, Jaime almost laughed. He did not. Few dared to laugh when Tywin Lannister stood before them. His father placed his hand on his chin, tilting his head up. His black leather gloves were stained with red blood, stag’s blood.
Black and red, Jaime thought somberly. Dragon’s blood.
“The future of our house will be determined in the coming months.” Lord Tywin declared.
“We can establish a dynasty that will last a thousand years,” Tywin Lannister said, “or we could collapse into nothing, as the Targaryens did.” His voice was cold, but there was a satisfaction in Lord Tywin’s declaration that burned like fire.
When Robert Baratheon’s warhammer shattered Rhaegar’s ruby armour, House Targaryen was doomed for death. Yet, it was his father’s army that had brought fire and blood to Aegon’s city. It was the golden lion of Lannister that had fluttered proudly over King’s Landing amidst a dark night of terror and tears.
It was his own gilded sword that had sipped the blood of the last dragonking, Jaime thought bitterly, and his own hand that had failed to protect Elia Martell and her children.
Burn them all! Aerys cackled in his head.
Kingslayer. Eddard Stark’s grey eyes judged.
His father glanced down at him. “I need you to become the man you were always meant to be,” he insisted. “Not tomorrow, not next year. Now. ”
Jaime looked into his father’s eyes. They were pale green and flecked with gold, like emeralds that had been dipped in cold gold. He nodded. “Vance and Piper will fall,” Jaime agreed, “the golden lion will flutter over Riverrun.”
Lord Tywin nodded, satisfied. “Good. You will ride in three days when you are better healed. Take no part in the fighting until you have healed. Your presence is enough.”
Jaime nodded hesitatingly. Sit and watch the fight. He thought bitterly.
“Go.” His father commanded.
Jaime Lannister slowly rose, placing his hands upon the handles of gold. He walked stiffly. Each step was agony. The slightest pressure on his right leg was sufficient for his thigh to scream in torment, sending a flare of pain along the nerves. The thrice-damned warrior had slashed somewhere important on his thigh. The femoral artery, the Maester had muttered.
His muscles ached and his bones protested. Each laboured breath was a heavy, slow burden. And his shoulders felt like they had collapsed. They probably did.
On the ride from King’s Landing to Casterly Rock, the fight lingered on his mind, a spectre that haunted him even when he slept. How many times had he managed to slash through the man’s brigandine, cutting through leather and mail? How many times had his blade drank from that wild warrior’s blood? None of it seemed to have slowed him even in the slightest, nor did the pain of a dozen wounds, weeping with blood, even seem to faze him.
Aerys’s voice and Eddard Stark’s eyes faded from his mind. The yellowed, mad grin of the Smiling Knight flashed in his mind, and Jaime was a squire once more, struggling to fend for his life. A sea of crimson greeted him outside. Red, like Aerys’ blood. Red, like the blood of children. Red, like the blood of men who were not knights.
Notes:
as promised :D
keep your eyes peeled, a loooong chapter will be coming soon along with a good announcement :)))
Chapter 26: Andrei VI
Notes:
Happy announcement to make before the start of the chapter!
One of my players is writing a fic about the DND/WF campaign that I am holding. It is a narrative expansion of Andrei, Gunther, Lucia and Lorenzo's travels in the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy. It captures how they met, and their adventure on the road. It will cover the growth of the characters themselves, in relation to the world of Warhammer Fantasy. If you have been enjoying this fic so far (or enjoy Warhammer Fantasy, or enjoy reading about these characters, or just enjoy a good story), then do go check it out!
Here's the link to the story: Erstes Licht: A Self-Indulgent Five Year Plan to Avert the End Times
Now, what we all have been waiting for...
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Andrei
“Queen fucking brother.”
“What?” Gunther nearly dropped the Valyrian Steel dagger he was admiring. The young urchin that Gunther kept with him was fast asleep, snoring loudly.
Andrei only grimaced. “Talk to Lord Stark last night.” Andrei reached for the wineskin on the table and Gunther scowled. Andrei paused, looking at the multiple bulging pouches of coins on the table, and the strange array of stolen goods in the abandoned house. There were a pair of statues in a corner, white stone and finely sculpted. One was a curious cat and the other was some kind of bird. Rings, gemmed and plain, and rolls of snow lace were placed on the table, next to platters of dried food and wine. A clump of clothes, white silk shirts and leather breeches, were clumped in a corner as well as leather satchels and knapsacks and pouches.
“You can afford.” Andrei decided.
“You’re the one with ten thousand gold.” Gunther muttered.
Andrei ignored him, taking a long swig of the wine. It was too sweet, he decided.
“Golden knight attacked us,” Andrei said. “Kingslayer.”
“That I know,” Gunther sat down. “I hear your lord’s wife took his brother or something.” He reached for a red apple and took a bite.
My lord? Andrei gave him a look. “That not important now,” he rumbled. “King children not his. Queen fuck her own brother.” A look of disgust and bewilderment fell upon Gunther’s youthful face and Andrei could only nod grimly.
“That…” Gunther said slowly, blinking. “So, what will happen?”
Andrei looked at the thief. Gunther was young, only freshly twenty, just about half of Andrei’s age. He had already spent a year with the Kossars, gruelling in the winter of war, when Gunther had been born. The thought filled Andrei with cold.
“ Voyna.” Andrei muttered in Kislevarin. “War.” He said.
Gunther’s face seemed to grow paler. “What are we doing here then?” he whispered. “We should find the others and… and…” Gunther trailed off. “Lorenzo will know what to do, right?”
“Maybe,” Andrei said, troubled. “But where?”
Gunther remained silent, giving his apple a disquiet, uneasy look like it were poison.
“King returning.” Andrei eventually said. “Lord Stark tell him.”
“Isn’t the Queen’s father some important lord?” Gunther asked.
Andrei slowly nodded. “War.”
“Will you be fighting in it?”
He was silent. He breathed deeply, inhaling the stale air of the abandoned house. It was better than before, Andrei realised, from a few scented candles scattered about.
“If I have to,” he said eventually.
“Are you going to entrust that ten thousand gold to me? You know, in case…”
He gave Gunther an annoyed look but paused. Gunther’s eyes seemed far away, and he looked distracted, a bead of sweat on his forehead. Andrei did not blame him.
“You… are doing well.” Andrei said slowly, placing a mailed hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I return soon.”
Gunther gave a slow nod. Then, Andrei remembered.
“Have you … seen gods?”
“What?” Gunther asked, his face scrunching in confusion.
“Sign of… southern gods. Your gods.” Andrei tried to explain, remembering the snarling bear’s face upon the brown oak tree. Both him and Lord Stark had not the words to say, and they had left the godswood silently. He had helped the wolf lord to his chambers before making his way out into the city and here.
Gunther looked at the flickering flame of a yellow candle. “Maybe? Maybe Ranald decided to bless me, maybe not. I don’t know. Why?”
Andrei shook his head. He wondered how to explain the sight he had seen, just hours ago. The godswood was the domain of the Old Gods, Eddard Stark had explained to him once. He had seen Winterfell’s heart tree briefly and from afar. A tall, white weirwood with a face that bled red sap. The oak had not been a heart tree, but a bear’s face had sprouted and snarled from its dark, brown wood where minutes prior, it had been smooth nothingness. Was it a sign from the gods of the Starks, or the Father Bear of Kislev?
“Curious,” he eventually muttered. “Will tell you next time.”
Gunther rolled his eyes and rose. “I’ll walk you to the door, brave warrior,” he snarked. “Winner of the melee.”
Andrei chuckled to himself, slapping the youth on the back. Gunther nearly stumbled but he caught himself, opening the triple-locked door. The air outside was cool and filthy, the pristine night looming over both rich and poor.
“See ya around,” Gunther called out lazily.
Andrei nodded. “Do sleduyushchego raza.” He muttered as he walked away, back to the Red Keep.
Andrei jerked upright, his hand flying for his axe. There was a loud pounding on the door, a frantic hammering. Jory’s voice called out to him. “Yeltska!”
Clad in nothing but a grey shift, Andrei stumbled for the door. He opened it, and found Jory with an upraised fist. Behind him, he could see Cayn and the king’s steward speaking to a groggy Lord Eddard.
“My lord Hand,” the steward intoned. “His Grace the King commands your presence. At once.”
Andrei glanced at the lord and they shared a look. Then, Eddard grimaced. “I shall need a few moments to dress.” Cyan and Jory stepped into the lord’s chamber, leaving the steward waiting without. Andrei turned, rushing for his armour. He threw his long, heavy brigandine of leather, mail and steel scales over him. Then, his leather and steel pauldrons, vambraces and gloves before clipping his helmet to his belt. He wore his heavy leather boots and strapped his shield to his back. He checked his axe, by his side as ever, and his pistol before stepping out.
The Red Keep was dark and still as they escorted Eddard across the inner bailey. The moon hung low and fat over the walls, ripening toward full. On the ramparts, a guardsman in a gold cloak walked his rounds.
The royal apartments were in Maegor’s Holdfast, a massive square fortress that nestled in the heart of the Red Keep behind walls twelve feet thick and a dry moat lined with iron spikes, a castle-within-a-castle. One of the Kingsguard, the fat one, guarded the far end of the bridge, white steel armor ghostly in the pale moonlight.
Within, they passed two other knights of the Kingsguard; one stood at the bottom of the steps, and Ser Barristan Selmy waited at the door of the king’s bedchamber. His face was as pale as his armor. Eddard Stark’s face grew even more grim.
The royal steward opened the door. “Lord Eddard Stark, the Hand of the King,” he announced clearly.
“Bring him here,” Robert’s voice called, strangely thick. Andrei had heard voices like that before, when dying soldiers grunted out their last words after receiving Salyak’s Mercy, the cold drink of koumiss and henbane, mandrake and death.
Fires blazed in the twin hearths at either end of the bedchamber, filling the room with a sullen red glare. The heat within was suffocating. Robert lay across the canopied bed. At the bedside hovered Grand Maester Pycelle, while Lord Renly paced restlessly before the shuttered windows. Servants moved back and forth, feeding logs to the fire and boiling wine. Cersei Lannister sat on the edge of the bed beside her husband. Her hair was tousled, as if from sleep, but there was nothing sleepy in her eyes. They followed them as he helped Eddard across the room.
The king still wore his boots. He could see dried mud and blades of grass clinging to the leather where Robert’s feet stuck out beneath the blanket that covered him. A green doublet lay on the floor, slashed open and discarded, the cloth crusted with red-brown stains. The room smelled of smoke and blood and death.
“Ned,” the king whispered when he saw his Hand and friend. His face was pale as milk. “Come ... closer.”
Andrei brought him close. Lord Stark steadied himself with a hand on the bedpost. Eddard looked down. “What ... ?” he began, his throat clenched.
“A boar.” Lord Renly said, still in his hunting greens, his cloak spattered with blood.
“A devil,” the king husked. “My own fault. Too much wine, damn me to hell. Missed my thrust.”
“And where were the rest of you?” Ned demanded angrily. “Where was Ser Barristan and the Kingsguard?”
Renly’s mouth twitched, Andrei observed. “My brother commanded us to stand aside and let him take the boar alone.”
Eddard Stark lifted the blanket.
The boar must have been a fearsome thing. It had ripped the king from groin to nipple with its tusks. The wine-soaked bandages that Grand Maester Pycelle had applied were already black with blood, and the smell off the wound was hideous. Lord Stark let the blanket fall. He would be dead by nightfall, Andrei thought. It was a wonder that he was still alive. Strong, Andrei thought.
“Stinks,” Robert said. “The stink of death, don’t think I can’t smell it. Bastard did me good, eh? But I ... I paid him back in kind, Ned.” The king’s smile was as terrible as his wound, his teeth red. “Drove a knife right through his eye. Ask them if I didn’t. Ask them.”
“Truly,” Lord Renly murmured. “We brought the carcass back with us, at my brother’s command.”
“For the feast,” Robert whispered. “Now leave us. The lot of you. I need to speak with Ned.”
“Robert, my sweet lord ... ” Cersei began. “I said leave,” Robert insisted with a hint of his old fierceness. “What part of that don’t you understand, woman?”
Cersei gathered up her skirts and her dignity and led the way to the door. Lord Renly and the others followed. Grand Maester Pycelle lingered, his hands shaking as he offered the king a cup of thick white liquid. “The milk of the poppy, Your Grace,” he said. “Drink. For your pain.”
Robert knocked the cup away with the back of his hand. “Away with you. I’ll sleep soon enough, old fool. Get out.”
Grand Maester Pycelle gave Eddard a stricken look as he shuffled from the room. Robert’s fading eyes bore into his and the dying king chuckled painfully, blood gurgling in his throat. Robert glanced at him.
“You’re a good fighter,” the king wheezed. “Could have used a man like you during the war.” Robert gave a red, bloody smile. “Protect this honourable fool, eh? Go on, now.”
Andrei slowly nodded. He placed his gloved hand against his armoured chest and raised it in salute. Then, he turned, making for the door. As he did, Eddard Stark muttered. “Damn you, Robert.”
The hallway was grim and silent. Lord Renly, pale-faced and sweating, paced the length of the hall. The Grand Maester shuffled nervously, occasionally glancing at the door. A few servants stood and waited, and Jory was standing far away. Andrei moved to stand by him.
“How is…” Jory asked softly. Andrei kept his gaze upon the door and slowly shook his head. Jory swore quietly. “I have a horrid feeling,” Jory said. “Like a… Like a nightmare I cannot wake from.”
The captain of the guards was severe, with a worried look on his face.
“Will you stay with Lord Eddard?” Jory asked. “I shall speak with the men. Get them to stay alert.”
Andrei nodded, extending his mailed hand. Jory looked at it, briefly stunned, before clasping it with strength. “Old Gods be with you,” Jory muttered before he left.
The door to the king’s room creaked open. Eddard called for the servants to feed the fire, and for Lord Renly and the Grand Maester to stand in witness. The Stark lord gave him a subtle glance and tilted his head in. Andrei nodded.
Robert Baratheon pressed his seal into the hot yellow wax upon the letter. Eddard’s face was worried, Andrei noticed, the burden of the realm upon him.
“Now give me something for the pain and let me die.” Robert wheezed. Hurriedly Grand Maester Pycelle mixed him another draught of the milk of the poppy. This time the king drank deeply. His black beard was beaded with thick white droplets when he threw the empty cup aside. “Will I dream?”
Eddard gave him his answer. “You will, my lord.”
“Good,” he said, smiling. “I will give Lyanna your love, Ned. Take care of my children for me.”
“I shall ... guard your children as if they were my own,” he said slowly.
Robert nodded and closed his eyes. The white concoction had washed the pain from his face, and sleep took the stag king in its quiet, peace embrace.
Heavy chains jangled softly as Grand Maester Pycelle came up to Eddard. “I will do all in my power, my lord, but the wound has mortified. It took them two days to get him back. By the time I saw him, it was too late. I can lessen His Grace’s suffering, but only the gods can heal him now.”
“How long?” Lord Stark asked.
“By rights, he should be dead already. I have never seen a man cling to life so fiercely.”
“My brother was always strong,” Lord Renly said. “Not wise, perhaps, but strong.” In the sweltering heat of the bedchamber, his brow was slick with sweat. He might have been Robert’s ghost as he stood there, Andrei thought, young and dark and handsome. “He slew the boar. His entrails were sliding from his belly, yet somehow he slew the boar.” His voice was full of wonder.
“Robert was never a man to leave the battleground so long as a foe remained standing,” Eddard told him. He turned to Andrei and nodded for the door. Andrei followed quietly as they left.
Eddard’s grief was not for his king, Andrei knew, but for his friend. He clenched his jaw tightly. He still remembered the blood-stained arrow protruding forth from Dmitri’s eye, the Gospodar’s face a death mask of shock and pain. He always had an easy smile, Andrei thought, remembering the many lessons on civility his fellow Kossar had tried to teach him. Dmitri had died without a smile on his lips.
Outside the door, Ser Barristan Selmy still guarded the tower stairs. “Maester Pycelle has given Robert the milk of the poppy,” Eddard told him. “See that no one disturbs his rest without leave from me.”
“It shall be as you command, my lord.” Ser Barristan seemed old beyond his years. “I have failed my sacred trust.”
“Even the truest knight cannot protect a king against himself,” Eddard said. “Robert loved to hunt boar. I have seen him take a thousand of them.” He would stand his ground without flinching, his legs braced, the great spear in his hands, and as often as not he would curse the boar as it charged, and wait until the last possible second, until it was almost on him, before he killed it with a single sure and savage thrust. “No one could know this one would be his death.”
“You are kind to say so, Lord Eddard.”
“The king himself said as much. He blamed the wine.”
The white-haired knight gave a weary nod. “His Grace was reeling in his saddle by the time we flushed the boar from his lair, yet he commanded us all to stand aside.”
Soft, padded steps came to them and Andrei glanced at Varys. He wore a black velvet robe that brushed the floor, and his face was freshly powdered. “Ser Yeltska,” Varys greeted smoothly before turning to the old knight.
“I wonder, Ser Barristan,” asked Varys, so quietly, “who gave the king this wine?”
“The wine was from the king’s own skin,” Ser Barristan said.
“Only one skin? Hunting is such thirsty work.”
“I did not keep count. More than one, for a certainty. His squire would fetch him a fresh skin whenever he required it.”
“Such a dutiful boy,” said Varys, “to make certain His Grace did not lack for refreshment.”
“Which squire?” Eddard asked brusquely. They exchanged a glance and Andrei knew. Wine had killed the king as did the boar with its tusks.
“The elder,” said Ser Barristan. “Lancel.”
“I know the lad well,” said Varys. “A stalwart boy, Ser Kevan Lannister’s son, nephew to Lord Tywin and cousin to the queen. I hope the dear sweet lad does not blame himself. Children are so vulnerable in the innocence of their youth, how well do I remember.”
“You mention children. Robert had a change of heart concerning Daenerys Targaryen. Whatever arrangements you made, I want unmade. At once.”
“Alas,” said Varys. “At once may be too late. I fear those birds have flown. But I shall do what I can, my lord. With your leave.” He bowed and vanished down the steps, his soft-soled slippers whispering against the stone as he made his descent.
Andrei kept his gaze on the eunuch’s back. In the flickering darkness of the hall, illuminated by torches and candles, the black robes made Varys look like a spectre, like a floating shadow. Andrei shook his head, helping Eddard down the stairs.
My condolences, Andrei would have said if he knew the word in Westerosi. Instead, he asked softly. “What now?”
Eddard kept his silence, as grim as a ghost. “The girls will leave by sunset. A letter needs to be written to Lord Stannis.” He said eventually. Andrei nodded.
He was helping Eddard across the bridge when Lord Renly emerged from Maegor’s Holdfast. “Lord Eddard,” he called after him, “a moment, if you would be so kind.”
Eddard stopped. “As you wish.”
Renly walked to his side, and gave Andrei a brief look. Eddard Stark caught it and shook his head. “I trust him with my life.”
Andrei blinked. They were in the center of the bridge, the dry moat beneath them. Moonlight silvered the cruel edges of the spikes that lined its bed. Renly shrugged.
Lord Renly glanced warily at the fat Kingsguardon the far end of the span, and at the short knight in the doorway behind them. “That letter.” He leaned close. “Was it the regency? Has my brother named you Protector?” He did not wait for a reply. “My lord, I have thirty men in my personal guard, and other friends beside, knights and lords. Give me an hour, and I can put a hundred swords in your hand.”
“And what should I do with a hundred swords, my lord?”
“Strike! Now, while the castle sleeps.” Renly looked back at the fat knight again and dropped his voice to an urgent whisper. “We must get Joffrey away from his mother and take him in hand. Protector or no, the man who holds the king holds the kingdom. We should seize Myrcella and Tommen as well. Once we have her children, Cersei will not dare oppose us. The council will confirm you as Lord Protector and make Joffrey your ward.”
Andrei could not help but to raise an eyebrow. It made sense, he supposed, in an icey, practical sense.
Lord Stark regarded him coldly. “Robert is not dead yet. The gods may spare him. If not, I shall convene the council to hear his final words and consider the matter of the succession, but I will not dishonor his last hours on earth by shedding blood in his halls and dragging frightened children from their beds.”
Lord Renly took a step back, taut as a bowstring. “Every moment you delay gives Cersei another moment to prepare. By the time Robert dies, it may be too late ... for both of us.”
“Then we should pray that Robert does not die.”
“Small chance of that,” said Renly.
“Sometimes the gods are merciful.”
“The Lannisters are not.” Lord Renly turned away and went back across the moat, to the tower where his brother lay dying.
“He is… not wrong.” Andrei muttered quietly, keeping his hand upon his axe. The Keep felt too quiet, too cold. Its blood walls seemed a reminder of danger.
“You will urge me to dishonor too?” Eddard said quietly and aghast.
Andrei grimaced. “King die,” he said grimly. “I see many men die, lord. He will die soon.” He had a feeling, as sure as stone, that the king had closed his eyes for the final time, that the man who had once been a warrior was now sleeping forever.
“A hundred sword…” Eddard whispered. “Should I have accepted Renly’s offer then? Place steel by Cersei Lannister’s throat. Drag her children from their beds.”
“I do not know, lord.” Andrei said. “But Queen has more men than you.” He reminded.
“You are right,” Eddard grimaced. “We must have the City Watch, all two thousand of them.” Andrei only frowned at that. Those men were no soldiers, he thought. They could hardly be thought of as men-at-arms. Fools in gold, he thought.
Jory and Cayn were waiting for them by the entrance to the Hand’s Tower.
“I want Littlefinger,” Eddard told Cayn. “If he’s not in his chambers, take as many men as you need and search every winesink and whorehouse in King’s Landing until you find him. Bring him to me before break of day.” Cayn bowed and took his leave, and Lord Stark turned to Jory. “The Wind Witch sails on the evening tide. Have you chosen the escort?”
“Ten men, with Porther in command.”
“Twenty, and Varly will command,” Ned Stark said.
“As you wish, m’lord,” Jory said, worried. “That leaves us with eight men.”
Eddard shook his head resolutely. “No matter,” he said, “make sure that my daughters return to Winterfell.”
Jory nodded. Eddard continued. “The ship will pass near Dragonstone when it turns north. I need a letter delivered.”
“To Lord Stannis?” Jory asked quietly.
“Aye,” Ned said. “Tell Varly this. Tell Captain Qos to hoist my banner as soon as he comes in sight of the island. They may be wary of unexpected visitors. If he is reluctant, offer him whatever it takes. I will give him a letter to place into the hand of Lord Stannis Baratheon. No one else. Not his steward, nor the captain of his guard, nor his lady wife, but only Lord Stannis himself.”
“As you command,” Jory nodded to his lord and him before leaving.
Andrei followed the lord silently to his chambers, keeping his armoured hand on Eddard’s shoulder to support him. He helped Eddard into his padded chair, and the wolf lord stared into the flame of the candle burning beside him on the table. Andrei turned to Eddard and saw the shadow of grief in his tired grey eyes. He rose slowly and made to leave, giving the man his privacy.
“Andrei,” Eddard said softly. “Stay.”
Andrei gave the Stark lord a slow nod. He took the pitcher of Northern wine and poured the lord a cup, and then one for himself. Eddard nodded distractedly, barely giving the cup a glance. Andrei sat with him in morose, grave silence.
“Dmitri.” Andrei said as he took a long drink from the cup. Eddard blinked and looked at him slowly.
“Kossar, like me. Join around same time. I Ungor, he Gospodar.” Andrei paused, remembering the easy smile. “We fight together on battlefield, in oblast, by sea. He taught me, ah, many things.” Andrei tried to smile, taking another sip. “Last battle we fight together, we won. We talk of feast.”
Andrei paused. “Arrow flew. In his eye. He died.” Andrei finished his drink and his tale.
Eddard kept silent, taking the pitcher and pouring into Andrei’s empty cup. “How long ago… was this?”
“Two years,” Andrei said. The wound had stopped bleeding, Andrei thought, but the arrow had pierced deeply.
Ned took out the king’s last letter. A roll of crisp white parchment sealed with golden wax. “Men will whisper afterward that I have betrayed myking’s friendship and disinherited his son.” he said darkly. “Mayhaps Robert will know the truth.”
“He will, lord.” Andrei assured.
Eddard drew out a fresh sheet of paper and dipped his quill in the inkpot. “A letter to Lord Stannis,” he explained as he wrote, “to inform him of…”
The lord stopped, his hand trailing to a halt. “Lord Tywin and Ser Jaime are not men to suffer disgrace meekly; they would fight rather than flee,” Eddard said with a grimace. “I pray Lord Stannis knows to sail with all imperative.”
Andrei kept silent, watching as Eddard continued the letter. When he was done, he blotted the paper, folded it twice, and melted the sealing wax over the candle flame. He seemed to smile briefly as the wax dripped and melted. Andrei raised an eyebrow.
“My regency will be a short one,” Eddard said as the wax softened. “The new king will choose his own Hand. I will return to Winterfell to… to my children, to my wife.”
Lord Stark finally took his cup and drank deeply from it. “What will you do?”
Andrei opened his mouth and found that he knew not the words to say. “I will… see.”
Eddard nodded. “Know that you shall always be a welcome guest in Winterfell,” the lord assured, “and within my household, if you ever desire.”
Andrei nodded his gratitude and sat quietly. Cayn returned as Lord Stark was pressing the direwolf seal down into the soft white wax. Desmond was with him, and between them Littlefinger. Eddard thanked his guards and sent them away while Andrei rose to give the Master of Coin the seat.
Lord Petyr was clad in a blue velvet tunic with puffed sleeves, his silvery cape patterned with mockingbirds. “I suppose congratulations are in order,” he said as he seated himself. His voice was too amused.
Ned scowled. “The king lies wounded and near to death.”
“I know,” Littlefinger said, his eyes shrewd and smiling. “I also know that Robert has named you Protector of the Realm.”
Eddard’s eyes flicked to the king’s letter on the table beside him, its seal unbroken. “And how is it you know that, my lord?”
“Varys hinted as much,” Littlefinger said, “and you have just confirmed it.”
Eddard’s mouth twisted in anger. “Damn Varys and his little birds. Catelyn spoke truly, the man has some black art. I do not trust him.”
“Excellent. You’re learning.” Littlefinger leaned forward. “Yet I’ll wager you did not drag me here in the black of night to discuss the eunuch.”
“No,” Ned admitted. “I know the secret Jon Arryn was murdered to protect. Robert will leave no trueborn son behind him. Joffrey and Tommen are Jaime Lannister’s bastards, born of his incestuous union with the queen.”
Littlefinger lifted an eyebrow. “Shocking,” he said in a tone that suggested he was not shocked at all. “The girl as well? No doubt. So when the king dies ... ”
“The throne by rights passes to Lord Stannis, the elder of Robert’s two brothers.”
Lord Petyr stroked his pointed beard as he considered the matter. “So it would seem. Unless ... ”
“Unless, my lord? There is no seeming to this. Stannis is the heir. Nothing can change that.”
“Stannis cannot take the throne without your help. If you’re wise, you’ll make certain Joffrey succeeds.” Ned gave him a stony stare. “Have you no shred of honor?”
“Oh, a shred, surely,” Littlefinger replied negligently.
“Hear me out. Stannis is no friend of yours, nor of mine. Even his brothers can scarcely stomach him. The man is iron, hard and unyielding. He’ll give us a new Hand and a new council, for a certainty. No doubt he’ll thank you for handing him the crown, but he won’t love you for it. And his ascent will mean war. Stannis cannot rest easy on the throne until Cersei and her bastards are dead. Do you think Lord Tywin will sit idly while his daughter’s head is measured for a spike? Casterly Rock will rise, and not alone. Robert found it in him to pardon men who served King Aerys, so long as they did him fealty. Stannis is less forgiving. He will not have forgotten the siege of Storm’s End, and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dare not. Every man who fought beneath the dragon banner or rose with Balon Greyjoy will have good cause to fear. Seat Stannis on the Iron Throne and I promise you, the realm will bleed.”
This Lord Stannis did not sound terrible, Andrei thought. A hard man of iron will, who would strike down the foe and unite the land. He sounded like a good Tzar, Andrei decided.
“Now look at the other side of the coin. Joffrey is but twelve, and Robert gave you the regency, my lord. You are the Hand of the King and Protector of the Realm. The power is yours, Lord Stark. All you need do is reach out and take it. Make your peace with the Lannisters. Release the Imp. Wed Joffrey to your Sansa. Wed your younger girl to Prince Tommen, and your heir to Myrcella. It will be four years before Joffrey comes of age. By then he will look to you as a second father, and if not, well ... four years is a good long while, my lord. Long enough to dispose of Lord Stannis. Then, should Joffrey prove troublesome, we can reveal his little secret and put Lord Renly on the throne.”
“We?” Eddard repeated, his face darkening. Andrei placed a hand on his axe.
Littlefinger gave a shrug. “You’ll need someone to share your burdens. I assure you, my price would be modest.”
“Your price.” Eddard’s voice was ice. “Lord Baelish, what you suggest is treason.”
“Only if we lose.”
“You forget,” Lord Stark told him. “You forget Jon Arryn. You forget Tomard and Heward. And you forget that they sent a man to cut my son’s throat, Lord Baelish.”
Littlefinger sighed. “I fear I did forget, my lord. Pray forgive me. For a moment I did not remember that I was talking to a Stark.” His mouth quirked. “So it will be Stannis, and war?”
Something about the man’s voice rankled at Andrei and reminded him of …
His lips twitched at the memory of Bogenhafen. Johannes Teugen, the cold, arrogant merchant king in all but name. The man had wanted to hire them to help him in his hegemony of Bogenhafen’s mercantile battlefield. They had chosen their side though, young Ludwig Haagen had been a friend, and did not sneer at them. And then, that Witch Hunter and Warrior Priest arrived at the same time they were investigating one of Teugen’s warehouse.
A hive of corpses strung up in worship and dedication to the Ruinous Powers had festered under the warehouse. The next morning, Johannes had burned with his manor.
“It is not a choice. Stannis is the heir.” Eddard said coldly.
“Far be it from me to dispute the Lord Protector. What would you have of me, then? Not my wisdom, for a certainty.”
“I shall do my best to forget your... wisdom,” Eddard said with distaste. “I called you here to ask for the help you promised Catelyn. This is a perilous hour for all of us. Robert has named me Protector, true enough, but in the eyes of the world, Joffrey is still his son and heir. The queen has a dozen knights and a hundred men-at-arms who will do whatever she commands... enough to overwhelm what remains of my own household guard.” He shared a grimace with Andrei before continuing.
“And for all I know, her brother Jaime may be riding for King’s Landing even as we speak, with a Lannister host at his back.”
Littlefinger smiled. “A Lannister host, perhaps. Ser Jaime at its head, I would doubt so. After what your man did,” he gestured at Andrei, “I imagine he is still sore and bandaged. Still, you are without an army, yes. There is small love lost between Lord Renly and the Lannisters. Bronze Yohn Royce, Ser Balon Swann, Ser Loras, Lady Tanda, the Redwyne twins... each of them has a retinue of knights and sworn swords here at court.”
“Renly has thirty men in his personal guard, the rest even fewer. It is not enough, even if I could be certain that all of them will choose to give me their allegiance. I must have the gold cloaks. The City Watch is two thousand strong, sworn to defend the castle, the city, and the king’s peace.”
“Ah, but when the queen proclaims one king and the Hand another, whose peace do they protect?” Lord Petyr asked. “They follow the man who pays them.” He leaned back and looked at Eddard full in the face, his grey-green eyes bright with mockery.
“You wear your honor like a suit of armor, Stark. You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and make it hard for you to move. Look at you now. You know why you summoned me here. You know what you want to ask me to do. You know it has to be done... but it’s not honorable, so the words stick in your throat.”
Littlefinger laughed. “I ought to make you say it, but that would be cruel... so have no fear, my good lord. For the love I bear for Catelyn, I will go to Janos Slynt this very hour and make certain that the City Watch is yours. Six thousand gold pieces should do it. A third for the Commander, a third for the officers, a third for the men. We might be able to buy them for half that much, but I prefer not to take chances.”
Smiling, Littlefinger rose and gave a mocking bow.
The man’s neck was so thin, Andrei realised. A simple swing with his axe, and flesh and bone would be severed. The head would roll on the ground, the mocking smirk plastered upon the face. Then, Littlefinger turned and strolled out of the room.
Andrei looked at Eddard. “No trust him,” he shook his head.
Ned Stark favoured him with a tired frown. “Catelyn…”
“She know boy many years ago?” Andrei asked. “Man now. Man change.”
“Perhaps,” Eddard agreed. “Yet, we can do little. We need the two thousand of the Watch. We need them to be there when… when it happens. We need them to keep the peace in the city.”
“Not soldiers,” Andrei pointed out.
“No,” Eddard sighed. “Barely a rung above armed thugs. Still, give a man a spear and a part of him knows what to do with it.”
For a moment, Andrei was not sitting in the lord’s chamber of the Tower of the Hand, Lord Eddard Stark sitting across him. He was in a training yard in Erengrad, swinging the axe against a figure of straw. He was holding a shield and bracing against heavy blows, and he was firing his pistol for the very first time. He could still smell the smoke and hear that loud, crashing ring in his ears.
Andrei sighed. “I fight with you, Lord Stark.”
Eddard
The grey light of dawn was streaming through his window when the thunder of hoofbeats awoke Eddard Stark from his brief, exhausted sleep. He lifted his head from the table to look down into the yard. Below, men in mail and leather and crimson cloaks were making the morning ring to the sound of swords, and riding down mock warriors stuffed with straw. Ned watched Sandor Clegane gallop across the hard-packed ground to drive an iron-tipped lance through a dummy’s head. Canvas ripped and straw exploded as Lannister guardsmen joked and cursed.
Is this brave show for my benefit? he wondered. If so, Cersei was a greater fool than he’d imagined. Damn her, he thought, why is the woman not fled? I have given her chance after chance…
The morning was overcast and grim. Ned broke his fast with his daughters, Andrei and Septa Mordane. Sansa, still disconsolate, stared sullenly at her food and refused to eat, but Arya wolfed down everything that was set in front of her, as did Andrei. Strangely, the man had asked for two wine bottles but had not drank from them.
“Syrio says we have time for one last lesson before we take ship this evening,” Arya said. “Can I, Father? All my things are packed.”
“A short lesson, and make certain you leave yourself time to bathe and change. I want you ready to leave by midday, is that understood?”
“By midday,” Arya said. Andrei glanced up from his porridge, turning to look at Arya and then at Ned. Eddard shook his head. I will need you with me.
Sansa looked up from her food. “If she can have a dancing lesson, why won’t you let me say farewell to Prince Joffrey?”
“I would gladly go with her, Lord Eddard,” Septa Mordane offered. “There would be no question of her missing the ship.”
“It would not be wise for you to go to Joffrey right now, Sansa. I’m sorry.”
Sansa’s eyes filled with tears. “But why?”
Arya tried to roll her eyes subtly and Andrei’s face was as blank as ever.
“Sansa, your lord father knows best,” Septa Mordane said. “You are not to question his decisions.”
“It’s not fair!” Sansa pushed back from her table, knocked over her chair, and ran weeping from the solar.
Septa Mordane rose, but Ned gestured her back to her seat. “Let her go, Septa. I will try to make her understand when we are all safely back in Winterfell.” The septa bowed her head and sat down to finish her breakfast.
He watched with grim amusement as Arya and Andrei seemed to race each other in wolfing down their porridge while the Septa’s face grew in horror. “Slow down, child. You are not in a rush.”
Arya barely seemed to notice, settling down her bowl and muttering a quick farewell before rushing forth like a shadowcat. The Septa rose with a frown, bowed and left.
Andrei was staring at the two wine bottles. Glass was rare and expensive, Ned knew, and he had given them freely to his swornsword when the man had asked. Yet, the Kossar had not taken a single sip.
“Where you keep gold?” Andrei asked suddenly. Ned stilled.
“The chests are with mine own possessions, for safekeeping.” Ned said, confused and wary.
Andrei looked at him. “I take some gold,” he said, “I buy more bottle.”
Ned frowned. “I do not want you drunk before…”
Andrei shook his head. “Not drink.” The Kossar gave him a fiery look. Ned nodded slowly. The key was in one of the compartments within his table and after a short walk back to his chambers, he handed the iron key to Andrei who muttered his thanks and left.
It was an hour later when Grand Maester Pycelle came to Eddard Stark in his solar. His shoulders slumped, as if the weight of the great maester’s chain around his neck had become too great to bear. “My lord,” he said, “King Robert is gone. The gods give him rest.”
“No,” Ned answered. “He hated rest. The gods give him love and laughter, and the joy of righteous battle.” It was strange how empty he felt. He had been expecting the visit, and yet with those words, something died within him. He would have given all his titles for the freedom to weep ... but he was Robert’s Hand, and the hour he dreaded had come. “Be so good as to summon the members of the council here to my solar,” he told Pycelle. The Tower of the Hand was as secure as he and Jory could make it; he could not say the same for the council chambers.
“My lord?” Pycelle blinked. “Surely the affairs of the kingdom will keep till the morrow, when our grief is not so fresh.”
Ned was quiet but firm. “I fear we must convene at once.”
Pycelle bowed. “As the Hand commands.” He called his servants and sent them running, then gratefully accepted Ned’s offer of a chair and a cup of sweet beer.
Ser Barristan Selmy was the first to answer the summons, immaculate in white cloak and enameled scales. “My lords,” he said, “my place is beside the young king now. Pray give me leave to attend him.”
“Your place is here, Ser Barristan,” Ned told him.
Littlefinger came next, still garbed in the blue velvets and silver mockingbird cape he had worn the night previous, his boots dusty from riding. “My lords,” he said, smiling at nothing in particular before he turned to Ned. “That little task you set me is accomplished, Lord Eddard.”
Varys entered in a wash of lavender, pink from his bath, his plump face scrubbed and freshly powdered, his soft slippers all but soundless. “The little birds sing a grievous song today,” he said as he seated himself. “The realm weeps. Shall we begin?”
“When Lord Renly arrives,” Ned said.
Varys gave him a sorrowful look. “I fear Lord Renly has left the city.”
“Left the city?” Ned had counted on Renly’s support.
“He took his leave through a postern gate an hour before dawn, accompanied by Ser Loras Tyrell and some fifty retainers,” Varys told them. “When last seen, they were galloping south in some haste, no doubt bound for Storm’s End or Highgarden.”
So much for Renly and his hundred swords. Ned did not like the smell of that, but there was nothing to be done for it. He drew out Robert’s last letter. “The king called me to his side last night and commanded me to record his final words. Lord Renly and Grand Maester Pycelle stood witness as Robert sealed the letter, to be opened by the council after his death. Ser Barristan, if you would be so kind?”
The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard examined the paper. “King Robert’s seal, and unbroken.” He opened the letter and read. “Lord Eddard Stark is herein named Protector of the Realm, to rule as regent until the heir comes of age.”
And as it happens, he is of age , Ned reflected, but he did not give voice to the thought. He trusted neither Pycelle nor Varys, and Ser Barristan was honor-bound to protect and defend the boy he thought his new king. The old knight would not abandon Joffrey easily. The need for deceit was a bitter taste in his mouth, but Ned knew he must tread softly here, to keep his counsel and play the game until he was firmly established as regent. There would be time enough to deal with the succession when Arya and Sansa were safely back in Winterfell, and Lord Stannis had returned to King’s Landing with all his power.
“I would ask this council to confirm me as Lord Protector, as Robert wished,” Ned said, watching their faces, wondering what thoughts hid behind Pycelle’s half-closed eyes, Littlefinger’s lazy half-smile, and the nervous flutter of Varys’s fingers.
The door opened. Jory stepped into the solar. “Pardon, my lords, the king’s steward insists ... ” The captain of his guards was armed and armoued but he had a leather satchel on him.
The royal steward entered and bowed. “Esteemed lords, the king demands the immediate presence of his small council in the throne room.”
Ned had expected Cersei to strike quickly; the summons came as no surprise. “The king is dead,” he said, “but we shall go with you nonetheless. Jory, assemble an escort, if you would.”
Andrei was outside, still and silent by the door. He lent Ned his arm to help him down the stairs. He had the same leather satchel as Jory, Ned noted but did not ask.
Littlefinger, Varys, Pycelle, and Ser Barristan followed close behind. A double column of men-at-arms in chainmail and steel helms was waiting outside the tower, eight strong. Grey cloaks snapped in the wind as Jory marched them across the yard. There was no Lannister crimson to be seen, but Ned was reassured by the number of gold cloaks visible on the ramparts and at the gates.
Janos Slynt met them at the door to the throne room, armored in ornate black-and-gold plate, with a high-crested helm under one arm. The Commander bowed stiffly. His men pushed open the great oaken doors, twenty feet tall and banded with bronze.
The royal steward led them in. “All hail His Grace, Joffrey of the Houses Baratheon and Lannister, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm,” he sang out.
It was a long walk to the far end of the hall, where Joffrey waited atop the Iron Throne. Supported by Andrei, Ned Stark slowly limped and hopped toward the boy who called himself king. The others followed. The first time he had come this way, he had been on horseback, sword in hand, and the Targaryen dragons had watched from the walls as he forced Jaime Lannister down from the throne. He wondered if Joffrey would step down quite so easily.
Five knights of the Kingsguard—all but Ser Jaime and Ser Barristan—were arrayed in a crescent around the base of the throne. They were in full armor, enameled steel from helm to heel, long pale cloaks over their shoulders, shining white shields strapped to their left arms. Cersei Lannister and her two younger children stood behind Ser Boros and Ser Meryn. The queen wore a gown of sea-green silk, trimmed with Myrish lace as pale as foam. On her finger was a golden ring with an emerald the size of a pigeon’s egg, on her head a matching tiara.
Above them, Prince Joffrey sat amidst the barbs and spikes in a cloth-of-gold doublet and a red satin cape. Sandor Clegane was stationed at the foot of the throne’s steep narrow stair. He wore mail and soot-grey plate and his snarling dog’s-head helm.
Behind the throne, twenty Lannister guardsmen waited with longswords hanging from their belts. Crimson cloaks draped their shoulders and steel lions crested their helms. But Littlefinger had kept his promise; all along the walls, in front of Robert’s tapestries with their scenes of hunt and battle, the gold-cloaked ranks of the City Watch stood stiffly to attention, each man’s hand clasped around the haft of an eight-foot-long spear tipped in black iron. They outnumbered the Lannisters five to one.
Ned’s leg was a burning blaze of pain by the time he stopped. He kept a hand on Andrei’s stout shoulder to help support his weight. The Kossar was stiff and rigid, and kept a hand by his axe. Good, Ned thought.
Joffrey stood. His red satin cape was patterned in gold thread; fifty roaring lions to one side, fifty prancing stags to the other. It should have been a hundred lions. “I command the council to make all the necessary arrangements for my coronation,” the boy proclaimed. “I wish to be crowned within the fortnight. Today I shall accept oaths of fealty from my loyal councillors.”
Ned produced Robert’s letter. “Lord Varys, be so kind as to show this to my lady of Lannister.”
The eunuch carried the letter to Cersei. The queen glanced at the words. “Protector of the Realm,” she read. “Is this meant to be your shield, my lord? A piece of paper?” She ripped the letter in half, ripped the halves in quarters, and let the pieces flutter to the floor.
“Those were the king’s words,” Ser Barristan said, shocked.
“We have a new king now,” Cersei Lannister replied. “Lord Eddard, when last we spoke, you gave me some counsel. Allow me to return the courtesy. Bend the knee, my lord. Bend the knee and swear fealty to my son, and we shall allow you to step down as Hand and live out your days in the grey waste you call home.”
“Would that I could,” Ned said grimly. If she was so determined to force the issue here and now, she left him no choice. “Your son has no claim to the throne he sits. Lord Stannis is Robert’s true heir.
“Liar!” Joffrey screamed, his face reddening.
“Mother, what does he mean?” Princess Myrcella asked the queen plaintively. “Isn’t Joff the king now?”
“You condemn yourself with your own mouth, Lord Stark,” said Cersei Lannister. “Ser Barristan, seize this traitor.”
The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard hesitated. In the blink of an eye he was surrounded by Stark guardsmen, bare steel in their mailed fists. Jory was amongst them, his blade in his hand and his stare was cold.
“And now the treason moves from words to deeds,” Cersei said. “Do you think Ser Barristan stands alone, my lord?” With an ominous rasp of metal on metal, the Hound drew his longsword. The knights of the Kingsguard and twenty Lannister guardsmen in crimson cloaks moved to support him.
Andrei sighed. “Snova krov.” Ned heard his soft mutter under the cacophony of steel.
“Kill him! ” the boy king screamed down from the Iron Throne. “Kill all of them, I command it! ”
“You leave me no choice,” Ned told Cersei Lannister. He called out to Janos Slynt. “Commander, take the queen and her children into custody. Do them no harm, but escort them back to the royal apartments and keep them there, under guard.”
“Men of the Watch!” Janos Slynt shouted, donning his helm. A hundred gold cloaks leveled their spears and closed.
“I want no bloodshed,” Ned told the queen. “Tell your men to lay down their swords, and no one need—”
With a single sharp thrust, the nearest gold cloak drove his spear into Porther’s back. His blade dropped from nerveless fingers as the wet red point burst out through his ribs, piercing leather and mail. He was dead before his sword hit the floor.
Andrei
Eddard’s shout came far too late. Janos Slynt himself slashed open Quent’s throat.
Andrei growled, parrying a spear thrust with his axe. Quent had shared his wine with him when he had returned to the Red Keep late one night. He was a young man, with ambitions to be a knight, and a brown fuzz for a beard. The brown was scarlet now and his eyes were cold and dead.
Another spear came biting for him and Andrei cursed, seizing it in the middle of the pole. With a roar, he brought his axe upon it and the steel bit through the wood. He slammed the broken half of the spear into the Gold Cloak’s eye before kicking the fresh corpse into a charging Lannister guardsman.
To his right, Jory was a blur, deflecting a spear thrust and opening the Watchman’s throat. Andrei hooked a sword thrust with his axe, wrenching it aside before smashing his helm against the red cloak’s face. With a blur, he opened the man’s throat. He grabbed the man’s shoulder and shoved it at two spearmen. Andrei reached for the shield strapped to his back.
Instantly, a spear was thrown at him. He ducked under it and used the momentum in rising to crash the steel edge of his shield against the throat of a young Gold Cloak. “Mhershi,” the young man gurgled. Andrei swung his axe with such force that he was nearly beheaded, his head only hanging on via a few red tendons.
To his left, Cayn whirled, steel flashing, drove back the nearest spearman with a flurry of blows; for an instant it looked as though he might cut his way free. Then the Hound was on him. Sandor Clegane’s first swing flew for Cayn’s swordhand and it was met with the snarling bear of his axe.
“You!” The Hound cursed, swinging his dark longsword. Andrei caught it on his shield, barely grunting. He swung his axe but the Hound took a step back and raised his armoured hand. The steel of his axe scraped deeply against his black steel vambrace with a sickening screech.
The Hound laughed. “Knew you were a killer.”
Andrei glared quietly as he deflected the longsword’s thrust with his axe. He smashed the shield against Sandor’s breastplate and the Hound winced, stepping back with a wild swing of his sword. Andrei blocked him easily with his shield. In a blur, he sheathed his axe and reached into the leather satchel. He drew a glass bottle of Dornish Red and hurled it at Sandor Clegane.
The glass shattered and the red vintage coated his dark armour like sweet blood.
The Hound cursed, blinking in confusion, but froze when Andrei lit a match stick, having retrieved it from one of his pouches. The small fire dancing on the little wooden stick might as well have been dragon fire, for all of the Hound’s fear in his eyes. Andrei gave the dog a savage smile.
“I say I kill you, dog,” Andrei spat, flicking the match stick at the Hound. The stick spun and flew through the air, as deadly as a cannonball. For a pitiful second, the Hound was frozen in terror. Then came a mad fear, but it was too late. The fire roared and danced with speed along the man’s soot-black armour, burning wherever the Dornish wine had coated.
“NO!” The Hound roared and cried and screamed. He was a terrible sight. A giant of a man in dark steel and on fire. He had dropped his heavy sword and was clambering to tear his black armour from his flesh. “No. No.” He rasped, crashing into a trio of Gold Cloaks. He left a trail of fire everywhere he stumbled. The sight of the Hound’s defeat had frozen the Gold Cloaks and half of the Lannister men, those who were still alive.
Andrei snatched another bottle from his satchel and hurled it at a patch of fire where a crimson carpet was. Then, a third at an approaching Mandon Moore. The sound of fighting resumed and he heard the clashing of swords to his right.
“Jory!” Andrei roared. The captain of the guards was fighting three men at once and holding his own. Andrei charged forth like a raging bear, crashing into a brave, and foolish, Watchman. He crushed the man’s throat with his heavy boot and seized his spear. By Ursun, Andrei thought. He felt stronger than he ever had been. Andrei hurled it at one of the men fighting Jory, and then turned to parry a sword.
It was a young, handsome knight in the white scale and steel of the Kingsguard. The young knight’s face was sombre and solemn and stiff even as the fire spread behind him in a bright, hungry blaze. “Yield,” the knight urged.
“Kill him!” He heard Joffrey screech from his throne even as the Queen hurried his siblings to safety, guarded by a dozen red cloaks. Then, the Hound crashed into a pair of the Lannister men, in the midst of tearing away his burning breastplate. The fire burned on his vambraces, pauldrons and greaves, and the man was still howling in mad agony as his flesh seemed to melt and his black armour grew red hot. The Queen shrieked in helpless terror and fury, and the little prince and princess were sobbing frightfully behind her.
The young knight flashed forward, his bright steel snaking out. The pale blade caught the reflection of the growing flames, flashing a bright red and yellow. Andrei parried the thrust with his shield and swung his axe at his handsome face. The knight darted back but a thin slash was left on his cheek.
Then, Andrei heard the sound of glass shattering. He smiled. To his right, Jory stood over the corpse of two more men. He had a glass bottle of wine in one hand, with cloth stuffed at its tip. The young captain lit the cloth on fire with a match stick and hurled it at a trio of red cloaks. It shattered against the man in the centre, but the fire was greedy and lapped at all three.
Firebomb, from Kislev. Andrei had explained to Jory hurriedly after dragging the captain into the city and asking him to buy as many bottles of wine as he could. Meanwhile, he had run into Gunther’s hideout and took two of the leather satchels he saw lying around. Gunther had nearly shot him with the crossbow when Andrei knocked so hard, he crashed his fist through the door.
Dazh’s fire, he thought with grim satisfaction.
By the base of a marble pillar, red fire danced hungrily. There was a crimson and gold banner, large and domineering, hanging upon the white pillar. The golden lion upon it had roared its defiance once. Now its tongue seemed to flicker as the flames consumed the cloth. The young knight charged forth once more and Andrei blocked his sword, slashing through the mail on his left arm. He smashed his shield against the Kingsguard’s helmet with such force that the helm flew and his nose broke.
He raised his axe and the knight closed his eyes. Then, he smashed the edge of his shield against the knight’s forehead, sending him crumpling. Maybe dead, maybe not, up to his seven gods. Smoke was starting to fill the throne room.
Then, Andrei turned and froze, his axe stiff in his hand.
There, Eddard Stark stood still, his cane upon the floor. Littlefinger was standing behind him, a steel dagger pressed against Eddard’s neck, and he whispered into the lord’s ear with a smirk.
Andrei did not hesitate. He reached behind his back and drew his pistol from its leather holster. He felt like he was waking a sleeping dragon, and calling upon its fiery breath of death. Amidst the smoke-filled throne room and the screaming of burning men, Andrei kept his gaze on Littlefinger. He raised his arm and squeezed the trigger of his nameless pistol.
There was a bright flash, as blinding as the sun, and a loud crash, as deafening as a dragon’s roar. He heard the ring, and he allowed himself to savour it. The last he had used it was against the monstrous stag back in the North, charging at the mother direwolf. The steel cry of the bullet was almost sweet.
The round steel left the dark smoke behind and flew faster than his eye could see. Lord Petyr Baelish’s smirk was frozen on his face even as the bullet crashed through the side of his temple and tore through his head. His eyes seemed to burst as blood, brain matter and bone erupted from Littlefinger’s head.
His body was still, standing as if he was still alive and the upper half of his head had not exploded. Then, it fell, twitching and convulsing. His blue velvets and silver mockingbird cape were now dyed a deep, dark scarlet.
The Throne Room was silent, as soundless as the graves he had seen in the Empire, with their black roses. There must have been close to two hundred men in the hall, and not a whimper nor a whisper could be heard. Only the crackling of fire.
All eyes were upon him. King Joffrey was frozen on his dark, jagged throne, terror on his young face. The Queen stood still, her two children behind her weeping. Grand Maester Pycelle was cowering in the corner of the hall, furthest from the fighting. Varys was… nowhere to be seen and what remained of Littlefinger’s eyes were somewhere on the blood-red carpet, watching.
The Hound was still crawling miserably on the floor, his howls having died to whimperings of pain and terror. Ser Barristan was still, his hand on his blade but his eyes were fixed upon the pistol. Andrei moved slowly to the frozen Eddard Stark. There were still pieces of Littlefinger’s head upon his brown, leather vest.
Andrei kept his pistol on Joffrey, and a dark stain grew on the boy’s golden breeches. Jory was standing but there was a long slash across his chest. Only two more of the Northern guards were still alive. Donnis was panting and covered in sweat, his left hand hanging uselessly. Wyl was pale and bloodied, clutching at his belly.
Jory moved to stand by Eddard’s left while Andrei stood at his right.
“Go,” Eddard whispered. “Leave me here.”
Jory spat a red blob on the floor of the throne room and kept his blade pointed at the red cloaks. “Won’t fail you this time, my lord.”
There were still close to four scores of Gold Cloaks, with their commander at the far end of the hall, away from the Northmen. Eight of the Lannister men were still alive and unharmed. With the exception of the unconscious young knight and the fat one with a sword in his shoulder, the Kingsguard were unharmed.
He had with him three wounded guardsmen, a crippled lord and an unloaded pistol.
Andrei slowly moved the empty pistol towards Cersei’s direction.
The Queen paled and shivered but stood firm, allowing her children to hide and cry behind her. Andrei nodded grimly. Brave woman, terrible and brave.
Despite their numbers, the Lannister men and the Gold Cloaks were unwilling to step forth. The throne room was a sight of grisly, haunting horror. Blood and bodies were scattered across the floor before that terrible, jagged throne of iron. Here and there, arms and fingers were scattered. Pools of deep red blood and twitching corpses and whimpering, dying men calling for their mothers and gods.
Fire burned along the carpets and the banners and along patches of flammable wine. Smoke filled the hall, a dark smoke that seemed to cloud and choke.
“Don’t die for me,” Eddard whispered.
Jory exchanged a glance with Andrei. There was a grim look on his face. Grim but peaceful. He had seen that look before.
“M’lord,” Wyl rasped in pain. “T’was a horsemaster’s son. Where else will a lord tell me to run and leave him behind?” The young guard laughed, leveraging his blade.
“Aye,” said stout Donnis, who had sparred with Andrei thrice in the yard and improved each time. “Starks always treated me and mine fairly and generously. I would die for you, Lord Eddard, but not with you.”
“Go,” said Jory, so softly that Andrei barely heard it.
“Jory,” Eddard began. Andrei kept his pistol upon the young king once more, but he swung his shield upon his back and slowly placed a hand on the lord’s back.
“Hallway.” Andrei muttered. “Narrow. Their numbers nothing.”
Jory nodded. Donnis, Wyl and Jory formed a ring of steel and bravery as Andrei pulled Eddard back, supporting him with a steady hand. The throne room seemed frozen even as Andrei and Eddard slowly stepped out. The last three of the guards followed behind, their swords and eyes pointed within.
“KILL THEM! I WANT THEIR HEADS! I WANT ALL THEIR HEADS!”
Andrei grimaced. There was a hesitant sound first. The shuffling of a few feet, the stomping of a few steel boots. Then, it grew like a storm.
“Lord Stark,” Jory said with a tired smile, brandishing his blade fearlessly. “Tell my uncle I fought well. Tell… Tell him something appropriate.” He shook his head, turning to face the fight. Eddard Stark’s face was haunted.
“Jory,” he cried out, gasping in pain, as Andrei forced him to move. “Your father, your father will be proud.”
Jory did not turn back but he stood taller. Wyl, young and frightened, turned to them. “Tell- Tell me da and me ma that… that I was brave, Lord Eddard.”
Two Lannister men came forth from the throne room, and three Watchmen behind. More spilled behind slowly, like a tide.
“My family,” cried Donnis as he readied himself to die for his lord. “My wife and boys. Take care of them, my lord. Promise me.”
Eddard placed a hand on Andrei’s shoulder. His face was pale. “I promise.”
“Go!” Jory roared as the fight began. Steel clashed behind them and men died.
Eddard limped painfully down the empty hallway, his hallway clicking against the floor loudly. Too loudly, Andrei gritted his teeth.
“My daughters, Andrei,” said Eddard weakly. “Leave me behind if you have to, but you must protect them.”
“Aye,” Andrei muttered. He had holstered his empty pistol, and in its place, his bloodied axe was in his hand. His left hand was busy supporting Eddard. As they turned a corner, two Red Cloaks came charging with their blades drawn.
Andrei cursed, pushing Eddard behind him. He kicked the man on the left with enough force to send him tumbling back, crashing against the ground painfully. The sword came soaring for his chest and Andrei parried it with his axe. He smashed his mailed fist against the man’s throat, who gurgled painfully. He slashed the man’s throat open and snatched his sword forcefully with his free hand, as the man fell choking on his own blood.
The other Red Cloak was stumbling to his feet and Andrei shoved the sword through his face. The blade came jutting out from the back of his head, and the tip of the sword scraped against the floor. Blood dripped slowly onto the ground.
“Now, lord,” Andrei rumbled.
Eddard’s face was drawn to a figure behind him however. Andrei turned, axe in hand, to see a smiling Varys.
“Varys,” Eddard said coldly. Andrei glanced about impatiently and saw not a soul.
“Lord Stark, Ser Yeltska,” Varys bowed and tittered. “I must say, that was quite a sight. What manner of weapon is that, if I may ask?” The eunuch’s face was a mask of polite curiosity but his eyes were careful and guarded.
“Mine.” Andrei grunted.
“Only curiosity,” Varys giggled.
“What do you want, Varys?” Eddard snapped, leaning against his cane. “Have you come to tell me my men are dead, and my daughters too? That half a hundred men are around the corner with steel in their hands?”
“Half a hundred?” Varys raised an eyebrow and smiled slyly. “My lord, you jest surely. The Red Keep itself is being stirred to hunt you two. The city too, in an hour or so. In a few days, mayhaps the Crownlands.”
Andrei raised his axe. Varys raised his hands and spoke in a sweet, cloying tone.
“I am not your enemy, my lord, my good man.”
“You stood beside the queen and watched when they started slaughtering my men.” Eddard said with hot anger.
“And would again. I seem to recall that I was unarmed, unarmoured, and surrounded by Lannister swords.” The eunuch looked at him curiously, tilting his head.
“When I was a young boy, before I was cut, I travelled with a troupe of mummers through the Free Cities. They taught me that each man has a role to play, in life as well as mummery. So it is at court. The King’s Justice must be fearsome, the master of coin must be frugal, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard must be valiant… and the master of whisperers must be sly and obsequious and without scruple. A courageous informer would be as useless as a cowardly knight.”
Andrei kept silent but his axe was poised. The hallway was silent but he knew that it would be flooded with men soon enough.
“Who do you serve, Varys?” Eddard asked.
“The realm, my good lord,” the smile vanished from the eunuch’s round face and his eyes were cold. “I serve the realm, and the realm needs peace. Peace that shall die with you, should you perish.”
Varys drew a key from his sleeves and stepped for one of the locked doors. He inserted the silver key and turned it, slowly opening the door.
“Shall you take your chances wandering through the keep?” Varys asked.
“My daughters,” Eddard said as they entered. Andrei was behind him and he shut the door.
“Men have been sent to take them. Alive. Too many men for even you to fight, my good man.” Varys said with a soft, sad smile that Andrei did not trust.
The eunuch stepped towards the stonewall and gently pressed one of the stone tiles. It seemed to sink, like a button, and there was a soft click. The part of the wall moved, leaving an entrance that he could barely fit through.
“Follow the markings on the wall,” Varys said, removing a torch from the wall and handing it to Andrei casually. “It shall bring you to a cave by the Blackwater, with a rowboat. There are oars and enough food for two days.”
Varys turned to Eddard with a severe look. “Do not attempt to sail to Dragonstone, my lord. That way is Stannis and war for the realm. The Blackwater Bay is treacherous, even for ships, and it will take you a sennight to row there if you are foolish enough. You only have food and water for two days.”
Eddard’s face was grim. “What do you want me to do, then? Stay out at sea and fish?”
Varys tittered. “Rosby. Leave the boat by the shore. Make your way to Rosby but avoid the road and the keep. Take horses or a carriage, past Antlers. In the Riverlands, you shall be in safer company. Await your son’s arrival and tell him to stand down, relinquish his steel and take the Northmen home. Proclaim Joffrey as the true heir. Our green-eyed lioness knows you are a man of honor. If you will give her the peace she needs and the time to deal with Stannis, and pledge to carry her secret to your grave, I believe she will allow you to remain North, which you no doubt wish.”
Eddard looked at Varys. “Is this your own scheme,” he rasped out, “or the Queen’s.”
Varys smiled. “The Queen knows nought. She is frightened something fierce this day.” He turned to Andrei, with a sly smile. “The fire and the smoke must have shakened her. I cannot blame her. It was all so … dreadful. ” Varys shivered fakely.
Eddard turned to Andrei, who still had his axe ready. Varys bowed with theatrics and made for the door. “Safe travels, my lord,” Varys said softly. Eddard kept silent.
Varys opened the door to an empty hallway. He bowed once more and gave them an unctuous smile, slowly vanishing into the dark hallway.
“We go,” Andrei said urgently. Ned blinked, and nodded grimly. Andrei shoved the torch into the dark tunnel and watched as it flickered slightly. Andrei gave a slow nod and entered first. The fire sent dancing shadows across the jagged stone walls as the two of them limbered through the tunnels.
They walked slowly and silently, focusing on the next step and the one after. The tunnel was treacherous, with holes and long, narrow steps.
“Maegor,” Eddard whispered weakly but Andrei did not respond. Then, he heard the sound of Eddard’s cane slipping against what must have been a pebble in the dark. He turned, holding the lord steady with a hand.
“Thank you,” Eddard muttered, placing his hand along the crude stone surface.
“We almost there,” Andrei tried to assure him. “I can smell sea.”
“Would that it would wash my failings,” Eddard gasped, leaning against the wall. He clutched at his shattered leg, at the filth-crusted and blood-soaked plaster covering it. That needed to be cleaned, Andrei realised, or the Fly Lord would have him and all the fighting and fire would have been for nothing.
“My daughters, alone in this foul place. My men, dead. My son marching to war.” The lord despaired. Andrei would have none of it.
“You have life.” Andrei rumbled. “Your son marching? We find him. Men died for you. Daughters wait. You live. We come back. Now, come, lord.” Andrei stared into Eddard Stark’s grey eyes. The wolf lord was so grim and quiet that, often, Andrei occasionally forgot that Eddard was two years younger than him.
The torch was in Andrei’s left hand and his axe in his right. He placed the bear head of the axe close enough for Eddard to see. “Kislev bleed for thousand years. Men die. Mothers die. Tzars die. Fight. Fight.” There was a cold fire in his belly. He felt a rage within him, like a waking bear. He thought of Joffrey’s cruel voice and the Queen’s cold eyes.
He thought of the frog-faced commander whose sword had opened Quent’s throat, and of brave, reckless Porther. Tomard’s dead eyes remained in his head, as did Heward’s red smile. Young, frightened Wyl who resolved to fight, stout Donnis who spoke of his family. Jory Cassel, a man he was glad to fight with. He thought of fierce Arya and gentle Sansa, left behind here.
For the thousandth time, Andrei heard the sound of an arrow sprouting forth. Dimitri died once more in his eyes. He sheathed his axe and reached into one of his pouches, retrieving the white silk cloth that Sansa had given him.
He shoved it into Eddard’s hand. “You will live, lord. I swear.”
Eddard was silent but his eyes spoke enough. The light was just ahead, and they emerged onto sand. It was a dark cavern, with stone above them. There was a wooden post hammered into the sand and a fishing boat tied to it. A simple, pitiful, rowboat, barely large enough to fit two men. There were a few waterskins on the boat, and a leather satchel.
The lord was quiet even when Andrei helped him onto the boat. He threw the torch into the water and tossed a careful glance about. The beach was devoid of life, and the Red Keep loomed above with all of its red, terrible glory. They were somewhere near the outskirts of the Iron Gate, Andrei realised.
Eddard sat near the bow, grimacing, and placed his cane down. Andrei took the satchel, untying it, and glanced into it. Four apples, hard biscuits, salted beef. As Varys said, Andrei cursed, enough for two days if they stretch it. He looked at Eddard’s expression of pain and at the filthy plaster encasing his shattered leg.
He sighed, slashing the rope with his axe. Almost instantly, the languishing waves began to carry them away from the sands.
“That is… dirty.” He said slowly to Eddard. “More harm than good now.”
Eddard nodded slowly. “I’ll do it myself,” he said, gesturing for Andrei’s axe.
He grunted, handing his axe over and taking the heavy oars, testing them. Good, solid wood, Andrei thought. He watched as Eddard gingerly cut at the hard plaster, grimacing at the encrusted layer of black filth and darkened blood. With a crack, the casing covering the leg was shattered in half, and Eddard tossed it into the sea.
Andrei reached for one of his pouches, retrieving his metal flask of Kvas. It was half empty now, or half full, and Andrei extended it slowly to Eddard.
“A sip,” Andrei offered. Eddard smiled slightly, accepting it with a grateful nod. He took a sip from the Kvas and coughed, wiping his mouth and handing the flask back to Andrei. He gave his flask a mournful look and allowed himself a long swig from it. He savoured slowly the strong drink, tasting the malt and rye of Kislev. He sighed in satisfaction and handed Eddard a strip of tough, salted beef from the satchel.
“My thanks,” he said as he chewed upon it.
Andrei poured the last of his kvas on Eddard Stark’s ruined leg, and almost smiled when the grim lord nearly shouted in pain.
“Leg infect,” Andrei said. “Kvas clean and heal.”
Eddard gritted his teeth, clutching at the sides of the boat. “Aye, you are right. That was sorely needed.”
Andrei twisted the lid of the flask shut, returning it to his pouch. Perhaps he could smell the scent of the drink occasionally, he thought. He took the heavy oars with both hands, and dipped them into the black water.
“Where now?” Andrei asked.
Eddard Stark grimaced and looked north. “Varys spoke some sense. My son will be marching south for the Riverlands with an army. No doubt, the Queen has sent letters to all the Crownlanders to watch for two travellers on the road, one with a broken leg.”
Lord Stark tore his gaze from the shoreline of the city’s hinterlands.
“Lord- King Stannis never received the letter I wrote. He must know the truth of… the truth. I still have a duty to Robert.” Eddard decided.
“Dragonstone far?” Andrei asked.
“Three days by ship,” Eddard said. “More than thrice by… this.” He rapped his hand against the wood of the fishing boat.
“You want go Dragonstone.” Andrei repeated simply and calmly.
Eddard’s face was resolute. “I must. I will take this there myself if I have to. The Lannisters have made their move. Cersei, no doubt, is moving to control the city for her son. Lord Tywin, and the Kingslayer, will march with their armies. Stannis must know,” Lord Stark decided.
“Then, I take you there.” Andrei declared. Eddard’s lips twitched.
“I cannot reward you enough for what you have done,” he said, rasping.
Andrei shook his head. “You make good Tzar,” he repeated. “Worth following. Worth fighting. I take you to Dragonstone. My axe with you, lord.” Andrei said.
Eddard finally smiled. “Call me Ned,” he said softly. “What you did today, one day, I would make you a lord for it.”
Andrei laughed. “Rest,” he said slowly, watching Eddard’s eyes flutter and close.
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 47, 49
There is a lot to the backstories of these characters that I cannot fully capture in my writing here. I think that if you guys have been following this story and enjoying it, you'll enjoy (hopefully) reading about a rich narrative based on the campaign that these characters come from.
Once again: Erstes Licht: A Self-Indulgent Five Year Plan to Avert the End Times
(or you can click on my profile and search for it)
hope you enjoy :D
Chapter 27: Gunther IV
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
An armoured fist came crashing through the bolted wooden door.
Len nearly screamed. Gunther leapt to his feet, cursing. His hand was on his loaded crossbow at once, drawing it and pointing it towards the door. Did the Master of Coin find his hideout? Was he here for revenge? How many more were there?
A familiar Kislevite face peeked in. Andrei’s face was creased with stress and worry. His brows were furrowed and he was sweating fiercely. The storm of Imperial curses died on Gunther’s tongue. Rarely was Andrei’s face anything beyond a block of hardened ice. What fire had come to make it melt?
Gunther scowled as he opened the door. “By Ranald,” he complained in Reikspiel, “Is that some Kislevite greeting?”
Andrei stomped past him, heading for a messy corner where a pile of leather bags and satchels were strewn about. Gunther watched in utter confusion as the Kossar sorted through the bags, eventually deciding on two. Good, cured leather, with thick brown strings that allowed them to be worn across the shoulder.
“What’s happening?” Gunther asked.
Andrei rose slowly. It was easy to take Andrei’s height and bulk for granted sometimes, Gunther thought. The stoic Kossar stood three inches or so past six feet, and that was before the elevation of his heavy boots.
“No time,” Andrei grunted, picking up a bottle of Arbor Gold that he had swiped from some Reach merchant the other day. Gunther spluttered in protest as Andrei tossed the expensive gold into one of the satchels casually. “Need fire bomb. In case.”
“In case of what?” Gunther pressed, annoyed.
Andrei only shrugged. “Need kill. Going throne room. Lord Stark bring Queen down. Put Stannis on throne.”
Ice pooled in his belly. “You’re getting involved in a coup.” Gunther said, aghast.
“Coup?” Andrei looked confused.
“Nevermind,” Gunther scowled. “What about that whole deal with taking a ship north then?” He glanced at a pale Len, who could only look at the two of them with utter confusion. Wonder if I should teach him more Reikspiel.
Andrei glanced at the door. “I let you know.” He said grimly.
Gunther nodded tersely, opening the door for his companion. Andrei hesitated briefly as he stepped past the doorway. The Kossar opened his mouth, but halted to think.
“Be safe,” was the response Andrei decided on.
A mute nod was all Gunther could give, as Andrei seemed to march to war. Somewhere far and near, he swore, he heard the rattling of dice in a cup.
“What even…” Len said quietly. “Are you leaving?”
“Honestly,” Gunther shrugged, “I have no idea. He’s going about winning melees and talking of war and kings and lords. Who knows what Lorenzo is doing? Singing to ladies and drinking wine probably.” He ranted.
He was tired of this city, of the smell of filth and feces. He longed for the smoke and smog of Nuln, where the factories belched grey into the sky and black into the Reik.
“Who’s Lorenzo?” Len asked curiously and carefully. “Who’s that one who keeps coming? He a Northerner?”
Gunther sighed, taking one of their waterskins and drinking deeply from it.
“Lorenzo,” he started and paused. Where do I even start?
“You know what,” Gunther said, “I’ll tell you over some food.”
Len laughed. “The South Boar?”
“Street ‘o Flour maybe? Got an itching for some tarts.” Gunther waved his hand.
The smell of hot bread drifting from the shops along the Street of Flour was sweet, a tender heaven compared to the musty hell of Flea Bottom. A man was pushing a load of tarts by on a two-wheeled cart; the smells sang of blueberries and lemons and apricots.
“One of lemon,” Gunther called out, flashing a silver between his fingers.
“Blueberry for me,” Len said with a toothy grin.
The pushcart man nodded, handing them two warm tarts and a few coppers back.
They munched on their meal as they walked through the street that smelled of bread and pie and cakes. A temptation to shift their hideout to the Street of Flour crossed Gunther’s mind.
“Right, so…” Len glanced at him, expectation written on his face.
“Lorenzo’s a bard,” Gunther started, chewing on the tart. It was sweet and sour in all the right amounts, and the tart was soft and warm. “Apparently, people used to call him Seasinger, or so he says. I think I believe him though.”
“Can he command the sea?” Len asked, childishly.
Gunther laughed. Then, he paused to think. “I don’t think so,” he said. Everytime Lorenzo had been asked if he were a mage, a calm smile would be the response. That, and a declaration of him being a simple, blessed bard. Right.
“So, he sings to the sea?”
“Maybe, in the past, maybe.” Gunther shrugged. He did not know.
“What about the other one? The big ‘un.”
Gunther finished the last of the tart. He washed it down with a swig of watered ale from his wineskin. “Andrei. He’s a …” He trailed off, watching a pair of Gold Cloaks on horseback. They rode through the crowd, violently shoving aside all in their way.
“Buncha’ pricks,” Len said bitterly. “Nothing gold about them.”
“Never seen them in a hurry before,” Gunther noted. They were riding for the Old Gate, he realised. He wondered why.
He turned to glance at the Red Keep. Even from the Street of Flour, the red castle of kings loomed over the whole city. The pale red stone made for a disquieting sight. He had heard the tales of the blood of the servants who were slain by Maegor, that cruel dragon king. It was not too long ago that he had stood at the end of a crowded street to peer at another castle that had loomed over the entire city.
The Palace of Nuln was a far grander sight, Gunther thought, elegant and refined in its beauty too. The Red Keep was a beast of blood and terror. He wondered what manner of intrigue was unravelling in there, intrigue and danger.
Their walk back to Flea Bottom was silent. Gunther’s thoughts remained consumed by Nuln and the Red Keep, of Andrei becoming involved with a bloody royal coup, and he wondered when Lorenzo and Lucia would arrive with answers.
Then, the bells started ringing.
Len froze.
In Nuln, bells would ring in the Industrielplatz during the forging of grand cannons or important guns. It was said that when a cast gun cools, all should be silent lest the noise cause faults in the metal. The first time he had heard the Iron Silence, he had stood as still as one of the Palace’s statues, mesmerised by the rare quiet in the otherwise busy city of industry and blackpowder.
He did not feel wonder now, nor awe or inspiration. He found a quiet dread instead at the ringing of the bells, as did all of King’s Landing. Somehow, the city was silent. Half a million men and women, Len had told him once. Half a million, and the city was as quiet as Morr’s Garden. He felt his skin crawl.
The only sound that could be heard was the bells. All life had died in the street they stood on, and he could see the fear in the eyes of the children and the women, the weary resignation on the faces of old men. Then, like a passing wave, the silence died. A terrrible din rose in its place, the clamour of half a million men and women.
“King Robert!” A pregnant woman cried, “Gods bless his soul!”
“Good King Robert!” A prostitute called out, her breasts spilling from her thin silks.
He looked at Len, who was pale and frozen. All his life, Gunther remembered, Robert Baratheon was king. The Stag sat on the throne, black and gold fluttered over the city gates, and there was peace. The death of a king brought change, or turmoil.
“Come on, kid,” Gunther patted his shoulder, speaking softly. “We’ll get some foodstuff and water, and get back before dark.”
Len blinked. “Right, right…”
The boy followed quietly as Gunther ducked through several narrow alleyways. They bought as much food as they could fit in their knapsacks; a wheel of cheese, several loaves of bread and small pouches of dry biscuits, two jars of jam, black sausages and honey and apples. They bought vegetables as well; beans and beets, carrots and cabbages, onions and mushrooms, spinach and turnips. They bought bottles of ale and beer, cider too, and waterskins with clean, fresh water, and a jug of milk.
They had bought a cast iron pot lately, an iron pan and a few bowls and plates, and had cleared a space for cooking.
“Do we really need all of these?” Len whined as he carried his heavy bag.
“Just in case,” Gunther muttered. His knapsack sat heavy and near overflowing on his back but his hands were free, free to linger close to his daggers.
There was a dread feeling over the city, and the bakers and merchants had charged them a few silvers more than usual. The midday sun felt cold somehow. They made sure to avoid the dangerous streets of Flea Bottom, sneaking through the winding maze of alleyways that they knew well and back to their hideout.
They sighed in relief as they stepped into the cool, dark area. Len left his knapsack on the table before collapsing in his bedroll. At the boy’s insistence, they had bought a few silk pillows from a Myrish merchant. It felt like sleeping on a cloud.
Gunther sat down on the wooden stool, reaching into his bag and grabbing an apple.
“Things should settle down after a few days,” he tried to assure the boy. All Gunther could hear were Andrei’s words, ominous as they were, ringing in his head.
“Old King Robert’s son will be the next king right?” Len asked.
Gunther smiled awkwardly. “Throne goes to the heir right?” He shrugged uncomfortably. They’ll do what they have to. That Stannis will come, problem solved.
With confidence he did not fully feel, Gunther opened his mouth to speak.
Then, they heard the sound of shouting outside. It was far enough from their door but it was loud enough that all along the street could hear. They quickly rose, rushing for the hole in the door. Len tried to stand on the tip of his toes but still could not see.
“What, what’s happening?” The boy asked.
Gunther peered out the hole that Andrei’s fist had made.
A squadron of six Gold Cloaks were trotting through the street. Gunther watched, transfixed, as they pounded on doors and peered in through windows.
“Snuff out all the candles,” he hissed at Len, “Hide all the bags in that corner, throw that tarp over it.”
Len did as he was told without hesitation. Gunther kept his eye on the watchmen. He saw an old man open his rickety door, and the Gold Cloak shoved him aside, barging into his house. Across the street, the sight played out across dingy houses.
They’re looking for someone, Gunther realised. The sinking pit in his belly grew.
He glanced up. This hideout was a house once, with two storeys. The stairway had collapsed at some point, leaving the second floor out of reach for the common thief. The footsteps seemed to grow closer and closer, and louder.
Gunther knelt, whispering to Len. “Get up there.”
Without hesitation, the boy stepped onto Gunther’s cupped hands and leapt for the top of the rotten stairway. Gunther followed, silently leaping up and catching the edge of the stairway. He hauled himself over, just as the gold cloak of a watchman passed by what remained of the windows, a moving blur of gold.
They kept themselves stiff and still and silent, and flat on the second floor where their gold and silver sat hidden behind a moth-eaten tarp in a corner. He heard the sound of a boarded window shattering and splintering under a steel fist, and the crude grunt of a Kingslander’s accent.
“Nothing here!” The Watchman called out, stepping away with the clank of metal.
Once again, they both released sighs of relief.
“What in the Seven,” Len cursed.
What in Ranald’s name is happening? Gunther wondered. He drew the Valyrian Steel dagger, and looked at the hazy reflection of himself in the smoky steel. His own face was pale. He sheathed the dagger and turned to Len.
“We’ll stay in for a while,” he said, “Best to not go out until we know what’s happening in the city.”
Len nodded. “That’s why we got the food right? How did you know…”
Gunther shrugged. “See? It never hurts to be careful.”
“Should we,” Len scratched his head, “I don’t know, move our things up here.”
That’s a good idea, Gunther realised.
It was a chore to move the bedrolls and pillows. Len stood on the second floor and caught whatever Gunther threw above. They left the food and wine on the first floor, hidden behind broken wood and cloth.
Len wiped his sweat away, before popping a slice of cheese into his mouth.
“What now?” He asked.
Gunther glanced at the door. Everything in him screamed for him to stay in, to retreat into the comfortable bedroll and wait out the coming storm. They had food and wine and none would come to disturb them. He took a breath.
“Stay here,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll head out for a bit, see what’s happening?”
Len nodded slowly, saying nothing as Gunther peered out the door. The street was quiet, with only a few vagrants about. He unlocked the five locks behind the door, and made a mental note to board up the windows, and stepped out.
By now, his nose no longer twitched at the smell of Flea Bottom. There was another stench in the slums though, one of fear. Even more than usual, all kept to themselves, their eyes fixed on the filth-ridden ground.
He heard the mutterings of a pair of men who walked past him. Stark, King, Quen, escaped, bounty. A cold shiver ran through him. He kept walking.
It would not take him long to reach the square, close to the Sept of Baelor, now that he knew the alleyways and streets. He ducked through dark, narrow sidestreets and alleyways where drunks stumbled about vomiting. Half an hour later, he emerged into the wide, open plaza before the grand marble temple. He saw the seven towers of the Great Sept of Baelor where the bells continued to toll, their thunder rolling across the city in a bronze tide.
A fat man in a white robe stood on a tall stand, two acolytes by his side with boards. There was a crowd of whispering smallfolk surrounding the man, and Gunther leaned in as close as he could. The man was so grotesquely large that the white of his robe bulged in shapes he never thought possible.
“By order of His Grace, King Joffrey, and the Queen,” the man shouted, clear and crisp. “Hear the following commands! The Dragon Gate, the Lion Gate and the Old Gate will be closed and barred! The Mud Gate, the Iron Gate and the Gate of the Gods will be opened only to those entering the city! Those who wish to leave will have to assemble at the King’s Gate where they will be subject to an inspection!”
What?
The crowd started to shout, but the ring of Watchmen around the plaza pounded their spears on the ground until silence was restored. Some of their spears were bloodied, Gunther realised with horror. His hand was on his daggers.
“Further,” the man in white raised one large paw. “All devout men and women of the Seven, and loyal subjects to the Iron Throne, are to harken to these words. Hear the royal command and obey. Eddard of House Stark,” he spat out. “A lord of nothing but heathens and savages, has been proclaimed a traitor. He has been stripped of all ranks and titles. He has committed the most foul of treason, conspiring to usurp the throne of King Joffrey, while Good King Robert was still dying!”
The whispers continued but so did the man. Gunther listened, feeling his palms grow cold and clammy. He clutched the hilt of his daggers tightly.
“He marched into the throne room and stood before the Iron Throne with his Northern savages. He proclaimed his defiance and treason before the good men of the City Watch, all of whom refused his blood money. With the assistance of the honourable Kingsguard, the savage Northmen were slain. Yet!” The man raised his hand, drawing the attention of the silent crowd. He knew how to capture a crowd’s attention, Gunther thought mutely.
“Yet! The traitor remains loose! And he is not alone! He has a most dangerous of heathens with him, a wild savage. Let it be known to all that Andrei Yeltska has killed one of the king’s own councillors and many good men on their cowardly flight! They must have fled into the city! All good and honourable men and women are to search for them, and to lead the City Watch to them! The Royal Court has promised a sum of ten thousand gold for their capture!”
Ten thousand, Gunther almost broke down laughing. Already, he could see men peeling away from the crowd with their backs straight and their heads held high. Thousands would be prowling through King’s Landing by nightfall, he knew, in search of the two men that would bring them a fortune. Ten thousand gold was a dream that the smallfolk dared not even think about. Even a hundred would be enough to render the simple farmer or baker or tailor to savagery.
What do I do? He thought in trepidation. His hands trembled slightly, as he stood there, just another face amongst the crowd. What do I do?
He stumbled away from the plaza, his hands clutching at his daggers.
What would Lorenzo do? Gunther thought. The bard would probably perch himself upon a rooftop and sing a song before the pale eye of the moon. The thought made him chuckle, and he felt his nerves steel. Nothing I can do.
If Andrei and Eddard Stark were stumbling through the city, the Kossar would find his way to Gunther’s hideout. And then, they would…
We’ll figure it out. He told himself.
He glanced out at the sky. Sunset would come soon, he realised. Sunset, and thousands of hungry men on the hunt for blood and gold.
He took a detour, making his way to the Street of Flour. It would be best to stay hidden for some time, Gunther thought, and if they needed to feed two more…
An hour later, Gunther left the Street of Flour with yet another heavy knapsack bulging with food. The prices had nearly doubled from when he had bought bread and jam and sausages a few hours ago. For once, he did not bother to bargain.
They’re all scared, Gunther realised. There was fear in the eyes of the bakers and the butchers and the jammakers and the cheese merchants. He did not blame them.
Only once in his life had he seen a city in the grip of terror.
He clenched his fists, remembering the helpless dread that had consumed him as he watched from the window of their cheap, dingy apartment. He was only eighteen then, barely young enough to avoid having a spear thrusted in his hands as the horde of Tamurkhan marched upon the Bastion of the South. That terrible army of Daemons and savages and worse had swept through Wissenland like an infected scythe, descending upon Nuln with all of their dark, cruel glory.
He remembered standing still by the dirty window, watching as corpses of men and monsters were wheeled away in carts and wagons. The weeks leading to the battle had been dreary. Food was scarce and reserved for those who would be fighting. A pall of despair had fallen over the city, and grim Witch Hunters stalked the streets, bringing fire and cold death on those suspected of heresy.
A similar fear was growing here. How, he wondered, can a world without Daemons and Norscans and Tamurkhan still inflict such terror upon regular men and women living their lives? The baker’s pregnant wife was terrified, as was the butcher’s young daughters, and the jammaker’s elderly mother. The beggars and the urchins had cleared away from the streets, finding what dark corners and holes they could hide in, like rats scurrying to survive a coming hurricane.
Focus. He reminded himself. He swung by Sowbelly Row, and bought two bedrolls. Half an hour later, he stepped into the realm of filth that was Flea Bottom once more, ducking into a quiet alleyway to avoid a patrol of Gold Cloaks. It was a maze of twisting alleys and cross streets. There was a winding, narrow path in this alley that he could use, he remembered, following it.
He kept his hands upon his daggers. As he turned a corner, he noticed a small figure ahead, walking in his direction. A child, he realised instantly, no bigger than Len. They were covered under a heavy, woolen cloak. In their left hand was a wooden stick. A practice sword, he realised. A bundle of cloth was under the arm, he spied a velvet skirt and a silk tunic amidst others. Their right arm was held awkwardly, as if covering something from the world, obscuring it from sight with the cloak.
Silk, velvet, practice sword?
This was a sight one hardly saw in Flea Bottom. He peered at the face obscured under the cloak. A scared girl looked at him. She had a long face, grey eyes and brown hair. Gunther scratched his head and shrugged, walking past the girl.
Something seemed to itch in his mind. There was a flash of familiarity, almost whispering to him. Where have I seen that face before?
He paused. He thought of that rain-soaked night, when he had stumbled upon Andrei’s fight with Jaime Lannister. He remembered the bright flash of the Kingslayer’s gilded sword, and the savage roar that Andrei had responded with. The blood-red cloaks of the Lannister men had crumpled into pools of scarlet when they collapsed, growing darker with rainwater. Lord Eddard Stark’s pained grimace, and the dragonsteel dagger he had given him.
Eddard Stark, with his long face and grey eyes and brown hair.
“Wait,” he called out, turning around.
The girl stilled herself. She was ready to bolt, like a frightened pony, Gunther knew.
“I know your father,” he said, raising his hands slowly and trying to smile, “I think, if you are who I think you are.”
“Who are you?” The girl asked. Her voice was dry and raspy from thirst but the child’s fear was unmistakable. She seemed no older than ten.
“Gunther,” he introduced, “I’m a … friend of Andrei. Andrei Yeltska? He’s a guard for your father right?”
Arya Stark’s eyes widened. “You know Andrei?” She breathed.
“Big man, beard, loves his ale, eats like a bear, snores like one too?” Gunther drew the Valyrian Steel dagger from its sheath. Arya flinched but she glanced at the dagger with recognition. “Your father gave me this.”
“You were the friend Andrei mentioned!” Arya exclaimed.
Gunther scratched his head. “What did he say?” He asked curiously.
“Sansa,” Arya started but paused. A conflicted look grew on her face before she shook her head. “We went to thank him for helping Father against the Kingslayer,” she scowled angrily.
“Andrei mentioned that a friend had helped during the fight,” she explained.
Despite the situation, Gunther could not help but to smile. “Wasn’t too hard,” he boasted. He tossed his waterskin at the girl, who caught it deftly.
Good reflexes, Gunther thought. She drank greedily, holding the skin close to her parched, cracked lips.
She muttered her gratitude as she handed the empty skin back to him. Gunther shook his head. “Escaping the city?” He asked wryly.
Arya Stark blinked. “What do you think?” She scowled.
“Good luck with that,” he crossed his arms. “Gates are all closed, bar one, and they’ll be as vigilant as a Wi-, as a hunter, especially with those two still loose.”
“Who?” Arya asked, blinking.
Gunther looked at her incredulously. “Your father and my friend?”
“What?” she exclaimed.
He sighed. Dealing with one child was difficult enough. “They’ve got men shouting it across every street corner. Your father… and Andrei managed to flee the throne room after the gods know what happened. They can’t find them, and they’ve stirred the whole city up like hounds.”
Arya’s face was pale. “Will they be alright?” She asked, worried.
The snark died on Gunther’s tongue. While Andrei was a companion, Gunther remembered, the girl was a child and terrified for her father.
“They will be,” he tried to assure a child for the second time this day. He knelt, placing the heavy, bulging leather bag on the floor. He fished for an apple and tossed it at Arya who caught it with ease. She took a hungry bite from the ripe, red apple.
He rose, slinging the bag around himself again. “I’ve got a hideout nearby. Andrei knows it. If the two of them are still in the city, they’ll go there.” He turned to the girl. “You don’t want to be alone here at night, nor with thousands of men riled up. Come on, brat.” He walked away.
A flurry of footsteps followed behind him. “I’m nine,” Arya protested, munching on her apple hungrily. Gunther could only sigh and shake his head, as the pair made their way back to the hideout under a moonlit night, thief and noble’s daughter.
“What do you have there?” Gunther asked casually.
Arya looked at him with wide eyes. “Nothing?”
Gunther almost laughed. “Nothing hidden behind that cloak? Nothing in that awkward angle under your right arm?”
“How did you-” Arya looked at him, scowling.
He shook his head. “Look beyond what’s there.” He shrugged.
Arya blinked, looking at him strangely. “Are you… a water dancer too?”
“A what?”
She scowled, looking away. “Nevermind,” she rubbed her eyes.
What? Gunther sighed. He glanced about before they stepped into the street that was too dark and empty. He kept his hand on his crossbow as they crossed over, heading for the rickety door.
Knock. Knock. Knock… Knock.
He heard the sound of the first lock being unlocked, then another, and another, and two more. The door swung open and Len peered at him cautiously. His eyes widened at the sight of Arya. “Who’s this?” Len asked, as the two of them entered.
Arya opened her mouth to speak but Gunther spoke first. “Friend of a friend.” He glanced at Arya, and to the boy. “Streets are… not that safe now.”
Len slowly nodded. There was a cup of cider in his hand. “Want one?” He asked Arya who gave the wooden cup a thirsty look and a reciprocal slow nod.
While the children talked and ate and drank, Gunther busied himself unpacking the supplies he had bought. His thoughts were of home, of the two brats back home. When he had fled Nuln, he had been the third child to abandon the family.
Erich was the first, giving his life away to the State Troops. Eva was next, with her dreams of song and travel. Then, his life had collapsed in a single night of blood and he had run. Sometimes, he wondered how they were faring. His mother, bitter and broken at the life they now suffered. Young Kristoff, who was the pride and joy of their mother. Klara, a wild animal of a child. Before he had fled, their mother had given her a lashing for leading a gang of street urchins. The Shanty Rats, she had insisted their name was. Gunther could not help but to smile bitterly.
He reached for a loaf of bread and tore a chunk, popping it in his mouth.
“Where did you get all of this anyways?” Arya asked, gesturing at the cat statues and the Arbor Gold and the stash of food in the corner.
“What do you think?” Len asked cheerily. “We stole them, ‘o course. That one’s from some Myrish merchant, that one’s from-”
Gunther cuffed his head lightly. He turned to Arya, whose face was of childlike wonder and conflict. “Borrowed,” he corrected.
Len blinked. “Yeah, that’s right.” He puffed his chest out.
Gunther shook his head. He wondered why he was here, taking care of two children.
“Bedrolls are up there,” he pointed at the collapsed stairway. “Can you climb?”
Arya rolled her eyes. “Of course,”
“We only have two,” Len butted in.
“Two more,” Gunther chuckled, gesturing at his knapsack.
Arya looked at him, with cautious hope. “Those are for…”
“Maybe Andrei and your father will come here. There’s nowhere else in the city that’s safe,” he muttered. “There’s enough food for about two weeks here,” Gunther pointed at the stash, “Best to not head out these few days.”
Len nodded. Arya kept her gaze on him. “What if they can’t find us?” she muttered.
“This city can’t kill Andrei,” Gunther grinned at her, “And your father seems a strong sort. They’ll be fine. Even if they can’t find us, they’ll be hiding somewhere. Go on, kid, you’re dead on your feet. Get some rest. Oh right, uh, my lady,” he tried to bow.
Arya scowled. “Don’t call me that,” she said fiercely. “I’m no lady.”
He watched as she leapt up for the second floor like a grey cat, pulling herself over the edge. Soon, a soft snoring could be heard. He shook his head.
“Right,” Len said, “Who’s she?”
Gunther glanced at him. “Friend of a friend,” he repeated. A thought crossed his mind, of the mute children that Len would share tales with for a copper.
“Those children who don’t talk,” Gunther started, “You still talking to them?”
Len blinked. “Completely forgotten about them,” the boy laughed, “Why talk to them for a copper when a roll of lace is worth more than a gold?”
Gunther looked at him with a serious gaze. “Keep it that way, Len,” he said.
Sleeping was easy that night but waking was a harder task. He felt a nudge by his shoulder. “Five more minutes,” Gunther grumbled drowsily, battling away the hands pulling at him. The silk pillow felt like heaven.
“Wake up,” Len muttered urgently, “She’s crazy!”
He slowly opened his eyes. Len’s face was hovering above his, with worry and horror and confusion. “What?” Gunther asked, pinching his eyes.
“Down there!”
Gunther rose, grumbling. He patted his daggers, making sure they were there. He had placed the Valyrian steel dagger on his right. The Imperial dagger that usually sat there was shifted to the leather strap across his chest. On his left hip was the same dagger he had with him since Nuln, a standard blade with seven inches of lethal steel and a black hilt. His pistol remained hidden behind him under his cloak, while his crossbow hung from his belt on his front.
He looked down the stairs and saw Arya Stark swinging her wooden stick about like a dance. Gunther looked at his bedroll and wondered if it was too late to return to sleep. He sighed instead, gently leaping down onto the first floor.
“What are you doing?” asked Gunther, irritated but curious.
“Water dancing,” was Arya’s reply as she thrusted her stick forward. He could see the slight tremble of her hand as the wooden sword rushed ahead. “I have to train every day, like… like Syrio taught me.” Her young face was hard and icy.
“Who are you fighting?” Gunther yawned as he slashed a slice of cheese. He chewed slowly as he lit one of the red candles.
“What?” Arya held her stick low, looking at him puzzled.
Every time Lucia had gone through the motions of steel, her face was frozen in concentration but her eyes would be alive with fire, Gunther remembered. Once, seeing her swing her mace hundreds of times through the air as they rested, he had asked her the same question.
“Some old dogs,” she had bit out, with a warning look. He knew that look well enough to leave it be.
“You can’t just be fighting the wind, right?” Gunther snarked, tearing a loaf of bread and fitting it with a slice of ham and cheese. He drizzled some honey over the concoction and took a bite, closing his eyes and relishing his meal.
She blinked at him. “What do you know about fighting?”
Gunther opened his eyes and scowled at the child. “More than you.”
Arya glared at him. She pointed her stick at him. “Show me then. You can be my sparring partner.” Her eyes were distant as she spoke.
Len laughed from his corner as he roasted a trio of juicy sausages. “What a sight it will be,” he called out.
Gunther rolled his eyes, drawing the Imperial dagger strapped to his chest.
“Not fair,” Arya complained.
“You can use that rapier of yours if you want,” he offered.
She stiffened. “How did you…” Her grey eyes were on him.
“I have eyes, you know,” Gunther felt his lips curl in amusement. “You were hugging it as you slept,” he explained. Arya’s scowl grew. She assumed a position, some absurd parody of a fencing stance. If an Estalian were to see it, he reckoned they might faint. Well, Gunther almost laughed, any Estalian other than Lucia.
He flipped his dagger around, holding it in reverse. The stick came flying for his chest. He sidestepped it with ease and rushed forward in a black blur. He flashed the flat of the dagger in front of Arya’s frozen face. “You look a mess,” he said drily. “Go make something to eat and wash your face, the bucket’s over there.” Sweat was dripping from her face, and her hair was matted and messy.
Arya gaped at him. “What…”
You won against a girl of nine years, he heard Lucia’s dry voice in his head. Gunther sighed, placing his hand on the girl’s shoulder, trying to recall how he spoke to Klara. “Come on, practice over,” he ushered her towards the table of food. “Eat, drink, wash up over there, you smell terrible.”
“Can you teach me?” Arya asked softly. Gunther could only sigh.
Notes:
project and exams piling up, man i want to escape into westeros or the reikland
okay maybe not, chapters will be coming slower for awhile. anyways, enjoy :D
Chapter 28: Sansa I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
They came for Sansa on the third day.
She chose a simple dress of dark grey wool, plainly cut but richly embroidered around the collar and sleeves. Her fingers felt thick and clumsy and slow as she struggled with the silver fastenings without the benefit of servants. Jeyne Poole had been confined with her, but Jeyne was useless. Her face was puffy from all her crying, and she could not seem to stop sobbing about her father.
“I’m certain your father is well,” Sansa told her when she had finally gotten the dress buttoned right. “I’ll ask the queen to let you see him.” She thought that kindness might lift Jeyne’s spirits, but the other girl just looked at her with red, swollen eyes and began to cry all the harder. She was such a child, Sansa thought for a moment, yet when that moment had passed, she felt shame for some reason.
Sansa had wept too, the first day. Even within the stout walls of Maegor’s Holdfast, with her door closed and barred, it was hard not to be terrified when the killing began. She had grown up to the sound of ringing steel in the yard, and scarcely a day of her life had passed without hearing the clash of sword on sword, yet somehow knowing that the fighting was real made all the difference in the world.
She heard it as she had never heard it before, and there were other terrible sounds as well, grunts of pain, angry curses, loud shouts for help, and the moans of wounded and dying men. In the songs, the knights never screamed nor begged for mercy as they had here.
So she wept, pleading through her door for them to tell her what was happening, calling for her father, for Septa Mordane, for Andrei, for Jory, for the king, for her gallant prince. If the men guarding her heard her pleas, they gave no answer. The only time the door opened was late that night, when they thrust Jeyne Poole inside, bruised and shaking. “They’re killing everyone,” the steward’s daughter had shrieked at her. She went on and on. Lannister men had broken down her door with a warhammer, she said. There were bodies on the stairs of the Tower of the Hand, and the steps were slick with blood. Sansa dried her own tears as she struggled to comfort her friend.
A great bell had rung. Its voice was deep and sonorous, and the long slow clanging filled Sansa with a sense of icy dread. The ringing went on and on, and after a while they heard other bells answering from the Great Sept of Baelor on Visenya’s Hill. The sound rumbled across the city like thunder, warning of the storm to come. They went to sleep in the same bed, cradled in each other’s arms like sisters.
The second day was even worse. The room where Sansa had been confined was at the top of the highest tower of Maegor’s Holdfast. From its window, she could see that the heavy iron portcullis in the gatehouse was down, and the drawbridge drawn up over the deep dry moat that separated the keep-within-a-keep from the larger castle that surrounded it. Lannister guardsmen in red and gold prowled the walls with spears and crossbows to hand. The fighting was over, and the silence of the grave had settled over the Red Keep. The only sounds were Jeyne Poole’s endless whimpers and sobs, and the deafening pounding of her heart.
They were fed—hard cheese and fresh-baked bread and milk to break their fast, roast chicken and greens at midday, and a late supper of beef and barley stew—but the servants who brought the meals would not answer Sansa’s questions. That evening, some women brought her clothes from the Tower of the Hand, and some of Jeyne’s things as well, but they seemed nearly as frightened as Jeyne, and when she tried to talk to them, they fled from her as if she had the grey plague. The guards outside the door still refused to let them leave the room.
“Please, I need to speak to the queen again,” Sansa told them, as she told everyone she saw that day. “She’ll want to talk to me, I know she will. Tell her I want to see her, please. If not the queen, then Prince Joffrey, if you’d be so kind. We’re to marry when we’re older.”
Silence greeted her.
The bells came again, loud and terrible.
“What is it?” Jeyne asked, covering her ears. “Why are they ringing the bells?”
“The king is dead.” Sansa could not say how she knew it, yet she did. The slow, endless clanging filled their room, as mournful as a dirge. Had some enemy stormed the castle and murdered King Robert? Was that the meaning of the fighting they had heard? Just what had happened?
She went to sleep wondering, restless, and fearful. Was her beautiful Joffrey the king now? Or had they killed him too? She was afraid for him, and for her father. If only they would tell her what was happening…
That night Sansa dreamt of Joffrey on the throne, with herself seated beside him in a gown of woven gold. She had a crown on her head, and everyone she had ever known came before her, to bend the knee and say their courtesies. Yet, the dream had turned cold and horrid and burning hot, and she woke sweating with a shivered gasp, forgetting what she remembered.
Ser Meryn Trant of the Kingsguard came to escort her to the queen.
Ser Meryn was not a pleasant man to view. His face was dour, with pouchy bags under his droopy eyes. Tall and somber, his hair and beard were like rust. He wore a shirt of enameled scales chased with gold and a tall helm with a golden sunburst crest. His heavy wool cloak was clapsed with a golden lion, with tiny rubies for eyes.
“You look very handsome and splendid this morning, Ser Meryn,” Sansa told him. A lady remembered her courtesies, and she was resolved to be a lady no matter what.
He grunted. “Her Grace awaits. Come with me.”
There were guards outside her door, Lannister men-at-arms in crimson cloaks and lioncrested helms. Sansa made herself smile at them pleasantly and bid them a good morning as she passed. It was the first time she had been allowed outside the chamber since Ser Arys Oakheart had led her there two mornings past. “To keep you safe, my sweet one,” Queen Cersei had told her. “Joffrey would never forgive me if anything happened to his precious.”
Sansa had expected that Ser Meryn would escort her to the royal apartments, but instead he led her out of Maegor’s Holdfast. The bridge was down again. Some workmen were lowering a man on ropes into the depths of the dry moat. When Sansa peered down, she saw a body impaled on the huge iron spikes below. She averted her eyes quickly, afraid to ask, afraid to look too long, afraid he might be someone she knew.
They found Queen Cersei in the council chambers, seated at the head of a long table littered with papers, candles, and blocks of sealing wax. The room was as splendid as any that Sansa had ever seen. She stared in awe at the carved wooden screen and the twin sphinxes that sat beside the door.
“Your Grace,” Ser Meryn said when they were ushered inside by another of the Kingsguard, Ser Mandon of the curiously dead face, “I’ve brought the girl.”
Sansa had hoped Joffrey might be with her. Her prince was not there, but two of the king’s councillors were. Grand Maester Pycelle sat on the queen’s left hand while Lord Varys hovered over him, smelling flowery. All of them were clad in black, she realized with a feeling of dread. Mourning clothes…
The queen wore a high-collared black silk gown, with a hundred dark red rubies sewn into her bodice, covering her from neck to bosom. They were cut in the shape of teardrops, as if the queen were weeping blood. Cersei smiled to see her, and Sansa thought it was the sweetest and saddest smile she had ever seen. Yet, she reflected, it seemed strange. Perhaps she was tired, Sansa decided, the Queen must have many responsibilities.
“Sansa, my sweet child,” she said, “I know you’ve been asking for me. I’m sorry that I could not send for you sooner. Matters have been very unsettled, and I have not had a moment. I trust my people have been taking good care of you?”
“Everyone has been very sweet and pleasant, Your Grace, thank you ever so much for asking,” Sansa said politely. “Only, well, no one will talk to us or tell us what’s happened…”
“Us?” Cersei seemed puzzled.
“We put the steward’s girl in with her,” Ser Meryn said. “We did not know what else to do with her.”
The queen frowned. “Next time, you will ask,” she said, her voice sharp. “The gods only know what sort of tales she’s been filling Sansa’s head with.”
“Jeyne’s scared,” Sansa said. “She won’t stop crying. I promised her I’d ask if she could see her father.”
Old Grand Maester Pycelle lowered his eyes.
“Her father is well, isn’t he?” Sansa said anxiously. She knew there had been fighting, but surely no one would harm a steward. Calm, gentle Vayon Poole did not even wear a sword.
Queen Cersei looked at each of the councillors in turn. “I won’t have Sansa fretting needlessly. What shall we do with this little friend of hers, my lords?”
The Grand Maester squinted at the parchment in his hands while Lord Varys only smiled placidly.
Sansa thought of her mother for the first time in days. What would Mother do?
She knew. “Your grace,” Sansa said softly, keeping her eyes on the floor. “Could she stay with me? She is my handmaiden and friend.” I must be as strong as mother.
Cersei’s green eyes were on her. “Are you sure, Sansa? Who knows what whispers she might influence you with,” the queen chided.
Sansa felt her will falter. I must be as brave as Robb.
“I am sure of it, Your Grace,” Sansa insisted. “She shall keep me company, and tie my braids, and help me with my fastenings, and-”
The Queen raised a pale, slender hand. “Very well,” she said gently. She patted the crimson chair beside her. “Sit down, Sansa. I want to talk to you.”
Sansa seated herself beside the queen. Cersei smiled again, but that did not make her feel any less anxious. Varys was wringing his soft hands together, Grand Maester Pycelle kept his sleepy eyes on the papers in front of him.
“Sweet Sansa,” Queen Cersei said, laying a soft hand on her wrist. “Such a beautiful child. I do hope you know how much Joffrey and I love you.”
“You do?” Sansa said, breathless. Jeyne was forgotten. Her prince loved her. Nothing else mattered.
The queen smiled. “I think of you almost as my own daughter. And I know the love you bear for Joffrey.” She gave a weary shake of her head. “I am afraid we have some grave news about your lord father. You must be brave, child.”
Her quiet words gave Sansa a chill. “What is it?”
“Your father is a traitor, dear,” Lord Varys said.
Grand Maester Pycelle lifted his ancient head. “With my own ears, I heard Lord Eddard swear to our beloved King Robert that he would protect the young princes as if they were his own sons. And yet the moment the king was dead, he called the small council together to steal Prince Joffrey’s rightful throne. And that sellsword of his… A savage. Fire and death, how dreadful…” He shook his head.
“No,” Sansa blurted. “He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t!”
The queen picked up a letter. The paper was torn and stiff with dried blood, but the broken seal was her father’s, the direwolf stamped in pale wax. “We found this on one of your household guards, Sansa. It is a letter to my late husband’s brother Stannis, inviting him to take the crown.”
“Please, Your Grace, there’s been a mistake.” Sudden panic made her dizzy and faint. “Please, send for my father, he’ll tell you, he would never write such a letter, the king was his friend.”
The Queen’s face was stiff and her smile was strained. “I am afraid we cannot do that. Your father has … escaped, with that warrior of his.” Her eyes burned with emerald fire. “Sansa, sweetling, you must see what a dreadful position this has left us in. You are innocent of any wrong, we all know that, and yet you are the daughter of a traitor. How can I allow you to marry my son?”
“But I love him,” Sansa wailed, confused and frightened. What did they mean to do to her? Where was her father? Escaped? It was not supposed to happen this way. She had to wed Joffrey, they were betrothed, he was promised to her, she had even dreamed about it. It wasn’t fair to take him away from her on account of whatever her father might have done.
“How well I know that, child,” Cersei said, her voice so kind and sweet, but her eyes seemed strained once more. “Why else should you have come to me and told me of your father’s plan to send you away from us, if not for love?”
“It was for love,” Sansa said in a rush. “Father wouldn’t even give me leave to say farewell.” She was the good girl, the obedient girl, but she had felt as wicked as Arya that morning, sneaking away from Septa Mordane, defying her lord father. She had never done anything so willful before, and she would never have done it then if she hadn’t loved Joffrey as much as she did. “He was going to take me back to Winterfell and marry me to some hedge knight, even though it was Joff I wanted. I told him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
The king had been her last hope. The king could command Father to let her stay in King’s Landing and marry Prince Joffrey, Sansa knew he could, but the king had always frightened her. He was loud and rough-voiced and drunk as often as not, and he would probably have just sent her back to Lord Eddard, if they even let her see him. So she went to the queen instead, and poured out her heart, and Cersei had listened and thanked her sweetly... only then Ser Arys had escorted her to the high room in Maegor’s Holdfast and posted guards, and a few hours later, the fighting had begun outside.
“Please,” she finished, “you have to let me marry Joffrey, I’ll be ever so good a wife to him, you’ll see. I’ll be a queen just like you, I promise.”
Queen Cersei looked to the others. “My lords of the council, what do you say to her plea?” Please, Sansa begged the gods.
“The poor child,” murmured Varys. “A love so true and innocent, Your Grace, it would be cruel to deny it ... and yet, what can we do? Her father stands condemned and has fled...” His soft hands washed each other in a gesture of helpless distress.
“A child born of traitor’s seed will find that betrayal comes naturally to her,” said Grand Maester Pycelle. “She is a sweet thing now, but in ten years, who can say what treasons she may hatch?”
“No,” Sansa said, horrified. “I’m not, I’d never... I wouldn’t betray Joffrey, I love him, I swear it, I do.”
“Oh, so poignant,” said Varys with a wide smile. “And yet, it is truly said that blood runs truer than oaths.”
The queen looked at her, troubled, and yet Sansa could see kindness in her clear green eyes. “Child,” she said, “if I could truly believe that you were not like your father, why nothing should please me more than to see you wed to my Joffrey. I know he loves you with all his heart.” She sighed. “And yet, I fear that Lord Varys and the Grand Maester have the right of it. The blood will tell. I have only to remember how your sister set her wolf on my son.”
“I’m not like Arya,” Sansa blurted. “She has the traitor’s blood, not me. I’m good, ask Septa Mordane, she’ll tell you, I only want to be Joffrey’s loyal and loving wife.”
She felt the weight of Cersei’s eyes as the queen studied her face. “I believe you mean it, child.” She turned to face the others. “My lords, it seems to me that if the rest of her kin were to remain loyal in this terrible time, that would go a long way toward laying our fears to rest.”
Grand Maester Pycelle stroked his huge soft beard, his wide brow furrowed in thought. “Lord Eddard has three sons.”
The queen took Sansa’s hand in both of hers. “Child, do you know your letters?”
Sansa nodded nervously. She could read and write better than any of her brothers, although she was hopeless at sums.
“I am pleased to hear that. Perhaps there is hope for you and Joffrey still…”
“What do you want me to do?”
“You must write your lady mother, and your brother, the eldest... what is his name?”
“Robb,” Sansa said.
“The word of your lord father’s treason will no doubt reach them soon. Better that it should come from you. You must tell them how Lord Eddard betrayed his king, how he fled like a brigand.”
Sansa wanted Joffrey desperately, but she did not think she had the courage to do as the queen was asking. “But he never... I don’t... Your Grace, I wouldn’t know what to say... ”
The queen patted her hand. “We will tell you what to write, child. The important thing is that you urge Lady Catelyn and your brother to keep the king’s peace.”
“It will go hard for them if they don’t,” said Grand Maester Pycelle. “By the love you bear them, you must urge them to walk the path of wisdom.”
“Your lady mother will no doubt fear for you dreadfully,” the queen said. “You must tell her that you are well and in our care, that we are treating you gently and seeing to your every want. Bid them to come to King’s Landing and pledge their fealty to Joffrey when he takes his throne. If they do that ... why, then we shall know that there is no taint in your blood, and when you come into the flower of your womanhood, you shall wed the king in the Great Sept of Baelor, before the eyes of gods and men.”
... wed the king... The words made her breath come faster, yet still Sansa hesitated.
“Your Grace… My father,” she asked meekly.
“You disappoint me, Sansa,” the queen said, with eyes gone hard as stones. “We’ve told you of your father’s crimes.”
“I ... I only meant ... ” Sansa felt her eyes grow wet. “He’s not ... please, he hasn’t been ... hurt, or ... or ... ”
“Lord Eddard has not been harmed,” the queen said, her lips curling into a cold smile. “The same cannot be said for many good, loyal, men.”
“But ... what’s to become of him?”
“That is a matter for the king to decide,” Grand Maester Pycelle announced ponderously.
The king! Sansa blinked back her tears. Joffrey was the king now, she thought. Her gallant prince would never hurt her father, no matter what he might have done. If she went to him and pleaded for mercy, she was certain he’d listen. He had to listen, he loved her, even the queen said so. Joff would need to punish Father, the lords would expect it, but perhaps he could send him back to Winterfell, or exile him to one of the Free Cities across the narrow sea. It would only have to be for a few years. By then she and Joffrey would be married. Once she was queen, she could persuade Joff to bring Father back and grant him a pardon.
Only ... if Mother or Robb did anything treasonous, called the banners or refused to swear fealty or anything, it would all go wrong. Her Joffrey was good and kind, she knew it in her heart, but a king had to be stern with rebels. She had to make them understand, she had to!
“I’ll ... I’ll write the letters,” Sansa told them.
With a smile as warm as the sunrise, Cersei Lannister leaned close and kissed her gently on the cheek. “I knew you would. Joffrey will be so proud when I tell him what courage and good sense you’ve shown here today.”
In the end, she wrote four letters. To her mother, the Lady Catelyn Stark, and to her brothers at Winterfell, and to her aunt and her grandfather as well, Lady Lysa Arryn of the Eyrie, and Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrun. By the time she had done, her fingers were cramped and stiff and stained with ink. Varys had her father’s seal. She warmed the pale white beeswax over a candle, poured it carefully, and watched as the eunuch stamped each letter with the direwolf of House Stark.
Jeyne was waiting for her, when Ser Mandon Moore returned Sansa to the high tower of Maegor’s Holdfast. The soft weeping could be heard even as they walked down the quiet hallway. It was haunting and sad, like that song that she had heard once. What was the name? Something flint?
Jeyne was on the bed, hugging her knees silently. Her tear-streaked face was pale and sunken, she had refused to eat the past three days. Sansa sat with her, took down one of her favorite books, and read softly the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother’s queen.
Jeyne’s weeping grew quiet, to soft sobbings and hiccups. As she was drifting off to sleep herself, Sansa realized she had forgotten to ask about her sister.
The walls of the throne room had been stripped bare, the hunting tapestries that King Robert loved taken down and stacked in the corner in an untidy heap. Many of them had blackened edges, and dried blood on them, Sansa observed uncomfortably.
The white of the floor were scarred with black burn marks, like ugly winestains on a fine tablecloth. What happened here? Sansa thought in horror.
Ser Mandon Moore went to take his place under the throne beside two of his fellows of the Kingsguard. She had only seen dour Ser Meryn and quiet Ser Preston, these few days. She wondered where young, noble Arys Oakheart had gone.
Sansa hovered by the door, for once unguarded. The queen had given her freedom of the castle as a reward for being good, yet even so, she was escorted everywhere she went. “Honor guards for my daughter-to-be,” the queen called them, but they did not make Sansa feel honored.
“Freedom of the castle” meant that she could go wherever she chose within the Red Keep so long as she promised not to go beyond the walls, a promise Sansa had been more than willing to give. She couldn’t have gone beyond the walls anyway. The gates were watched day and night by Janos Slynt’s gold cloaks, and Lannister house guards were always about as well. Besides, even if she could leave the castle, where would she go? It was enough that she could walk in the yard, pick flowers in Myrcella’s garden, and visit the sept to pray for her father. Sometimes she prayed in the godswood as well, since the Starks kept the old gods.
This was the first court session of Joffrey’s reign, so Sansa looked about nervously. A line of Lannister guards stood beneath the western windows, a line of gold-cloaked City Watchmen beneath the east. There were fewer Westermen than during King Robert’s time, she noted. Of smallfolk and commoners, she saw no sign, but under the gallery, a cluster of lords great and small milled restlessly. There were no more than twenty, where a hundred had been accustomed to wait upon King Robert.
Sansa slipped in among them, murmuring greetings as she worked her way toward the front. She recognized black-skinned Jalabhar Xho, gloomy Ser Aron Santagar, the Redwyne twins Horror and Slobber ... only none of them seemed to recognize her. Or if they did, they shied away as if she had the grey plague. Sickly Lord Gyles covered his face at her approach and feigned another fit of coughing, and when funny drunken Ser Dontos started to hail her, Ser Balon Swann whispered in his ear and he turned away.
And so many others were missing. Where had the rest of them gone? Sansa wondered. Vainly, she searched for friendly faces. Not one of them would meet her eyes. It was as if she had become a ghost, dead before her time.
Grand Maester Pycelle was seated alone at the council table, seemingly asleep, his hands clasped together atop his beard. She saw Lord Varys hurry into the hall, his feet making no sound. Lord Baelish’s seat was empty, she realised, not for the first time. She wondered if Joffrey had sent him on some important quest.
Butterflies fluttered nervously in Sansa’s stomach. I shouldn’t be afraid, she told herself. I have nothing to be afraid of, it will all come out well, Joff loves me and the queen does too, she said so.
A herald’s voice rang out. “All hail His Grace, Joffrey of the Houses Baratheon and Lannister, the First of his Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. All hail his lady mother, Cersei of House Lannister, Queen Regent, Light of the West, and Protector of the Realm.”
Ser Barristan Selmy, resplendent in white plate, led them in. Ser Arys and Ser Boros were nowhere to be seen. Not for the first time, she wondered where they were.
Her prince—no, her king now!—took the steps of the Iron Throne two at a time, while his mother was seated with the council. Joff wore plush black velvets slashed with crimson, a shimmering cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar, and on his head a golden crown crusted with rubies and black diamonds.
When Joffrey turned to look out over the hall, his eye caught Sansa’s. He smiled, seated himself, and spoke. “It is a king’s duty to punish the disloyal and reward those who are true. Grand Maester Pycelle, I command you to read my decrees.”
Pycelle pushed himself to his feet. He was clad in a magnificent robe of thick red velvet, with an ermine collar and shiny gold fastenings. From a drooping sleeve, heavy with gilded scrollwork, he drew a parchment, unrolled it, and began to read a long list of names, commanding each in the name of king and council to present themselves and swear their fealty to Joffrey. Failing that, they would be adjudged traitors, their lands and titles forfeit to the throne.
The names he read made Sansa hold her breath. Lord Stannis Baratheon, his lady wife, his daughter. Lord Renly Baratheon. Both Lord Royces and their sons. Ser Loras Tyrell. Lord Mace Tyrell, his brothers, uncles, sons. The red priest, Thoros of Myr. Lord Beric Dondarrion. Lady Lysa Arryn and her son, the little Lord Robert. Lord Hoster Tully, his brother Ser Brynden, his son Ser Edmure. Lord Jason Mallister. Lord Bryce Caron of the Marches. Lord Tytos Blackwood. Lord Walder Frey and his heir Ser Stevron. Lord Karyl Vance. Lord Jonos Bracken. Lady Sheila Whent. Doran Martell, Prince of Dorne, and all his sons.
So many, she thought as Pycelle read on and on, it will take a whole flock of ravens to send out these commands. The sky will be darkened.
And at the end, near last, came the names Sansa had been dreading. Lady Catelyn Stark. Robb Stark. Brandon Stark, Rickon Stark, Arya Stark. Sansa stifled a gasp. Arya. They wanted Arya to present herself and swear an oath ... it must mean her sister had fled on the galley, she must be safe at Winterfell by now ...
Grand Maester Pycelle rolled up the list, tucked it up his left sleeve, and pulled another parchment from his right. He cleared his throat and resumed. “In the place of the traitor Eddard Stark, it is the wish of His Grace that Tywin Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West, take up the office of Hand of the King, to speak with his voice, lead his armies against his enemies, and carry out his royal will. So the king has decreed. The small council consents.”
“In the place of Stannis Baratheon, it is the wish of His Grace that his lady mother, the Queen Regent Cersei Lannister, who has ever been his staunchest support, be seated upon his small council, that she may help him rule wisely and with justice. So the king has decreed. The small council consents.”
Sansa heard a soft murmuring from the lords around her, but it was quickly stilled. Pycelle continued.
“It is also the wish of His Grace that his loyal servant, Janos Slynt, Commander of the City Watch of King’s Landing, be at once raised to the rank of lord and granted the ancient seat of Harrenhal with all its attendant lands and incomes, and that his sons and grandsons shall hold these honors after him until the end of time. It is moreover his command that Lord Slynt be seated immediately upon his small council, to assist in the governance of the realm. So the king has decreed. The small council consents.”
Sansa glimpsed motion from the corner of her eye as Janos Slynt made his entrance. This time the muttering was louder and angrier. Proud lords whose houses went back thousands of years made way reluctantly for the balding, frog-faced commoner as he marched past. Golden scales had been sewn onto the black velvet of his doublet and rang together softly with each step. His cloak was checked black-and-gold satin.
Two ugly boys who must have been his sons went before him, struggling with the weight of a heavy metal shield as tall as they were. For his sigil he had taken a bloody spear, gold on a night-black field. The sight of it raised goose prickles up and down Sansa’s arms.
As Lord Slynt took his place, Grand Maester Pycelle resumed. “With the escape of the traitor Eddard Stark, and his savage sellsword, Andrei Yeltska, it is the wish of His Grace that all good men and true lend their eyes and steel to the pursuit of these two wanted men. A royal bounty and lordship awaits the man who captures the two traitors. So the king has decreed. The small council consents.”
She felt a shiver run through her.
“Lastly, in these times of treason and turmoil, with our beloved Robert so lately dead, it is the view of the council that the life and safety of King Joffrey is of paramount importance ... ” He looked to the queen.
Cersei stood. “Ser Barristan Selmy, stand forth.”
Ser Barristan had been standing at the foot of the Iron Throne, as still as any statue, but now he went to one knee and bowed his head. “Your Grace, I am yours to command.”
“Rise, Ser Barristan,” Cersei Lannister said. “You may remove your helm.”
“My lady?” Standing, the old knight took off his high white helm, though he did not seem to understand why.
“You have served the realm long and faithfully, good ser, and every man and woman in the Seven Kingdoms owes you thanks. Yet now I fear your service is at an end. It is the wish of king and council that you lay down your heavy burden.”
“My ... burden? I fear I ... I do not ... ”
The new-made lord, Janos Slynt, spoke up, his voice heavy and blunt. “Her Grace is trying to tell you that you are relieved as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.” There was a scar across his nose, Sansa noted dully.
The tall, white-haired knight seemed to shrink as he stood there, scarcely breathing. “Your Grace,” he said at last. “The Kingsguard is a Sworn Brotherhood. Our vows are taken for life. Only death may relieve the Lord Commander of his sacred trust.”
“Whose death, Ser Barristan?” The queen’s voice was soft as silk, but her words carried the whole length of the hall. “Yours, or your king’s?”
“You let my father die,” Joffrey said accusingly from atop the Iron Throne. “You captured those traitors alive when I wanted them dead. You’re too old to protect anybody. Your wits are addled.”
Sansa watched as the knight peered up at his new king. She had never seen him look his years before, yet now he did. “Your Grace,” he said. “I was chosen for the White Swords in my twenty-third year. It was all I had ever dreamed, from the moment I first took a sword in hand. I gave up all claim to my ancestral keep. The girl I was to wed married my cousin in my place, I had no need of land or sons, my life would be lived for the realm. Ser Gerold Hightower himself heard my vows ... to ward the king with all my strength ... to give my blood for his ... I fought beside the White Bull and Prince Lewyn of Dorne ... beside Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. Before I served your father, I helped shield King Aerys, and his father Jaehaerys before him . . . three kings ... ”
“Your time is done,” Cersei Lannister announced. “Joffrey requires men around him who are young and strong. The council has determined that Ser Jaime Lannister will take your place as the Lord Commander of Sworn Brothers of the White Swords.”
“The Kingslayer,” Ser Barristan said, his voice hard with contempt. “The false knight who profaned his blade with the blood of the king he had sworn to defend.”
“Have a care for your words, ser,” the queen warned. “You are speaking of our beloved brother, your king’s own blood.”
Lord Varys spoke, gentler than the others. “We are not unmindful of your service, good ser. Lord Tywin Lannister has generously agreed to grant you a handsome tract of land north of Lannisport, beside the sea, with gold and men sufficient to build you a stout keep, and servants to see to your every need.”
Ser Barristan looked up sharply. “A hall to die in, and men to bury me. I thank you, my lords ... but I spit upon your pity.” He reached up and undid the clasps that held his cloak in place, and the heavy white garment slithered from his shoulders to fall in a heap on the floor. His helmet dropped with a clang. “I am a knight,” he told them. He opened the silver fastenings of his breastplate and let that fall as well. “I shall die a knight.”
“An old, naked knight,” Joffrey sneered on his throne. Her heart almost stopped.
They all laughed then, Joffrey on his throne, and the lords standing attendance, Janos Slynt and Queen Cersei and even the other men of the Kingsguard, the three who had been his brothers until a moment ago. Surely that must have hurt the most, Sansa thought. This is cruel. Her heart went out to the gallant old man as he stood shamed and red-faced, too angry to speak. Finally, he drew his sword.
Sansa heard someone gasp. Ser Mandon and Ser Meryn moved forward to confront him, but Ser Barristan froze them in place with a look that dripped contempt. “Have no fear, sers, your king is safe ... no thanks to you. Even now, I could cut through the two of you as easy as a dagger cuts cheese. If you would serve under the Kingslayer, not a one of you is fit to wear the white.” He flung his sword at the foot of the Iron Throne. “Here, boy. Melt it down and add it to the others, if you like. It will do you more good than the swords in the hands of these fools. Perhaps Lord Stannis will chance to sit on it when he takes your throne.”
He took the long way out, his steps ringing loud against the floor and echoing off the bare stone walls. Lords and ladies parted to let him pass. Not until the pages had closed the great oak-and-bronze doors behind him did Sansa hear sounds again: soft voices, uneasy stirrings, the shuffle of papers from the council table. “He called me boy,” Joffrey said peevishly, sounding younger than his years. “He talked about my uncle Stannis too.”
“Idle talk,” said Varys the eunuch. “Without meaning ... ”
“He could be making plots with my uncles. I want him seized and questioned.” No one moved. Joffrey raised his voice. “I said, I want him seized! ”
Janos Slynt rose from the council table. “My gold cloaks will see to it, Your Grace.”
“Good,” said King Joffrey. Lord Janos strode from the hall, his ugly sons doublestepping to keep up as they lugged the great metal shield with the arms of House Slynt.
Joffrey smiled. “Tell them, Mother.”
The Queen stood, smiling elegantly. “A tournament shall be held soon,” she declared. “The winner shall be deemed worthy to join the ranks of the Kingsguard. Let it be known that any knight who seeks to enter may do so without cost.”
Weak, soft clapping responded, as did quiet mutters.
When the king’s herald moved forward, Sansa realized the moment was almost at hand. She smoothed down the cloth of her skirt nervously. She was dressed in mourning, as a sign of respect for the dead king, but she had taken special care to make herself beautiful. Her gown was the ivory silk that the queen had given her, the one Arya had ruined, but she’d had them dye it black and you couldn’t see the stain at all. She had fretted over her jewelry for hours and finally decided upon the elegant simplicity of a plain silver chain.
The herald’s voice boomed out. “If any man in this hall has other matters to set before His Grace, let him speak now or go forth and hold his silence.”
Sansa quailed. Now, she told herself, I must do it now. Gods give me courage. She took one step, then another. Lords and knights stepped aside silently to let her pass, and she felt the weight of their eyes on her. I must be as strong as my lady mother. “Your Grace,” she called out in a soft, tremulous voice.
The height of the Iron Throne gave Joffrey a better vantage point than anyone else in the hall. He was the first to see her. “Come forward, my lady,” he called out, smiling.
His smile emboldened her, and made her feel beautiful and strong. He does love me, he does. Sansa lifted her head and walked toward him, not too slow and not too fast. She must not let them see how nervous she was.
“The Lady Sansa, of House Stark,” the herald cried.
She stopped under the throne, at the spot where Ser Barristan’s white cloak lay puddled on the floor beside his helm and breastplate. “Do you have some business for king and council, Sansa?” the queen asked from the council table.
“I do.” She knelt on the cloak, so as not to spoil her gown, and looked up at her prince on his fearsome black throne. “As it please Your Grace, I ask mercy for my father, Lord Eddard Stark, who was the Hand of the King.” She had practiced the words a hundred times.
The queen sighed. “Sansa, you disappoint me. What did I tell you about traitor’s blood?”
“Your father has committed grave and terrible crimes, my lady,” Grand Maester Pycelle intoned.
“Ah, poor sad thing,” sighed Varys. “She is only a babe, my lords, she does not know what she asks.”
Sansa had eyes only for Joffrey. He must listen to me, he must, she thought. The king shifted on his seat. “Let her speak,” he commanded. “I want to hear what she says.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” Sansa smiled, a shy secret smile, just for him. He was listening. She knew he would.
“Treason is a noxious weed,” Pycelle declared solemnly. “It must be torn up, root and stem and seed, lest new traitors sprout from every roadside.”
“Do you deny your father’s crime?” Queen Cersei asked.
“No, my lords.” Sansa knew better than that. “I know he must be punished. All I ask is mercy. I know my lord father must regret what he did. He was King Robert’s friend and he loved him, you all know he loved him. He never wanted to be Hand until the king asked him. They must have lied to him. Lord Renly or Lord Stannis or ... or somebody, they must have lied, otherwise ... ”
King Joffrey leaned forward, hands grasping the arms of the throne. Broken sword points fanned out between his fingers. “He said I wasn’t the king. Why did he say that?"
“His leg was broken,” Sansa replied slowly. “It hurt ever so much, Maester Pycelle was giving him milk of the poppy, and they say that milk of the poppy fills your head with clouds. Otherwise he would never have said it.”
“Really,” Joffrey scowled. She wished he would smile at her. “He marched in here with his savages. That warrior of his killed a councillor, and over a dozen good men. My Hound is in the Maester’s quarters, burned till near death. Ser Arys has yet to awaken. What do you say against that?”
Sansa’s lips were dry. “My father must have been misled,” she said weakly, “And his guards only did as they thought best.”
Varys said, “A child’s faith ... such sweet innocence ... and yet, they say wisdom oft comes from the mouths of babes.”
“Treason is treason,” Pycelle replied at once.
Joffrey rocked restlessly on the throne. “Mother?”
Cersei Lannister considered Sansa thoughtfully. “If Lord Eddard were to confess his crime,” she said at last, “we would know he had repented his folly.”
Joffrey pushed himself to his feet. Please, Sansa thought, please, please, be the king I know you are, good and kind and noble, please. Not... cruel. “Do you have any more to say?” he asked her.
“Only ... that as you love me, you do me this kindness, my prince,” Sansa said.
King Joffrey looked her up and down. “Your sweet words have moved me,” he said gallantly, nodding, as if to say all would be well. “I shall do as you ask ... but first your father has to submit to capture. He must return to the Keep, with that heathen warrior in tow. He has to confess and say that I’m the king, or there will be no mercy for him.”
“He will,” Sansa said, heart soaring. “Oh, I know he will.”
Her heart was still racing when she entered her chambers in Maegor’s Holdfast. Jeyne was asleep in the chair by the hearth, the book of knights and heroes in her hands. Her face was calm and at peace, and Sansa smiled.
She walked for her window, looking up at the city. She remembered the awe she had felt when King’s Landing had appeared on the horizon as they rode south. She remembered the wonder of the Hand’s tourney, where the knights from the stories had come to life. It was wonderful, Sansa thought, but where had the wonder gone?
Her eyes were on King’s Landing. Father, she prayed, please, please come back. She knew her father had to be in the city. Perhaps, he would hear of the proclamations soon and make his way back to the Red Keep with Andrei to beg Joffrey’s mercy. Yes, Sansa assured herself as she slowly laid down on her bed, they would do just that.
She slowly drifted asleep, to the crackling of hearthfire and the cooing of doves. And when she woke, a feather as white as fallen snow sat on her windowsill.
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 51, 57
Gentle Mother/Shallya, font of mercy...
Chapter 29: Arya I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The wharfs were oddly quiet when Arya got there.
She spied another pair of gold cloaks, walking side by side through the fish market, but they never so much as looked at her. Half the stalls were empty, and it seemed to her that there were fewer ships at dock than she remembered. Out on the Blackwater, three of the king’s war galleys moved in formation, gold-painted hulls splitting the water as their oars rose and fell. Arya watched them for a bit, then began to make her way along the river.
When she saw the guardsmen on the third pier, in grey woolen cloaks trimmed with white satin, her heart almost stopped in her chest. The sight of Winterfell’s colors brought tears to her eyes. Behind them, a sleek three-banked trading galley rocked at her moorings. Arya could not read the name painted on the hull; the words were strange, Myrish, Braavosi, perhaps even High Valyrian. She grabbed a passing longshoreman by the sleeve. “Please,” she said, “what ship is this?”
“She’s the Wind Witch, out of Myr,” the man said.
“She’s still here,” Arya blurted. The longshoreman gave her a queer look, shrugged, and walked away. She turned quickly, striding for the alleyway where Gunther waited. The young man was leaning against the cold stone, munching on an apple.
“She’s here,” she whispered. “We can take the ship back… back to Winterfell.”
Sansa’s stupid face flashed in her mind. Where was she? Arya thought for a moment. “We have to…” She trailed off, thinking of her father.
“Still here?” Gunther asked. There was doubt in his voice, she could tell. His accent was a Kingslander’s, she thought, but there was a slight, strange tilt to it. He spoke faster than the usual Kingslander, she figured. “They’ve got men prowling every street. Doubt that’s your ship, kid.” He tossed the core of the apple behind.
She turned to look at the ship, and the guardsmen in Winterfell’s colours. Look, she wanted to say. Look with your eyes, she heard Syrio whisper.
Arya looked. She knew all of her father’s men. The three in the grey cloaks were strangers. “They’re not Northern men,” she realised, with cold in her belly.
Gunther sighed. “Figured.” He turned around.
She kept her eyes on the grey woolen cloaks that must have belonged to Winterfell men once. Men she knew. Men she grew up with.
She turned as well, following the thief down the alleyway.
“What now?” She whispered. The ice was in her heart now. She thought of Meryn Trant and his dour face and the blade in his hand.
“What now?” Gunther repeated. “Same as usual.”
That meant walking about the city during the early afternoon for a few hours and retreating before dusk came for King’s Landing. That meant the unorthodox lessons that she would learn from him, with Needle and the knife and seeing.
“Look at that one o’er there,” Gunther whispered. “What do you see?”
She looked. They were in the fish market, and the clamor was drowning. Men and women flocked around the barrels and stalls to haggle over river pikes and clams and crabs and eels. She kept her gaze on the young woman, with a woven basket in her hands and the small pouch of coins by her waist. Look, look, look.
She wore a simple woolen gown of grey and red, with long dark hair that was uncombed, and she was failing to haggle over the price of a pot of red crabs. There was a familiar look to her, Arya thought. No, not her. People like her.
“A servant,” she realised, “From the Red Keep.”
Gunther smirked. “You want to know what happened there? Go find out.”
She looked at him but the young man was already stepping away. His leather armour was as black as night but with a step and twist, he had welded himself into the crowd of fishermen and fishwives, like another thread in one of Sansa’s embroideries.
Arya scowled. She could do that too. They had cut her hair short, and smudged mud on her face every morning before they stepped out into the city.
“Quiet as a shadow, quick as a snake,” she whispered as she walked with the crowd, letting them push her towards the servant. She watched as the young girl, who looked two or three years older than Sansa, gave over a handful of silvers to the old fisherman. She followed the girl through the fish market, and through Fishmonger’s Square. She’s heading for the Hook, Arya realised.
That wide street would bring her directly to Aegon’s High Hill, Arya knew, and into the bloody maw of the Red Keep.
Swift as a deer, Arya thought as she rushed ahead. There was a quiet alleyway to the serving girl’s right. No one was watching them.
Her hand reached out, snatching the coin pouch in a single, swift motion.
“Hey!” The young woman called out in shock, as Arya darted down the alleyway.
“Come back here,” the servant shouted, chasing her.
Arya ran, leading her deep into the winding alley. She did not feel like prey here, Arya grinned to herself. No, Arya thought, I’m a wolf. A direwolf.
She turned on her heel, and threw the pouch at the servant. Arya winced as the sack of coins smashed against the girl’s face. You should have caught it, she thought.
“You little-” the young woman exclaimed in anger and pain, holding her bloodied nose. No more words came from her mouth, when she saw the knife in Arya’s hand. I am Arya of House Stark, and I have my fang.
She dropped the pouch, giving her a fearful look. Arya felt a twinge of guilt in her but she hardened herself. She stepped forward, the small knife in hand. It was one of the three throwing knives that Gunther kept strapped to his chest. The blade was thin, slender and light. Like me, she thought, like Needle.
“You’re a servant from the Keep,” Arya stated.
“Aye, I-I…” she stammered. “Anna, my name is, don’t kill me, please.”
The stableboy’s glassy eyes were looking at her. Go away. I’ll kill you again.
“What happened? Where is my father? Where is my sis-” Arya stopped, her eyes widening at the same time as the servant’s.
“Your father?” The servant whispered. “You, you’re Arya Stark.”
Arya looked away, at the darkening mouth of the alleyway. No one was coming. No one was here. Where was Gunther?
Arya spoke slowly. “Where is my father?” She raised the knife and took another step towards the young woman, trying to still her heart.
“I don’t know,” she cried out in terror. “No one knows. The King and Queen are trying to find them.”
“Who’s them?”
“That big warrior, the Northman.”
“Where’s my sister,” Arya demanded angrily.
“She… she’s in the holdfast.” Anna said hesitantly. “She… begged for mercy for … for your father.”
“Can you get her out?” Arya asked suddenly, hope blooming in her heart like Northern flowers in the winter snow.
“Me?” Anna exclaimed. “I… I can’t. The Queen will have my head.”
Arya felt her anger rise. “You-”
“What do we have here,” a man’s voice chuckled darkly. Arya turned her head in panic. There were two men walking towards them. One was bald and ugly, the one who had spoken. He leered at the servant with a hungry look in his eyes. He had a wooden club in his hands. The man beside him was gangly and thin, with reedy brown hair, and she could see the hilt of a dagger by his leather belt.
“You lost?” The first man sneered.
“Go away!” Arya shouted, holding her knife out.
The man laughed, turning to his companion. “Should we, Foss? Should we go away? Oh, aye, maybe’s we should.”
Foss did not speak. She could feel his eyes crawling under her leathers. He did not know what he was thinking, and that scared her even more. Anna whimpered in terror next to her. Arya stepped forward, her knife in hand. She wished she had Needle with her, but she had left it in her bedroll. She wished she had Jon with her, and Robb. She wished her father was standing behind her with Ice.
Arya knew she was alone, with a whimpering serving girl as her only ally.
“Come here, girl,” the bald man reached for Anna.
“Go away!” Arya shouted, slashing with the knife. A thin ugly cut weeped along the man’s palm. He cursed in pain. “You little shit,” he swore, raising his club high. She could see him. She saw the rage in his bloodshot eyes, and the snarl forming on his blackened lips and yellowed teeth. She saw his crooked nose and the ugly stubble on his neck and chin.
She saw the bolt protruding from his eye. The heavy shaft of metal had embedded into the eye socket thickly, and with a heavy thud.
“By Ranald,” she heard a familiar voice behind her, soft and annoyed. Behind?
She turned, seeing the grey wall. She looked up and up, and saw a lithe figure in dark leathers. A cloth hood of black, and a similarly darkened mask of cloth, obscured his face. A crossbow of ebony wood and silver was in one hand, and the other reached for the small quiver of bolts hanging from his belt.
Foss turned and ran.
She heard that familiar twang and watched as the bolt took the man through the back of his right knee. He collapsed onto the filthy ground in a mess of blood. He screamed in pain, clutching his ruined knee. She saw the bloodied tip of the metal bolt protruding from his knee, and the blood dripping onto the ground.
Gunther landed softly on the ground. He sighed. Arya watched as he hooked the crossbow by his belt once more, drawing the dagger of Valyrian steel. He crossed the distance between him and Foss, and swiped the smoky steel across the man’s throat easily. “Sorry,” Gunther said casually, wiping the blade on the man’s tunic.
He rose, giving her a disapproving scowl. He gave the trembling Anna a hesitant look. “Great job, kid,” Gunther grumbled.
Arya looked at the ground. “Where were you?” She muttered.
“Watching,” he pointed at the rooftop above them.
“Please,” Anna said, shivering. “Please don’t kill me. I have a brother to take care of.”
Whatever fear she must have felt just now, she was feeling tenfold, Arya knew.
Gunther kept his gaze on her. Only his grey eyes could be seen, and they softened. He was older than Robb, Arya thought. He looked about as old as Theon.
Don’t kill her, Arya wanted to say, but she thought of Syrio and the stableboy. She knows who you are, another voice whispered.
“Please, ser,” Anna fell to her knees, pleading. “Please, my brother is young…”
She looked at Gunther, whose eyes were closed.
“We’ll be out of the city tomorrow anyways,” he shrugged, raising his dagger.
Arya’s eyes widened.
He smashed the dragonbone pommel of the dagger against Anna’s temple, and she crumpled onto the floor limply. “What a mess,” he muttered. He reached down, snatching the pouch of coins. “Take that,” he gestured at the basket of red crabs and fish. “No sense wasting it.”
Arya bent quietly, seizing the basket with one hand. She extended the other to him, the throwing knife in her hand. “Here,” she said quietly.
Gunther looked at her, raising an eyebrow. His hood had fallen, revealing his messy black hair. “Keep it,” he said, “You need more practice.”
She was quiet as they walked. “Sorry,” Arya said.
Gunther waved it off. He pulled his cloth mask down as they exited into the Hook.
“Do you think she will…” Arya said slowly.
Gunther laughed. “Of course, and they’ll send a score of guards to every gate and wharf to watch for two people trying to escape.”
Oh, Arya realised. She opened her mouth but she was suddenly aware of shouting.
“Watch it!” a cabbage merchant called out in anger as a pair of horses nearly avoided trampling him. The horsemen were riding fiercely, away from the Red Keep. Arya turned her attention to them. Were they messengers or knights sent by Cersei?
One of the riders was an older man, with snow white hair and lined features. He seemed familiar, Arya thought. He was tall and strong and graceful on his horse, like a knight but the man was unarmoured, with only a longsword and a dagger hanging from his leather belt. And the other man was…
Arya felt her world freeze and thaw.
Jory Cassel rode past her on a raging brown steed. His face was hard, with a long scar across his left eye, but Arya knew his face like she did her family. The other man was Barristan Selmy, she suddenly remembered.
In a thunderous blur, they were gone. The two soared through the Hook, disappearing behind a street corner, leaving like a dream.
Arya’s mouth remained open.
Gunther was scratching his cheek. “Could have sworn I saw his face before.”
He looked at her and he blinked. “Wait, I remember now. He was there at the brothel when Andrei…” Gunther turned his head towards where the two had been half a minute ago. “What?”
“That’s Jory,” she started to say but Gunther gave her a warning look. Suddenly, she remembered she was in the middle of a crowded street, in a city that now belonged to the Lannisters. Arya looked down, mumbling an apology.
They were quiet as they walked. She was breathing hard by the time she reached the narrow crooked unpaved streets between the hills. Flea Bottom had a foul stench to it, a stink of pigsties and stables and tanner’s sheds, mixed in with the sour smell of winesinks and cheap whorehouses and unwashed bodies.
There was a man ahead, ringing a handheld bronze bell.
“Hear ye, hear ye!” He cried loudly to the crowds. “To the wanted men, Eddard Stark and Andrei Yeltska, let it be known that King Joffrey has extended his mercy. Present yourself before the Red Keep, submit yourself to the Iron Throne, and you shall be shown the King’s mercy.”
“Hear ye, hear ye!” He cried again, repeating himself.
Arya licked her lips nervously. She glanced at Gunther, and his eyes were on the man. He shook his head, grabbing her by the hand. They disappeared through another set of dark, winding alleyways. Her head was spinning by the time they stepped into the hideout again.
Len was stirring a pot of something that surprisingly smelled a delight. He gave them a toothy grin as they stepped in.
“What’s the haul?” The boy asked.
“Crabs,” Gunther laughed, gesturing at the basket. “Couple of pikes too.”
Len’s eyes widened. “I never had crabs before,” he said in awe.
“Do you know how to cook them?” Gunther asked.
“I can try?”
Gunther shrugged. Arya took one of the red crabs and tossed it at Len, who yelped as it pinched his finger.
As the two thieves argued with each other over the methods to cook a crab, Arya climbed up to the second floor. She had little appetite.
She found Needle in her bedroll and she took the slender blade, moving to stand by the cracked window. She kept her gaze on the setting sun, holding Needle. The rays of sunlight came through the window, and orange hues fell over the city.
“What’s the matter?” came a voice behind and she almost jumped.
She turned, and Gunther was there with a skin of wine, with an amused smile on his youthful face. She scowled, looking away.
“You did good, you know,” Gunther said, moving to stand by her.
“How?” She demanded.
“You followed her through the crowd with ease,” he explained, “And luring her into the alleyway was smart.”
She tried to keep her scowl. “But…”
“But, that whole mess with the servant,” he drank from his wineskin. “Eh, you’re learning. You’re nine. I was fourteen when I started.” Gunther laughed. “Got beat up the first time I tried to steal.”
She looked at him with curious eyes. “Fourteen? How did you even…”
“Ah,” he waved his hand casually, “Long story.” He sat by his bedroll.
“Who’s Ranald?” She asked curiously. “You mentioned his name.”
Gunther gave her an amused look. “You’re not the first to ask. He’s a… patron for luck, and freedom, and for thieves.”
“He’s a god?” Arya scrunched her face. “Never heard of him.”
Gunther passed her the wineskin. “Don’t imagine you would have.”
“Wait,” she drank, wincing at the taste. Her father had only allowed her a cup during feasts. “How did you come to know Andrei then?”
Gunther looked away. “We travelled together.”
Arya’s stomach grumbled.
“Come on,” he gestured. “I think Len’s figured out how to cook crabs. Buttered them up and fried them with garlic and onions.”
She felt her mouth water at that. The aroma was starting to waft too. She nodded, following him as he leapt down.
“Done sulking?” Len chirped. She threw a slice of ham at him. The boy laughed, catching it and popping it in his mouth. She glanced at the food. A thick mutton stew bubbled in the cast iron pot, with chunks of carrots and radish floating, and she saw three red crabs fried with butter on the pan.
She took a seat by the fire. “How did you two meet?” She could not help but to ask.
Len and Gunther looked at each other before chuckling.
“He tried to steal from me,” Gunther said.
“Ah,” Arya replied.
“Here,” Len said, handing her a bowl of mutton stew and a fried crab on a platter.
She wondered what she would be eating if Gunther had not found her. Rats and pigeons probably.
“You know,” Gunther started, taking a bite from a ripe leg of crab. “You should learn how to use that.” He nodded at the knife by her belt.
“I’m learning water dancing,” was her reply. Why would I need to know how to use a knife?
Gunther rolled his eyes. He looked at the faded, crumbling wall. “See that chip over there?” She glanced over, and nodded.
“Throw your knife at it.”
That sounded easy enough to her, she thought. She gripped her knife and hurled it.
It flew to the very edge of the wall. Len nearly choked on his crab. She threw her crab shell at him.
Gunther shook his head. He drew one of the throwing knives on his chest and flung it, and she watched as it embedded itself in the chip on the wall.
“Teach me,” Arya demanded.
Gunther laughed. “Alright.”
“Wait, I want to learn as well.” Len said, placing his bowl of stew down.
Gunther shrugged, handing him his other throwing knife. “Right, first lesson,” he drawled out lazily. “Hold the knife properly.”
She must have thrown her knife a hundred times before her arm grew tired and exhaustion started to settle in like a light snow. Len stopped after seventy tries and headed for the bedrolls on the second floor. She yawned.
Gunther was playing with a gold dragon, watching her. She watched with drowsy eyes as he spun the coin on the wooden table. “You know,” he said softly, “you remind me of someone.” He looked up. “Him too.”
“Who?” She asked, blearily.
In the hazy dark of the room, with only a few flickering candles, she could barely see the sad smile on Gunther’s face. “Go to bed, Arry.”
She found that she barely had the strength to protest.
With his help, she climbed up onto the second floor and crawled into her bedroll. Needle was with her, and it felt like Jon’s embrace. She closed her eyes, sleep consuming her. And in her dreams, she was a wolf.
Blood. Grass. Mud. Wolves. Howling.
Trees and earth. A small pack of grey wolves was howling with her. Horse and deer and rabbit. Meat. Prey. Food. Fear and anger.
Woods; trees and leaves and bushes. River; rushing water, safe, drink. Cave; dark, quiet, safe.
Red men, gold men, steel claw. Danger.
Cat? Black cat. Smiling cat.
Who are you? Arya thought. There was no response but the howling of wolves under a moonlit night. The river rushed by their side, and young pups lapped the crystal water hungrily. The night wind was calm, an easy breeze that shivered through the woods, shaking yellowed leaves. It all felt so real, she thought.
And when she woke, she woke to the sound of rattling dice.
Notes:
a wild child who loves freedom and sneaking around, wonder which god would enjoy that
arya's path is now different...
Chapter 30: Omake: The Starks see a glimpse of Kislev
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Eddard Stark blinked.
He was in his chamber, with a candle burning a flickering orange light on the large table. His family was gathered around him; Cat sat to his right, with Rickon on her lap, and Sansa to her right. Arya sat to his left, and Robb helped Bran to his seat beside Arya. His eldest took his seat across the table, with Jon standing solemnly behind him.
He had asked of them to gather in his solar, he remembered giving the order. But why?
“Father,” Robb said with a nod, “Was there something you wanted to discuss?”
Robb was older than he remembered, slightly taller and with the beginnings of a beard. Ned wondered when he had grown so fast, and how. Cat’s eyes were on him as well, in quiet curiosity, deliberately ignoring Jon’s presence in the room. Sansa kept her poise, trying to mimic her mother’s posture while Arya poked at Bran’s cheek, who swatted at her hands. Rickon, meanwhile, busied himself playing with the fur on his mother’s dress.
Before Ned could speak, a sound seized all of their attention. To his horror and wonder, a white gash opened up on the stone wall. It was as if a god had raked its sword along the stone, leaving a pale rend, much like a tear in a piece of grey cloth.
Arya and Bran both gasped. Sansa seemed frozen and Cat - the gods bless her - reached out to hold Sansa’s shoulder in a comforting grip. Robb had risen instantly, as did himself, while Jon reached for his belt for a sword he did not have.
“What… sorcery is this?” Cat whispered.
And sorcery it must have been, for the rend was no longer void and black. No, through it, they saw snow. A harsh winter snow, it must have been. Ned stared at the high drifts of snow, a sea of white cold that seemed to blanket everything.
Then, the familiar sound of battle came to him. The clashing of steel, the shouting of men, the charging of hundreds of horses, the sound of dying men, and a dreadful, loud sound like the roar of small dragons. “Robb, Jon,” he ordered, “step away from that.”
The rend in reality grew larger, wide enough that two men could step through abreast.
They could see the battle now. Hundreds of men clashing along the coast of some jagged, windswept sea. He saw dozens of longships, much like the Ironborn’s, crashing against the shoreline and from them, burly men leapt onto the cold sands with axe and spear and shield in hand. Many of these men lacked proper armour, and those that did wore mail and leather and fur. Yet, each howled and roared with a mad fury, with not a drop of fear in their eyes.
He thought of the Umber berserkers that had fought at the Trident that day. Those fierce, mad men with twin axes and furs, who howled and roared and fought with the fury of twenty men. This was an entire army of them, Ned thought in horror.
“These are not the Ironborn,” Robb noted, his gaze frozen on the scene.
“No,” Ned agreed.
“Who are they then?” asked Jon quietly, as quiet as that white wolf of his.
Ned had not the answer. Sansa covered her gasp with her pale hands when a hail of arrows and steel greeted the wild men. As fierce as they were, flesh alone could not stop arrows. There was that deafening sound again, like a thousand cracks of thunder contained in a small space. He had heard that sound before, once. Where?
Dozens of the fur-clad men fell to the sand in a bloody mess, gaping holes in their bodies. The sands were already stained red, and it would only grow more crimson, he knew.
“Norsca!” Many of them shouted. “Kharneth!”
“Kislev!” The sea of armoured men facing them shouted.
That was an army, Ned thought. Each man was armoured in a steel brigandine of metal scales, chainmail, thick leather and furs. These were hardened men, with cold eyes and steady hands. Some held wicked, heavy maces so long and large that two hands were needed to wield them. Others had a kite shield of wood and steel, and an axe.
Andrei stood along the first line, and they saw his face.
“That’s him!” Arya shouted excitedly, pointing.
“By the gods,” Cat whispered with a pale face. “This is…”
“Kislev,” he answered her. “He has spoken much of homeland to me, and now we shall see it in its glory and horror.”
“Kislev!” Andrei roared, as the two waves of men crashed in a frenzy of blood and death.
Robb and Jon were watching in a trance as Andrei slashed through a man’s arm with his axe, crushing his throat with his heavy shield. Arya and Bran gaped in wonder and horror at the carnage on display as he buried his axe in another’s face, seizing a hunting spear and impaling a third with him. Sansa covered her eyes with her hands, and Cat comforted her with an embrace, though her gaze was on the battle. Rickon seemed confused but clapped.
More ships were crashing against the shore now, each one spewing forth dozens of these wild men. One ship, larger and wider than the others, held a great beast that sent Robb cursing, though he gave his mother a guilty glance. A walking mountain of brown fur and muscle, with ivory tusks as long as a ship’s mast. A crude wooden platform was built atop it, with four men hurling spears at their foes. A man was skewered on its white blades, two crushed before the heavy tree trunks of its legs, and three were sent flying.
“Mammoths,” he said hoarsely.
“I thought they were just legends,” whispered Arya.
“Lord Commander Mormont mentioned them to me once,” Ned responded, troubled. “Beyond the Wall, they still roam.”
These old beasts needed to be seen, for all the wonder and horror of their presence to be understood. There was a weight to them that he could feel even from sight alone, a weight of myth and legend come to life. And if they exist…
A hail of arrows rained upon the great beast and it roared in pain. Men were shouting and barking commands, and he stirred uncomfortably. For a moment, he was at the Trident again. He could almost feel the water lapping at his feet. Another hail of arrows brought the four men atop the mammoth crashing to the ground dead. He heard the iron thunder again, but this one was louder, a boom that crashed across the whole battlefield. A roar, like the sound of the earth splitting in half. The ground itself seemed to tremble.
From afar, he thought he spied fire and smoke belching forth from some tube of iron. For a brief, mad, second, he thought that the dragons had returned to the world.
Something flew across the battlefield, and men were turned to red ruin in its wake. It was a terrible sight to behold, like wheat before the farmer’s scythe. Death, Ned thought, cold and certain, from… from fire and iron.
There was a great impact against the mammoth and it seemed to shudder. One moment, it was raging against a tide of men. The next, it collapsed onto the ground, a gaping hole the size of a man’s head between its bloodied tusks. The armoured men of Kislev roared in exultation at that, raising their axes and maces while their foes seemed to buckle.
“By the gods,” Robb whispered. “That was no scorpion.”
“No,” Jon agreed. “It… it was like a dragon. A dragon of iron.”
Ned’s gaze was torn from the battle to a troubled Jon, whose hands trembled slightly.
Sansa was whimpering and Cat hugged her tightly, whispering comfort into her ears. Arya, meanwhile, was silent and watching the battle with wide eyes. Bran’s face was pale but his eyes flickered from one scene to the next, and he could spy curiosity on his face. Rickon had fallen asleep against his table. Ned smiled, turning his attention back to the battle.
Many of the fur-clad men were fleeing for their longships now, as swift as wind, while just as many seemed to stand their ground stoutly, like unbending stone pillars, with steel. Wind or stone, they were slain nonetheless. Some were drowned in arrows where they stood, and they fell with their weapons in hand. Some were cut down with axes or crushed with maces. He heard that roar again, and like the black hand of death, a dozen men were claimed.
The battle was over, he could tell. Like the Trident, the enemy was as broken as glass. The iron roar that had claimed the mammoth was like the crash of Robert’s hammer against Rhaegar Targaryen’s black breastplate of rubies that sent men scattering.
“Father,” Bran asked quietly, “what is that thing? Is it magic?”
Ned was silent for a moment. “No, I do not think so. These men do not seem inclined to magic to me. That thing, that iron dragon, it does remind me of a scorpion but…”
“Better,” Robb finished. “Far better.”
“Aye,” he nodded. “A scorpion can pierce a ship’s hull. A trebuchet can pummel stone walls. That can do both, with much more power too.”
Gods, Ned thought, Robert would love one of those.
“Do you think we can have one?” Arya asked with a grin.
Jon and Robb smiled at that, and he felt his lips curl as well. “Where would you put it?”
“On Winterfell’s walls,” Arya declared.
“No, silly,” Bran argued. “Put it on the Wall. It will see more use there.”
“It’s an iron dragon,” Arya responded with a scowl. “It will freeze up there.”
“Moat Cailin then,” Robb stepped in before they could fight. “No southern army will dare to venture near those walls with an iron dragon pointed south.”
“South to Riverrun?” Cat questioned. Robb flushed slightly and did not respond.
“Wait,” Jon, who had been silent, spoke. “There is more.”
Cat scowled at his interruption and he alone noticed. He repressed a sigh as they turned back to the scene before them. The battle was over but the carnage continued. A dozen or so ships limped away from the coast, like injured hounds. The iron dragon belched its fury once more, and one more sea hound drowned, sinking into the frantic waves. On the bloodied sand, the last of the survivors were put to death with steel. He saw Andrei, beheading a wild warrior with his axe, his face darkened in cold anger.
“So much death,” Sansa wept. “Father, make it stop.”
Ned gave her a concerned look, reaching out to clutch her hand.
“They were fighting for their home,” Robb whispered. “They hate their enemy. Look.”
The dead of the invaders from the sea were gathered in loose piles. The armoured men poured oil on their bodies, and spat upon their corpses. Some even urinated on them.
“Those men came from the sea,” Jon observed, “and now their bodies are given to the flames.”
“War,” Ned said grimly. “These men know war.”
Notes:
Non-canon of course. Just an idea that popped into my head after one of the comments. If you enjoyed this, then I'll be open to writing more of these in the future (open to suggestions as well)
Chapter 31: Bran I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
He was falling again.
Fly, the voice demanded again. And so he flew.
He saw Winterfell as the eagles saw it, the tall towers looking squat and stubby from above, the castle walls just lines in the dirt. He saw Maester Luwin on his balcony, studying the sky through a polished bronze tube and frowning as he made notes in a book. He saw Robb frowning from his seat, as giants came to Winterfell and bowed.
He saw Hodor, the simple giant from the stables, carrying an anvil to Mikken’s forge, hefting it onto his shoulder as easily as another man might heft a bale of hay. At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly.
He looked east and saw a faint ball of red fire in the distance. Violet eyes looked at him curiously, and there was fire burning behind them. He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond. There was a boy, whose shadow would stretch across it all. He saw Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise.
He looked south, and saw the great blue-green rush of the Trident. The shadows he saw before were here again but they were changed, warped. The shadow that was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound, was burning and howling like death. The shadow that was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful, was dim and pale. Over them both loomed the giant in armor but the stone had become red steel, and when he opened his visor, Bran saw a skull weeping with blood.
There were lions eating across the land; old lions, young lions, scarred lions, but there were shadows nipping at their heels. Shadows of wolves, shadows of thunderbolts, shadows of fire. There was something else, a foul growth in a marsh boiling and bubbling, and lizard-lions straying away cautiously.
He saw a great, brown bear in a lake, with a fish in its mouth, guarding and guiding a grey wolf with a white oak by their side and a royal bear carved upon its wood. He saw a black cat prowling an alleyway with a wolf cub, and doves placing flowers upon a resting wolf. There was a greater beast though, a wintry wolf whose roar sounded like a war horn. He saw a pale spider spinning its web, the mangled cadaver of a mockingbird below it. There was a stag with a floral crown, and a black stag with a crown of fire. Red fire, gold fire, green fire. Green fire.
“Who said that?” Bran called out. This voice was different. It sounded younger, and smooth, and light. Like a singer’s voice.
There was a red hummingbird flying by his right, with green eyes that shone like emeralds. There was an eagle soaring alongside him, with gold sunlight in its eyes, but the bird of prey did not see him.
“Hello,” Bran greeted.
The hummingbird nodded. Bran wondered how birds nod.
“Who are you?” Bran asked.
“Just a bard,” the red bird responded in a laughing voice.
Finally, he looked north. He saw the cold hills of the barrows, the rolling mist dancing like spectres. He saw the wolfswood and recoiled at the sight of skinless men marching through the dark forest silently. There was a horrid sound behind them; something between a woman’s cry of pain and a man’s cry of pleasure.
He looked away and he saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon. Jon had a sword of frozen fire and shifting smoke, and he brought death upon death. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain…
“Death,” the other voice finally spoke again, stern and cold.
“Death,” the melodious voice agreed, light and warm.
Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. “Now you both know,” the three-eyed crow declared.
Bran did not know what he knew, or what he did not know. “I-”
There was a burst of laughter, dark and cruel and mad, a terrible sound that sent a cold shiver of dread down his spine.
He saw a black crow with a single blue eye, glimmering with madness and weeping with multicoloured blood, with a coat of shimmering feathers of blue and purple incandescent light. In its eye, Bran saw the stormy sea and the starry sky, he saw pink fire and black ice, he saw neverending change.
“You again,” the singer’s voice said softly and lightly. He sounded detached, Bran thought, like a man watching a play.
“WAKE!” The three-eyed crow cawed, and Bran woke. The last thing he saw was a silent, faceless figure in a deep, black hood and robe with a scythe.
There was a slow, deep-throated marching rhythm nearing, boom, boom, boom.
And there was a knocking on his door. “Hodor,” Hodor called.
“Coming,” Bran answered.
The Karstarks came on a cold windy morning, bringing three hundred horsemen and near two thousand foot from their castle at Karhold. The steel points of their pikes winked in the pale sunlight as the column approached.
Bran watched them come from a guard turret atop the outer wall, peering through Maester Luwin’s bronze far-eye while perched on Hodor’s shoulders. Lord Rickard himself led them, his sons Harrion and Eddard and Torrhen riding beside him beneath night-black banners emblazoned with the white sunburst of their House. Old Nan said they had Stark blood in them, going back hundreds of years, but they did not look like Starks to Bran. They were big men, and fierce, faces covered with thick beards, hair worn loose past the shoulders. Their cloaks were made of skins, the pelts of bear and seal and wolf.
They were the last, he knew. The other lords were already here, with their hosts. Bran yearned to ride out among them, to see the winter houses full to bursting, the jostling crowds in the market square every morning, the streets rutted and torn by wheel and hoof. But Robb had forbidden him to leave the castle. “We have no men to spare to guard you,” his brother had explained.
“I’ll take Summer,” Bran argued.
“Don’t act the boy with me, Bran,” Robb said. “You know better than that. Only two days ago one of Lord Bolton’s men knifed one of Lord Cerwyn’s at the Smoking Log. Our lady mother would skin me for a pelt if I let you put yourself at risk.” He was using the voice of Robb the Lord when he said it; Bran knew that meant there was no appeal.
It was because of what had happened in the wolfswood, he knew. The memory still gave him bad dreams. He had been as helpless as a baby, no more able to defend himself than Rickon would have been. Less, even ... Rickon would have kicked them, at the least. It shamed him. He was only a few years younger than Robb; if his brother was almost a man grown, so was he. He should have been able to protect himself.
A year ago, before , he would have visited the town even if it meant climbing over the walls by himself. In those days he could run down stairs, get on and off his pony by himself, and wield a wooden sword good enough to knock Prince Tommen in the dirt. Now he could only watch, peering out through Maester Luwin’s lens tube.
The maester had taught him all the banners: the mailed fist of the Glovers, silver on scarlet; Lady Mormont’s black bear; the hideous flayed man that went before Roose Bolton of the Dreadfort; a bull moose for the Hornwoods; a battle-axe for the Cerwyns; three sentinel trees for the Tallharts; and the fearsome sigil of House Umber, a roaring giant in shattered chains.
Flayed, Bran thought, disquieted.
Soon enough he learned the faces too, when the lords and their sons and knights retainer came to Winterfell to feast. Even the Great Hall was not large enough to seat all of them at once, so Robb hosted each of the principal bannermen in turn. Bran was always given the place of honor at his brother’s right hand. Some of the lords bannermen gave him queer hard stares as he sat there, as if they wondered by what right a green boy should be placed above them, and him a cripple too.
“How many is it now?” Bran asked Maester Luwin as Lord Karstark and his sons rode through the gates in the outer wall.
“Twelve thousand men, or near enough as makes no matter.”
“How many knights?”
“Few enough,” the maester said with a touch of impatience. “To be a knight, you must stand your vigil in a sept, and be anointed with the seven oils to consecrate your vows. In the north, only a few of the great houses worship the Seven. The rest honor the old gods, and name no knights... but those lords and their sons and sworn swords are no less fierce or loyal or honorable. A man’s worth is not marked by a ser before his name. As I have told you a hundred times before.”
“Still,” said Bran, “how many knights?”
Maester Luwin sighed. “Three hundred, perhaps four... among three thousand armored lances who are not knights.”
“Lord Karstark is the last,” Bran said thoughtfully. “Robb will feast him tonight.”
“No doubt he will.”
“How long before... before they go?”
“He must march soon, or not at all,” Maester Luwin said. “The winter town is full to bursting, and this army of his will eat the countryside clean if it camps here much longer. Others are waiting to join him all along the kingsroad, barrow knights and crannogmen and the Lords Manderly and Flint. The fighting has begun in the riverlands, and your brother has many leagues to go.”
“I know.” Bran felt as miserable as he sounded. He handed the bronze tube back to the maester, and noticed how thin Luwin’s hair had grown on top. He could see the pink of scalp showing through. It felt queer to look down on him this way, when he’d spent his whole life looking up at him, but when you sat on Hodor’s back you looked down on everyone. “I don’t want to watch anymore. Hodor, take me back to the keep.”
“Hodor,” said Hodor.
Maester Luwin tucked the tube up his sleeve. “Bran, your lord brother will not have time to see you now. He must greet Lord Karstark and his sons and make them welcome.”
A series of chisel-cut handholds made a ladder in the granite of the tower’s inner wall. Hodor hummed tunelessly as he went down hand under hand, Bran bouncing against his back in the wicker seat that Maester Luwin had fashioned for him.
For near a fortnight there had been so many comings and goings that Robb ordered both portcullises kept up and the drawbridge down between them, even in the dead of night. A long column of armored lancers was crossing the moat between the walls when Bran emerged from the tower; Karstark men, following their lords into the castle. They wore black iron halfhelms and black woolen cloaks patterned with the white sunburst.
Hodor trotted along beside them, smiling to himself, his boots thudding against the wood of the drawbridge. The riders gave them queer looks as they went by, and once Bran heard someone guffaw. He refused to let it trouble him. “Men will look at you,” Maester Luwin had warned him the first time they had strapped the wicker basket around Hodor’s chest. “They will look, and they will talk, and some will mock you.” Let them mock, Bran thought. No one mocked him in his bedchamber, but he would not live his life in bed.
As they passed beneath the gatehouse portcullis, Bran put two fingers into his mouth and whistled. Summer came loping across the yard. Suddenly the Karstark lancers were fighting for control, as their horses rolled their eyes and whickered in dismay. One stallion reared, screaming, his rider cursing and hanging on desperately. The scent of the direwolves sent horses into a frenzy of fear if they were not accustomed to it, but they’d quiet soon enough once Summer was gone. “The godswood,” Bran reminded Hodor.
Grey Wind was the fiercest, but Shaggydog had been wild. Wild and untamed and near feral, until the mother wolf had pounced on him, snarling. After that, Rickon’s wolf was near as tame as a hunter’s hound.
The yard rang to the sound of sword and axe, the rumble of wagons, and the barking of dogs. The armory doors were open, and Bran glimpsed Mikken at his forge, his hammer ringing as sweat dripped off his bare chest. Bran had never seen as many strangers in all his years, not even when King Robert had come to visit Father.
He tried not to flinch as Hodor ducked through a low door. They walked down a long dim hallway, Summer padding easily beside them. The wolf glanced up from time to time, eyes smoldering like liquid gold. Bran would have liked to touch him, but he was riding too high for his hand to reach.
The godswood was an island of peace in the sea of chaos that Winterfell had become. Hodor made his way through the dense stands of oak and ironwood and sentinels, to the still pool beside the heart tree. He stopped under the gnarled limbs of the weirwood, humming. Bran reached up over his head and pulled himself out of his seat, drawing the dead weight of his legs up through the holes in the wicker basket. He hung for a moment, dangling, the dark red leaves brushing against his face, until Hodor lifted him and lowered him to the smooth stone beside the water. “I want to be by myself for a while,” he said. “You go soak. Go to the pools.”
“Hodor.” Hodor stomped through the trees and vanished. Across the godswood, beneath the windows of the Guest House, an underground hot spring fed three small ponds. Steam rose from the water day and night, and the wall that loomed above was thick with moss. Hodor hated cold water, and would fight like a wildcat when threatened with soap, but he would happily immerse himself in the hottest pool and sit for hours, giving a loud burp to echo the spring whenever a bubble rose from the murky green depths to break upon the surface.
Summer lapped at the water and settled down at Bran’s side. He rubbed the wolf under the jaw, and for a moment boy and beast both felt at peace. Bran had always liked the godswood, even before, but of late he found himself drawn to it more and more. Even the heart tree no longer scared him the way it used to. The deep red eyes carved into the pale trunk still watched him, yet somehow he took comfort from that now. The gods were looking over him, he told himself; the old gods, gods of the Starks and the First Men and the children of the forest, his father’s gods. He felt safe in their sight, and the deep silence of the trees helped him think. Bran had been thinking a lot since his fall; thinking, and dreaming, and talking with the gods.
“Please make it so Robb won’t go away,” he prayed softly. He moved his hand through the cold water, sending ripples across the pool. “Please make him stay. Or if he has to go, bring him home safe, with Mother and Father and the girls. And… help Rickon.”
His baby brother had been wild as a winter storm since he learned Robb was riding off to war, weeping and angry by turns. He’d refused to eat, cried and screamed for most of a night. He had nearly punched Old Nan when she tried to sing him to sleep, only stopping at the low growl of the mother wolf. Shaggydog had howled mournfully but went to silence at the snarling of his mother.
Ever since then, Rickon had gone to bed hugging both of those wolves.
Maester Luwin counseled Robb to remain at Winterfell, and Bran pleaded with him too, for his own sake as much as Rickon’s, but his brother only shook his head stubbornly and said, “I don’t want to go. I have to.”
It was only half a lie. Someone had to go, to hold the Neck and help the Tullys against the Lannisters, Bran could understand that, but it did not have to be Robb. His brother might have given the command to Hal Mollen or Theon Greyjoy, or to one of his lords bannermen. Maester Luwin urged him to do just that, but Robb would not hear of it. “My lord father would never have sent men off to die while he huddled like a craven behind the walls of Winterfell,” he said, all Robb the Lord.
Robb seemed half a stranger to Bran now, transformed, a lord in truth, though he had not yet seen his sixteenth name day. Even their father’s bannermen seemed to sense it. Many tried to test him, each in his own way. Roose Bolton and Robett Glover both demanded the honor of battle command, the first brusquely, the second with a smile and a jest. Stout, grey-haired Maege Mormont, dressed in mail like a man, told Robb bluntly that he was young enough to be her grandson, and had no business giving her commands... but as it happened, she had a granddaughter she would be willing to have him marry.
Soft-spoken Lord Cerwyn had actually brought his daughter with him, a plump, homely maid of thirty years who sat at her father’s left hand and never lifted her eyes from her plate. Jovial Lord Hornwood had no daughters, but he did bring gifts, a horse one day, a haunch of venison the next, a silver-chased hunting horn the day after, and he asked nothing in return... nothing but a certain holdfast taken from his grandfather, and hunting rights north of a certain ridge, and leave to dam the White Knife, if it please the lord.
Robb answered each of them with cool courtesy, much as Father might have, and somehow he bent them to his will, like a smith with metal.
And when Lord Umber, who was called the Greatjon by his men and stood as tall as Hodor and twice as wide, threatened to take his forces home if he was placed behind the Hornwoods or the Cerwyns in the order of march, Robb told him he was welcome to do so. “And when we are done with the Lannisters,” he promised, scratching Grey Wind behind the ear, “we will march back north, root you out of your keep, and hang you for an oathbreaker.” There was a fierce look in his eyes.
Cursing, the Greatjon flung a flagon of ale into the fire and bellowed that Robb was so green he must piss grass. When Hallis Mollen moved to restrain him, he knocked him to the floor, kicked over a table, and unsheathed the biggest, ugliest greatsword that Bran had ever seen. All along the benches, his sons and brothers and sworn swords leapt to their feet, grabbing for their steel.
Yet Robb only said a quiet word, and in a snarl and the blink of an eye, Lord Umber was on his back, his sword spinning on the floor three feet away and his hand dripping blood where Grey Wind had bitten off two fingers. Behind the Greatjon, the low, dangerous growl of a mother wolf could be heard.
“My lord father taught me that it was death to bare steel against your liege lord,” Robb said, “but doubtless you only meant to cut my meat.” Bran’s bowels went to water as the Greatjon struggled to rise, sucking at the red stumps of fingers ... but then, astonishingly, the huge man laughed. “Your meat,” he roared, “is bloody tough.”
And somehow after that the Greatjon became Robb’s right hand, his staunchest champion, loudly telling all and sundry that the boy lord was a Stark after all, and they’d damn well better bend their knees if they didn’t fancy having them chewed off.
Yet that very night, his brother came to Bran’s bedchamber pale, after the fires had burned low in the Great Hall. “I thought he was going to kill me,” Robb confessed. “Did you see the way he threw down Hal, like he was no bigger than Rickon? A part of me wanted to jump back, another howled for steel inside. And the Greatjon’s not the worst of them, only the loudest. Lord Bolton never says a word, he only looks at me, and all I can think of is that room they have in the Dreadfort, where the Boltons hang the skins of their enemies. That one will be trouble.”
“That’s just one of Old Nan’s stories,” Bran said. A note of doubt crept into his voice. “Isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.” He gave a weary shake of his head. “Lord Cerwyn means to take his daughter south with us. To cook for him, he says. Theon is certain I’ll find the girl in my bedroll one night. I wish ... I wish Father was here ... ” Robb had lingered hesitantly, as if wanting to ask another question, before he shook his head and walked away, muttering about war horns.
That was the one thing they could agree on, Bran and Rickon and Robb the Lord; they all wished Father was here. But Lord Eddard was a thousand leagues away, a captive in some dungeon, a hunted fugitive running for his life, or…
No one seemed to know for certain; every traveler told a different tale, each more terrifying than the last. The heads of Father’s guardsmen were rotting on the walls of the Red Keep, impaled on spikes. King Robert was dead at Father’s hands. Andrei had used foul sorcery to slaughter half the court. The Baratheons had laid siege to King’s Landing. Lord Eddard had fled south with the king’s wicked brother Renly. Mother had killed Tyrion the Imp and hung his body from the walls of Riverrun. Lord Tywin Lannister was marching on the Eyrie, burning and slaughtering as he went. One wine-sodden taleteller even claimed that Rhaegar Targaryen had returned from the dead with a sword of fire and was marshaling a vast host of ancient heroes on Dragonstone to reclaim his father’s throne.
When the raven came, bearing a letter marked with Father’s own seal and written in Sansa’s hand, the cruel truth seemed no less incredible. Bran would never forget the look on Robb’s face as he stared at their sister’s words. “She says Father conspired at treason with the king’s brothers and that Andrei has used foul northern magicks to slay dozens of men,” he read. “King Robert is dead, and Mother and I are summoned to the Red Keep to swear fealty to Joffrey. She says we must be loyal, and when she marries Joffrey she will plead with him to spare our lord father’s life.” His fingers closed into a tight fist, crushing Sansa’s letter between them. His eyes were ablaze with a wintry fire. “And she says nothing of Arya, nothing, not so much as a word. Damn her! What’s wrong with the girl?”
Bran felt all cold inside. “She lost her wolf,” he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father’s guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady’s bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate, and their mother had been as silent as a vengeful ghost. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows and the mother watched quietly with shimmering golden eyes. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned.
Their grandfather, old Lord Rickard, had gone as well, with his son Brandon who was Father’s brother, and two hundred of his best men. None had ever returned. And Father had gone south, with Arya and Sansa, and Jory and Hullen and Fat Tom and the rest, and later Mother and Ser Rodrik had gone, and they hadn’t come back either. And now Robb meant to go. Not to King’s Landing and not to swear fealty, but to Riverrun, with a sword in his hand. And if their lord father were a wanted man, that could mean his death. It frightened Bran more than he could say.
“If Robb has to go, watch over him,” Bran entreated the old gods, as they watched him with the heart tree’s red eyes, “and watch over his men, Hal and the rest, and Lord Umber and Lady Mormont and the other lords. And Theon too, I suppose. Watch them and keep them safe, if it please you, gods. Help them defeat the Lannisters and save Father and bring them home.”
A faint wind sighed through the godswood and the red leaves stirred and whispered. Summer bared his teeth. “You hear them, boy?” a voice asked.
Bran lifted his head. Osha stood across the pool, beneath an ancient oak, her face shadowed by leaves. Even in irons, the wildling moved quiet as a cat. Summer circled the pool, sniffed at her. The tall woman flinched.
“Summer, to me,” Bran called. The direwolf took one final sniff, spun, and bounded back. Bran wrapped his arms around him. “What are you doing here?” He had not seen Osha since they’d taken her captive in the wolfswood, though he knew she’d been set to working in the kitchens.
“They are my gods too,” Osha said. “Beyond the Wall, they are the only gods.” Her hair was growing out, brown and shaggy. It made her look more womanly, that and the simple dress of brown roughspun they’d given her when they took her mail and leather. “Gage lets me have my prayers from time to time, when I feel the need, and I let him do as he likes under my skirt, when he feels the need. It’s nothing to me. I like the smell of flour on his hands, and he’s gentler than Stiv.” She gave an awkward bow. “I’ll leave you. There’s pots that want scouring.”
“No, stay,” Bran commanded her. “Tell me what you meant, about hearing the gods.”
Osha studied him. “You asked them and they’re answering. Open your ears, listen, you’ll hear.”
Bran listened. “It’s only the wind,” he said after a moment, uncertain. “The leaves are rustling.” They rustle in my dreams too.
“Who do you think sends the wind, if not the gods?” She seated herself across the pool from him, clinking faintly as she moved. Mikken had fixed iron manacles to her ankles, with a heavy chain between them; she could walk, so long as she kept her strides small, but there was no way for her to run, or climb, or mount a horse. “They see you, boy. They hear you talking. That rustling, that’s them talking back.”
“What are they saying?”
“They’re sad. Your lord brother will get no help from them, not where he’s going. The old gods have no power in the south. The weirwoods there were all cut down, thousands of years ago. How can they watch your brother when they have no eyes?
Bran had not thought of that. It frightened him, and the visage of eyeless trees haunted him. If even the gods could not help his brother, what hope was there? Maybe Osha wasn’t hearing them right. He cocked his head and tried to listen again. He thought he could hear the sadness now, but nothing more than that.
The rustling grew louder. Bran heard muffled footfalls and a low humming, and Hodor came blundering out of the trees, naked and smiling. “Hodor!”
“He must have heard our voices,” Bran said. “Hodor, you forgot your clothes.”
“Hodor,” Hodor agreed. He was dripping wet from the neck down, steaming in the chill air. His body was covered with brown hair, thick as a pelt. Between his legs, his manhood swung long and heavy.
Osha eyed him with a sour smile. “Now there’s a big man,” she said. “He has giant’s blood in him, or I’m the queen.”
“Maester Luwin says there are no more giants. He says they’re all dead, like the children of the forest. All that’s left of them are old bones in the earth that men turn up with plows from time to time.” Bran thought of the giants he saw coming to Winterfell, and he remembered the banner of the Umbers, the unchained giant.
“Let Maester Luwin ride beyond the Wall,” Osha said. “He’ll find giants then, or they’ll find him. My brother killed one. Ten foot tall she was, and stunted at that. They’ve been known to grow big as twelve and thirteen feet. Fierce things they are too, all hair and teeth, and the wives have beards like their husbands, so there’s no telling them apart. The women take human men for lovers, and it’s from them the half bloods come. It goes harder on the women they catch. The men are so big they’ll rip a maid apart before they get her with child.” She grinned at him. “But you don’t know what I mean, do you, boy?”
“Yes I do,” Bran insisted. He understood about mating; he had seen dogs in the yard, and watched a stallion mount a mare. But talking about it made him uncomfortable.
Gold, gold, gold. A golden smile. “... love.”
He looked at Hodor. “Go back and bring your clothes, Hodor,” he said. “Go dress.”
“Hodor.” He walked back the way he had come, ducking under a low-hanging tree limb.
He was awfully big, Bran thought as he watched him go. “Are there truly giants beyond the Wall?” he asked Osha, uncertainly.
“Giants and worse than giants, Lordling.” Osha’s eyes were far away. “When we were coming south, we saw the shadow of one. Bloody thing had a slab of hooked iron in its hand and a sword as big as him,” Osha nodded at Hodor as he left. “Fattest giant we ever saw, sure, but we watched it wrestle a snowbear into the ground and we turned to run. That one was dangerous.” She shivered.
“I tried to tell your brother when he asked his questions, him and your maester and that smiley boy Greyjoy. The cold winds are rising, and men go out from their fires and never come back... or if they do, they’re not men no more, but only wights, with blue eyes and cold black hands. Why do you think I run south with Stiv and Hali and the rest of them fools? Mance thinks he’ll fight, the brave sweet stubborn man, like the white walkers were no more than rangers, but what does he know? He can call himself King-beyond-the-Wall all he likes, but he’s still just another old black crow who flew down from the Shadow Tower. He’s never tasted winter. I was born up there, child, like my mother and her mother before her and her mother before her, born of the Free Folk. We remember.” Osha stood, her chains rattling together.
“I tried to tell your lordling brother. Only yesterday, when I saw him in the yard. ‘M’lord Stark,’ I called to him, respectful as you please, but he looked through me, and that sweaty oaf Greatjon Umber shoves me out of the path. So be it. I’ll wear my irons and hold my tongue. A man who won’t listen can’t hear.”
“Tell me. Robb will listen to me, I know he will.”
“Will he now? We’ll see. You tell him this, m’lord. You tell him he’s bound on marching the wrong way. It’s north he should be taking his swords. North, not south. You hear me?”
Bran nodded. “I’ll tell him.”
But that night, when they feasted in the Great Hall, Robb was not with them. He took his meal in the solar instead, with Lord Rickard and the Greatjon and the other lords bannermen, to make the final plans for the long march to come. It was left to Bran to fill his place at the head of the table, and act the host to Lord Karstark’s sons and honored friends. They were already at their places when Hodor carried Bran into the hall on his back, and knelt beside the high seat. Two of the serving men helped lift him from his basket. Bran could feel the eyes of every stranger in the hall. It had grown quiet. “My lords,” Hallis Mollen announced, “Brandon Stark, of Winterfell.”
“I welcome you to our fires,” Bran said stiffly, “and offer you meat and mead in honor of our friendship.”
Harrion Karstark, the oldest of Lord Rickard’s sons, bowed, and his brothers after him, yet as they settled back in their places he heard the younger two talking in low voices, over the clatter of wine cups. “ ... sooner die than live like that,” muttered one, his father’s namesake Eddard, and his brother Torrhen said likely the boy was broken inside as well as out, too craven to take his own life.
Broken, Bran thought bitterly as he clutched his knife. Is that what he was now? Bran the Broken? “I don’t want to be broken,” he whispered fiercely to Maester Luwin, who’d been seated to his right. “I want to be a knight.”
“There are some who call my order the knights of the mind,” Luwin replied. “You are a surpassing clever boy when you work at it, Bran. Have you ever thought that you might wear a maester’s chain? There is no limit to what you might learn.”
“I want to learn magic,” Bran told him. “The crow promised that I would fly.” He thought of the hummingbird, with the singing voice and emerald eyes. Who was he?
Maester Luwin sighed. “I can teach you history, healing, herblore. I can teach you the speech of ravens, and how to build a castle, and the way a sailor steers his ship by the stars. I can teach you to measure the days and mark the seasons, and at the Citadel in Oldtown they can teach you a thousand things more. But, Bran, no man can teach you magic.”
“The children could,” Bran said. “The children of the forest.” That reminded him of the promise he had made to Osha in the godswood, so he told Luwin what she had said.
The maester listened politely. “The wildling woman could give Old Nan lessons in telling tales, I think,” he said when Bran was done. “I will talk with her again if you like, but it would be best if you did not trouble your brother with this folly. He has more than enough to concern him without fretting over giants and dead men in the woods. It’s the Lannisters who are the danger now, Bran, not the children of the forest.” He put a gentle hand on Bran’s arm. “Think on what I said, child.”
And two days later, as a red dawn broke across a windswept sky, Bran found himself in the yard beneath the gatehouse, strapped atop Dancer as he said his farewells to his brother. Rickon was beside him, his hand on the mother wolf.
“You are the lord in Winterfell now,” Robb told him. He was mounted on a shaggy grey stallion, his shield hung from the horse’s side; wood banded with iron, white and grey, and on it the snarling face of a direwolf. His brother wore grey chainmail over bleached leathers, sword and dagger at his waist, a fur-trimmed cloak across his shoulders. “You must take my place, as I took Father’s, until we come home.”
“I know,” Bran replied miserably. He had never felt so little or alone or scared. He did not know how to be a lord.
“Listen to Maester Luwin’s counsel,” Robb said hesitantly. His brother placed a hand on Bran’s hair. Robb looked at Rickon.
“Mother will be home soon. And I’ll bring back Father, I promise.”
Rickon nodded mutely, but at the nudging of the wolf, he leapt up to embrace Robb in a wild hug. Robb blinked, laughed, and held him tight. Robb stood there, whispering soft promises in Rickon’s ear.
He wheeled his courser around and trotted away. Grey Wind followed, loping beside the warhorse, lean and swift. The mother direwolf gave Rickon a sloppy, wet lick on his face, and the boy giggled. Rickon waved his hand childishly as the mother wolf turned to follow Robb, who only gave the massive beast a curious glance.
Hallis Mollen went before them through the gate, carrying the rippling white banner of House Stark atop a high standard of grey ash. Theon Greyjoy and the Greatjon fell in on either side of Robb, and their knights formed up in a double column behind them, steel-tipped lances glinting in the sun.
Uncomfortably, he remembered Osha’s words. He’s marching the wrong way, he thought. For an instant he wanted to gallop after him and shout a warning, but when Robb vanished beneath the portcullis, the moment was gone.
Beyond the castle walls, a roar of sound went up. The foot soldiers and townsfolk were cheering Robb as he rode past, Bran knew; cheering for Lord Stark, for the Lord of Winterfell on his great stallion, with his cloak streaming and Grey Wind racing beside him. They would never cheer for him that way, he realized with a dull ache. He might be the lord in Winterfell while his brother and father were gone, but he was still Bran the Broken. He could not even get off his own horse, except to fall.
When the distant cheers had faded to silence and the yard was empty at last, Winterfell seemed deserted and dead. Bran looked around at the faces of those who remained, women and children and old men ... and Hodor. The huge stableboy had a lost and frightened look to his face. “Hodor?” he said sadly.
“Hodor,” Bran agreed, wondering what it meant.
That night, Bran dreamt once more, of black roses in a garden of death.
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 53
Bran 'Dreams and Visions' Stark.
We will cut back to Ned and Andrei, and the others soon. One brief bonus/interlude chapter will come soon.
I am definitely curious to know. Of the main party members, which is your favourite?
Chapter 32: The Westerman
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
They were on a dirt path by the Green Fork.
Soil and leaves crunched and crumpled under the hooves of their steeds. They were four, four of three hundred mounted men that had been sent forth to ravage the Riverlands, like a sword of fire to sweep across a fallowed field that belonged to the foe.
Tobbot rode at the front. He was a foul man, tainted with blood from his service with the Mountain. And we know it. Not a day had gone past without the man throwing Gregor Clegane’s name about. Fetch me water, give me your wine, the man often demanded.
Terrence was riding to Tobbot’s right. A stout men-at-arms from a village near Crakehall, he had answered the call to war with quiet ease. He bore a wicked scar across his frowning face, from his time during the kraken’s rebellion, and even Tobbot knew better than to provoke him much. Then, behind them, rode loud Horys, whom none liked. The man was obnoxious and talkative, often boasting of his time in Lannisport’s brothels and how the whores had given his silver back to him with praise and pleasure.
Antario rolled his eyes. The man was ugly and squat, with rotting teeth and greasy hair like oiled wheat. Most likely, the whores had charged double, he thought.
“Farm ahead,” Terrence muttered, loud enough for all to hear.
He squinted, shielding his eyes from the near blinding rays of the sunset. Ahead, he saw a simple thatch and timber farmhouse. A pitiful field of wheat and cabbages and onions sat by it, enclosed by wood and fed by small streams from the river. A farmer tended to the crops, harvesting them into a wicker basket. A young girl, perhaps six or seven, stood by him giggling and holding a smaller basket already filled with vegetables.
Her laughter died as they tramped the field before the steel hooves of their horses. Antario dully observed a carrot crushed beneath a steel hoof, the orange coating around the horse’s leg. I’ll need to clean that later, he made a note in his mind.
“Those cabbages look mighty ripe,” Tobbot called out, licking his lips as he eyed the girl. He saw Horys shift slightly in his saddle while Terrence only kept his stern gaze on the farmer. Antario gritted his teeth silently. He forced himself to think of Hilten with the smile of its villagers, and his wife and his daughter’s laughter. It’s me or them.
“I could give you some, good sirs,” the farmer said cautiously, shifting his pale-faced daughter behind him. “For free.”
“Some?” Tobbot challenged. “I’m mighty hungry, you know. Hard riding of late. Keeping the peace and all.” He grinned maliciously, wicked light in his eyes.
The farmer clenched his jaw. “I have some silver,” he said reluctantly.
“How much?” Terrence said, quiet and dead-eyed.
“Seven, good sirs. We spent much on new tools for th-”
“Seven?” Tobbot spat. “Do you take us for pilgrims?” He drew his sword and pointed it at the wide-eyed farmer. “Maybe’s I take your daughter instead, and the silvers.”
The girl seemed frozen in fear, while the farmer puffed his chest out. Antario shook his head.
“She’s just a child,” protested Horys. Antario blinked, looking at the ugly man in a new light. Tobbot glanced at him too, with cruelty in his black eyes. “You doubting Ser’s orders, then? You want to fight for these smallfolk?” Tobbot asked aggressively.
Horys glanced away, keeping his eyes on the field. Antario did not blame him.
“Walk over here, girl,” Tobbot demanded with a slanted smile. Both the farmer and his daughter seemed rooted, as rooted as their carrots that had been trampled by them.
“You deaf or daft? Walk.” Tobbot demanded, cold danger in his voice. Terrence’s face was unmoving while Horys kept his hand clutched on the hilt of his blade. Antario could only watch as the farmer forced himself to glare at Tobbot. It’s just war, he told himself.
“You’re disrupting good King Robert’s peace, sirs,” the farmer pleaded desperately. “Lord Tully’s men will hunt down brigands. They, they…”
Tobbot laughed, a harsh and cruel bark. “Robert? Old Hoster?” The vile man continued to laugh as he sheathed his blade, dismounting from his brown stallion. His rusted greaves creaked as he strolled towards the farmer. A mailed fist buried itself into the man’s gut, who coughed painfully and reeled over, and his daughter screamed.
“Brigands?” Tobbot asked, amused. He smashed his armoured hand against the farmer’s face, and the man crumpled down onto his own field. His head was next to a ripe, red onion crushed by Tobbot’s boot. Antario wondered if the man’s head would be next. The farmer’s daughter cried in terror, clutching at her father’s bleeding face with trembling hands.
“We’s Lannister men!” Tobbot declared generously, smashing his steel-clad leg against the man’s stomach. He heard the sound of bone breaking. Antario turned away, looking at the falling sun. The golden glow of the sun washed over them, but he did not feel warm.
It’ll be over soon, Antario told himself, closing his eyes. He forced himself to think of Hilten, of his warm bed, and his wife’s gentle smile and his daughter’s toys. A fast war, he told himself, or no war at all even. Lord Tywin would lead the West to victory, and all he had to do was obey and swing his steel when he needed to, and he could go home.
There was a soft gurgle to his right, like the sound of a man choking on beer.
He opened his eyes. There was an arrow jutting forth from Horys’ mouth. The steel tip of the arrow was covered in blood, the metal coated in dark red. Horys blinked, shocked and terrified and in agony, and crimson dripped onto the brown coat of his stallion and the dark mud below. Then, he collapsed on his horse, and the beast thundered away in panic.
He cursed, wheeling his horse around and drawing his steel. His blade rang a dull cry as it left the scabbard. He glanced about madly.
Then, he felt an impact. An arrow was in his horse’s eye and suddenly, he was falling. The world was a blur of brown horseflesh, and his blood-red cloak and the bright flash of steel. The legs of his mount snapped violently, and he screamed in pain as his back smashed against the hard ground. A wave of pain shuddered through his spine.
His mare, a dead beast now, had collapsed on his lower body, crushing his legs. His sword had flown from his hand, and landed a few feet from him so close, yet so far. He heard the cursing of Tobbot and the charging of Terrence’s steed.
“Help me,” he called out to Tobbot who ignored him, drawing his blade and rushing past him.
He heard the cry of pain come from a horse, and the now familiar sound of a mare crashing onto the ground violently.
“Damn you,” Tobbot roared savagely. There was the ringing of clashing steel now. Tobbot’s cursing was drowned out with the harsh, scraping song of metal on metal. He tried to raise his head over the carcass of his mount but was obscured by the beast and, nearly blinded from pain and blood, he could only faintly make out two figures clashing.
Just two, he thought. Terrence was dead then, Antario realised. He was the best sword of the four of them, despite all the bluster that Tobbot made. He allowed himself to crash down on the floor. He could see the farmer slowly rising to his feet, his daughter by his side.
Antario closed his eyes and kept his breathing slow and quiet. He heard a savage, rending sound, of chainmail and flesh being shredded. He heard a grunt of pain. Tobbot’s voice, he suddenly realised, the man was begging now. It was a strange thing to hear.
Then, there was a horrible, sawing sound. It was a spine-crawling noise, of flesh being torn away, of tendons slowly hacked at with something sharp, of bone breaking in half. He heard a tormented gasp and rasp, and a terrible ripping sound. There was a soft thud on the ground, like something of flesh had been dropped casually. Someone walked closer.
He kept his eyes shut and stopped breathing.
“Are you okay?” He heard a hard, cold voice ask. There was something strange in that accent but he could not find it in him to ponder on accents.
“Aye,” the farmer wheezed in pain, “I’ll be alright.”
“Look away.” The cold voice said. It was close now, right beside him. The sole of a heavy boot fell upon his face, and he cried out in pain. “No,” he begged, “I have a family.”
The pressure was great and terrible, and he felt like the world was ending. He tried to scream but all he could hear was the blood in his ears. The boot pressed down harder, and the last thing Antario heard was a violent, painful crack and he knew no more.
Notes:
war... war(hammer fantasy) never changes...
quick interlude as promised, next chapter will be back to ned to see what they have been up to :D
On a side note, I have managed to figure out (after some discussion) the overall plot of the story. This will be a looong fic. I am aiming for three 'books'. This is the first, and we are currently in Arc 1, of four arcs. After this chapter, we have 10-11 chapters before Arc 1 ends. Definitely excited.
Chapter 33: Eddard V
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of blazing blue ice, and the direwolves at their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled silently. Last of all, he came to the tomb where his father slept eternally, with Brandon and Lyanna beside him in stone peace.
“Promise me, Ned,” Lyanna’s statue whispered softly and sadly. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept with blood.
The memory came creeping upon him in the darkness, as vivid as a dream. It was the year of the false spring, and he was eighteen again, down from the Eyrie to the tourney at Harrenhal. He could see the deep green of the grass, and smell the pollen on the wind. He remembered Brandon’s laughter, and Robert’s berserk valor in the melee, the way he laughed as he unhorsed men left and right.
He remembered Jaime Lannister, a golden youth in scaled white armor, kneeling on the grass in front of the king’s pavilion and making his vows to protect and defend King Aerys. Afterward, Ser Oswell Whent helped Jaime to his feet, and the White Bull himself fastened the snowy cloak of the Kingsguard about his shoulders. All six White Swords were there to welcome their newest brother.
Yet when the jousting began, the day belonged to Rhaegar Targaryen. The crown prince wore the armor he would die in: gleaming black plate with the three-headed dragon of his House wrought in blood rubies on the breast. A plume of scarlet silk streamed behind him when he rode, and it seemed no lance could touch him. Brandon fell to him, and Bronze Yohn Royce, and even the splendid Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning.
Robert had been jesting with Jon as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the final tilt to claim the champion’s crown. Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty’s laurel in Lyanna’s lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.
Ned Stark reached out his hand to grasp the flowery crown, but beneath the pale blue petals the thorns lay hidden. He felt them clawing at his skin, sharp and cruel, saw the slow trickle of blood run down his fingers, and woke, trembling, in the dark.
Promise me, Ned. The sound of her frail, dying voice shivered down the stone hall, echoing around him. It grew soft, and loud, and soft again. Lyanna was far and close, and never to be seen. Promise me, promise…
Blood pooled around her feet, and suddenly, she was flesh and blood. Scarlet blood seeped into the pale blue roses of winter, and golden light emerged. It was blinding.
Ned raised his hands to shield his eyes from the sun before him but when he dropped them, Cersei Lannister’s face seemed to float before him in the darkness.
Her hair was full of sunlight, but there was mockery in her smile. “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die,” she whispered to him.
She was not the only face in his dreams; Cat tended to him, smiling as warm as the summer and placing a cool, damp cloth upon his feverish forehead. A skinless shadow pooled behind her, and he watched in silent horror, as her throat was opened, blood flowed easily out and her heart turned to stone.
He saw Robb’s face, hardened by war, and Ned could only watch in silent horror as son’s head fell. He saw a porcelain mask of Sansa’s face, and it fell to the pristine floor before the Iron Throne, shattering into a million pieces like his own heart. Bran sat upon a throne of old, white wood, snow vines growing into his small body. His eyes were red and watched him mutely. And Arya, oh Arya.
She stood before a pious statue, and her face warped and flickered and melted. She was Cat and Lyanna, Sansa and Robb, Bran and Rickon. She was Jon and she was Father. She was no one, then. A blank, empty face facing him silently.
He saw Jon in the snow, his eyes glassy in death and blood weeping from a dozen wounds. There was no light. There was no light left in the world, Ned thought, the sun must have vanished. Why is it so dark?
Robert stood before him as he had been in the flower of his youth, tall and handsome, his great antlered helm on his head, his warhammer in hand, sitting upon his horse like a horned god. He heard his laughter in the dark, saw his eyes, blue and clear as mountain lakes. “Look at us, Ned,” Robert said. “Gods, how did we come to this? You here, and me killed by a pig. We won a throne together ... ”
I failed you, Robert, Ned thought. He could not say the words. I lied to you, hid the truth. I let them kill you.
The king heard him. “You stiff-necked fool,” he muttered, “too proud to listen. Can you eat pride, Stark? Will honor shield your children?” Cracks ran down his face, fissures opening in the flesh, and he reached up and ripped the mask away. It was not Robert at all; it was Littlefinger, grinning, mocking him. When he opened his mouth to speak, his lies turned to pale grey moths and took wing.
Then, the moths burned.
Littlefinger screamed silently, his mouth wide and bleeding. His eyes were red with blood and Baelish died laughing and crying and choking.
Far away and faintly, he heard a slow song in a language he did not know.
Where am I?
Winterfell, Ned thought, this is Winterfell.
Ned found himself once more in the godswood, surrounded by the sentinel trees—stubborn, armored in grey-green needles, towering oaks, and ironwoods that had stood for centuries, as ancient as the realm itself.
At the center of the grove, an ancient weirwood brooded over a small, black pool, its waters cold and still. The weirwood’s bark was as white as bone, its leaves a dark, bloodred hue, like a thousand bloodstained hands reaching out. Its long, melancholic face watched him, its eyes weeping red sap, endless and sorrowful.
Ice was before him, on an ancient stone tablet strewn with moss. Ice, Ned despaired. The Lannisters had it now. Yet, it was here, in Winterfell.
He reached out to touch the rippling, smoky steel. It was cool and cold, and dark like the pond at his feet. It felt right. It felt like the North.
“Old Gods,” Ned whispered, his voice thick with desperation and worry, “Keep my children safe. Protect my wife.”
A deep growling answered him. There was a wolf in the woods. No, Ned realised, a direwolf. It stood as tall as a horse, and its fur rippled with dark, smoky grey and soft, snow white. It was the mother direwolf, he remembered. He had not taken the wolf south with him, unlike his daughters with theirs. The Hand cannot be seen with a wolf, he had told Cat and he found himself rueing his words.
He wondered how the beast would have reacted at the slaying of Lady, and he found ice cold fury in his heart blooming. The direwolf was the sigil of his house, and Sansa’s wolf had been a gentle creature, trusting and friendly. And its kind heart, like his daughter’s, had earned it naught but a cold grave at the height of its youth.
Gods, what have I done? He lamented. Had that been what had cursed him? Had he slain what should have lived? He cursed Cersei Lannister. He cursed himself.
Sansa, Ned nearly broke down weeping. Gentle, loving Sansa, with her tales of chivalry and silk, and her eyes that were as bright as stars. What would the Lannisters do to her? I left her behind…
Arya, Ned thought, my wild child. I never should have taken the two of you south. It was all mine own folly, and now my daughters suffer for it.
Not for the first time, he cursed Robert, who had dragged him south into this mess.
He damned them all: Littlefinger, Janos Slynt and his gold cloaks, the queen, the Kingslayer, Pycelle and Varys and Ser Barristan, even Lord Renly, Robert’s own blood, who had run when he was needed most. Yet in the end he blamed himself.
“Fool,” he whispered bitterly to the darkness, “thrice-damned blind fool.”
The singing was louder now. He knew that language, he thought, and the voice.
He barely heard it, drowned beneath the soft growl of the wolf. The mother wolf stood before him, her form towering like a shadow, massive and powerful. Gods, Ned thought, it is large. It—no, she —stood as tall as him, her golden eyes bright as the morning sun, wiser than any man he knew.
And in those eyes, he saw Winterfell.
He saw Rickon’s stubborn anger, Bran’s quiet fear. He saw the wolf lunge between Rickon and Old Nan, stopping the child’s hand mid-strike, then nuzzling his face, earning a delighted laugh. He saw the wolf growling quietly behind a brash Greatjon, as if to remind him of his place, and he saw the same wolf, proud and fierce, beside Robb as he proved his steel before the Northmen.
My sons, Ned thought, a swell of pride rising in him. Then, it soured like milk. A wolf has guarded them better than I have.
The wolf stood before him now, but she was also in the past, a presence in both places, and the contradiction made his head throb with pain and confusion. His eyes blurred and hazed over, and for a moment, he wished he could name her, as his children had done with their wolves.
He looked into the sungold eyes of the mother wolf, and knew.
“Winter,” he said wryly, the name slipping from his lips without thought. He could almost hear Catelyn’s laughter at his lack of imagination.
“Your name is Winter,” The wolf snorted, as if to protest, but then she leaned forward, licking his hand with warm affection.
Ned’s hand was wet. He blinked, realizing his face was wet, too.
Then, he heard it—the soft patter of rain on wood, the sound of the sea beyond.
“Rastsvetali yabloni i grushi,” a rumbling voice sang slowly. It was a slow song, Ned thought, slow but not mournful. Slow, with a weight to it.
“Poplyli tumany nad rekoy,” the song continued.
His eyes snapped open. For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw Winter’s golden eyes again, but it was the sun, hidden behind a thin veil of rain.
“Vykhodila na bereg Katyusha,” Andrei hummed to himself, his eyes far away. “Na vysokiy bereg na krutoy.”
Ned opened his mouth to catch the rainwater, letting the cool drops soothe his dry, parched throat. The gods had tipped a bucket of water for them, it seemed.
Across from him, Andrei sat, the sturdy wooden oars across his lap. He held both waterskins up to the sky, collecting rainwater with practiced ease.
“I did not know you could sing,” Ned rasped hoarsely.
“I cannot,” Andrei replied.
Four days it had been since they had set sail on this small, dingy row boat and out onto the Blackwater Bay. Four days since…
Even with their careful rationing of the biscuits and salted beef and hard bread, they were almost entirely out of food. Four thin strips of salty, dry beef jerky and two slabs of biscuits as hard as the stone of Winterfell were all that was left for the two of them. His stomach ached with hunger, as his leg continued to throb.Their water had run out as well, but the gods must have seen fit to smile on them with rain.
A fool’s quest, Ned lamented, and he was leading yet another good man to his death. He thought of the Tower that loomed over him even now; William Dustin, Mark Ryswell, Ethan Glover, Martyn Cassel, Theo Wull. The Tower of Joy, Rhaegar Targaryen had named it. A tower of despair, Ned thought.
There were more men too, good men that had died for his folly and his honour. Tomard and Heward, Cayn and Quent, Donnis and young Wyl, Jory…
By the rain’s death, all four of their waterskins were full and their biscuits were soft and soggy. They shared a grimace and chewed slowly on the tasteless meal, sucking on the salt of the jerky for flavour. He much preferred a good roasted fowl with bread and stew and ale, but needs must.
“What is it about?”
Andrei only looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
“The song,” Ned said.
“Katyusha,” Andrei said slowly. “Katyusha… stand at river. Sing to lover. Man fight for Motherland.” There was something forlorn yet amused in Andrei’s eyes.
A song and a tale as old as the land, Ned thought.
“How… leg?” Andrei asked, chewing.
Ned nodded gratefully. “A dull ache, but it is healing.” He glanced at his broken leg. The kvas had done something to it. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering just what the drink was. There was a constant throbbing still, but it was bearable unlike the agony before.
“Good,” Andrei grunted, “We… half there. Think.”
No one knew how long it would take to row, on a small fisherman’s boat, from King’s Landing to Dragonstone, because it was impossible and insanity. By now, if they had followed Varys’ words, they would be walking on solid soil, the boat left behind on the coast of the Crownlands. That path led north, past the troublesome Crownlords and into the turmoil of the Riverlands. And to Robb.
That was not his path to walk however.
Dragonstone, he needed to go. Dragonstone, and Stannis Baratheon.
King Stannis now, Ned reminded himself. The title did not come easy to him, and neither would it for the realm, he knew. Robert was loved by all but his Queen, and that icy hatred had killed him. Stannis was a hard man, as cold and unyielding as iron, with no patience for the courts and the deceit of King’s Landing.
A hard man, Ned thought, but a good man and true.
“I can take over if you tire,” he offered, looking at the oars. There was a pain in his stomach, a deep hunger. He tried to ignore it.
Andrei laughed, like a clap of thunder. He was reminded of the terrible sound in the throne room. It was like the bark of a wolf and the crack of divine thunder. Littlefinger’s head had shattered and exploded into blood and gore, and Andrei had not even moved. If he had not known the man well, he would have thought him a mage or a warlock, from Old Nan’s tales.
“What… did you do? Back in the throne room.” Ned asked uncomfortably.
Andrei raised his eyebrow. He reached behind his back, drawing the queer weapon and Ned almost flinched.
“Ruchnoy Drakon,” Andrei rumbled, comfortable in his own tongue. “Hand dragon, Dmitri call. It is…” The large man paused, searching for the words. His Common was as rough as the Blackwater. “Weapon? Like crossbow. I press here.” He pointed at a curved steel mechanism, like that for a crossbow. “Powder… boom. Ball fly fast. Hit flesh, bone. Kill.”
Ned stared at the weapon in wonder. It looked a simple thing, a smooth wooden cylinder and steel, yet it could kill a man with ease. Any man can use it, Ned realised, and a farmer can kill a king.
The thought lingered uncomfortably. “How… common were these back home?”
Andrei looked at him blankly. “Kislev… new. But Kossar many.”
A shiver ran down Ned’s spine. He thought of the armies of Westeros—of knights in gleaming armor, men-at-arms in mail, the levies of smallfolk armed with little more than pitchforks and axes. A hundred of these hand dragons would tear through an army with ease. Kislev, he thought grimly, should never be warred with.
“Do you make them yourselves?” He could not help but to ask.
Andrei’s smile was bitter, tinged with some unspoken weight. “Some. Many we buy… from Empire, from Nuln. South, in Empire.” An amused smile spread across his face. “Gunther… home. Maybe he know how drakon work, he…”
Andrei’s smile died. “He in King’s Landing.”
Ah, Ned remembered, that lithe youth in dark armour. The same one that had fought from afar when the Kingslayer attacked them on that dreary, rainy night.
Andrei parsed his lips together in a smile. “He be okay,” said Andrei quietly.
They sat in silence then. Despite Ned’s offer, Andrei had rowed on without stop. They were in the middle of Blackwater Bay, he knew. The shore had fallen away, as did that keep of blood, and Aegon’s city. Their world had shrunk to dark water and cold fog at times. At night, the night sky was reflected on the pitch black waters and he could see stars above and below.
It was beautiful, Ned thought, in a terrible manner. It made a man feel insignificant, like he was paraded before a million eyes of a million gods.
He tried not to think about it.
There were no ships out at sea to pursue them. It was a good thing, he knew. Even a trading galley could run them down, like wolves pursuing a hare. Yet, the lion’s banner did not fly over the black water. They must think we are still in the city, Ned realised, hiding in the alleyways.
The thought made him chuckle, shaking his head lightly.
Andrei looked at him curiously.
“The Lannister must think we are still hiding in the city,” he explained.
A slow smile bloomed on the Kossar’s face. Andrei drank deeply from a waterskin, and passed it to him. Ned nodded gratefully. The water was cool and fresh, and tasted like honey. If, when, he returned to Winterfell, he would return with a new appreciation for honey, Ned decided. Honey and warm bread, roast fowl and northern ale, Cat’s smile and his children’s squabbling.
Now, all he had were rain-soaked biscuits and rainwater to survive. His daughters, trapped in the lion’s cage, weighed heavily on his mind. Arya and Sansa both, in Cersei Lannister’s grip. The thought sent his mind rolling like a storm had hit him. Let them be safe as hostages should be, he thought.
Cat, he thought, she must be worrying sick.
Cersei, the gods damn her soul, would have demanded Robb to present himself before the boy on the Iron Throne. Ned clenched his jaw tightly, looking to the east.
Dragonstone, Ned decided. He would make it to Dragonstone, and bend his injured knee to Stannis. Renly, he would raise an army at Storm’s End. Alyn and Harwin and Lord Beric would deal with the Mountain, and Edmure, his wife’s brother, would rally the Riverlands. Catelyn would raise the north when the word reached her, and the lords of river and mountain and Vale would join her. The Tyrells had no love for the Lannisters, nor Dorne—especially Dorne.
Tywin Lannister was formidable and a most dangerous man, but even Casterly Rock could not stand against all the other kingdoms. Not even all the gold of the west could stand against the realm. The Lannisters would fall, Ned told himself. Stannis would be king, and peace would be brought to the realm. And then, he would return to Winterfell with Cat and his children. There was much to be done, he thought.
Robb’s lessons for the North needed to continue. Marriages too, for him and Sansa, Ned thought uncomfortably. He was not so old as well. Perhaps another child?
“When I return to Winterfell,” he told Andrei as much as he told himself, “You will have anything I can offer. A lordship, a keep, the ten thousand gold that must be in Cersei’s hands, a place in my household until my dying breath.”
Andrei smiled, but it was a tired, weary smile. His eyes, though, were forlorn. The man was only two years older than Ned, but his eyes held the weight of a thousand lifetimes. Ned found himself wondering just what Andrei had seen in his years, and how much blood his axe had tasted. “Thank you,” Andrei said slowly.
“Your Common is improving,” Ned tried to smile.
Andrei’s laughter was soft, but it quickly faded. His gaze shifted, and with a single, practiced motion, one mailed hand dipped into the black water. He gripped a red pike, struggling fiercely in his hand, and with a swift movement, the fish died under his axe. The head was discarded casually into the sea, the body flung back with a practiced ease.
“Dinner,” Andrei muttered.
Ned watched as Andrei slashed the scales of the fish with his axe. Just like he did with Jaime Lannister’s armour, Ned thought wryly. The tail was chopped off, and the axe’s blade cut the fish flatly in half. Andrei sniffed at the fish’s guts before throwing them into the sea. The man was like a bear at times, Ned thought.
Andrei reached for one of the dark pouches by his felt, withdrawing a small paper box. A stick was pulled from the box, and it had a red orb for a head. He watched curiously as Andrei struck the stick against the steel of his axe.
“By the gods,” Ned swore, watching the small flame on the stick. “How…”
Andrei looked at him with flat surprise. “Your people… have flint, yes? Like that.”
Andrei rested the hard wood of the oar across his lap, his hands deftly bringing the axe down with precision. The blade struck near the top of a stick, splitting it into something the size of a dagger. Ned watched as he held the burning stick close to the larger one, and after a moment, the fire caught.
This was a man who could survive, Ned thought, impressed. Jon had taught him and Robert in his youth, and the Rebellion had put all their lessons to the test, but he had not thought of that.
Slowly, the raw meat crackled and roasted. Robert would have eaten it salted and seasoned with a dozen herbs, and washed it down with Arbour Gold. Ned ate it hard and tasteless, cooked on a heated axeblade and washed it down with rainwater, and it tasted as brilliant as a hundred harvest feasts.
That night, his dreams were not dark and bloody.
He dreamt of an army on the march, an army of Northmen, and he saw Robb mounted on a shaggy grey stallion.
My boy, my son, Ned thought sadly and proudly. A man now, marching to war. Robert, can you see this?
There were men here that he knew, that he had fought with. He spied the Greatjon and dour Rickard Karstark, cold Roose Bolton and smiling Robett Glover. He saw Maege Mormont in the same mailshirt that she wore during Balon Greyjoy’s Rebellion, and soft-spoken Medger Cerwyn, and jovial Halys Hornwood.
He walked, padded, towards a black lake, and saw a wolf’s face in the still surface. Winter’s golden eyes glimmered at him from the dark surface.
Ned woke with a shuddering gasp. Andrei’s hand gripped his shoulder, the axe still firm in his other hand.
“Ship.” Andrei rumbled slowly, his eyes locked on something beyond. Ned turned slowly, his heart racing.
A warship. The shape of it was unmistakable. A single-decked galley with a hundred oars, its deck bristling with scorpions and ballistae. It cut through the dark waters of the bay with alarming speed.
Then, Ned saw the banner flapping in the wind—thick, beaten gold, and within it a burning heart, crowned and prancing: the black stag of Baratheon.
“Stay your blade,” he whispered hoarsely. “This is a ship of Stannis Baratheon.”
Andrei nodded. The ship prowled over them, like some looming beast. The captain of the ship, flanked by two men in Baratheon livery, looked at them. He had a square plain face, forthright brown eyes, and thin brown flyaway hair that was tussled by the sea wind. His eyes looked at them.
“In the name of the King,” he shouted clearly, his voice carrying across the waters, “State your names and purpose in these waters!”
Ned took a breath. “I am Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell,” he said, as the captain’s eyes widened. “This is Andrei, my swornsword and companion. We have fled King’s Landing, fled from the treachery of the Lannisters.” He said bitterly. Fled from my folly. Fled from my daughters.
“Gods above,” the man muttered, shouting for a thick rope to be thrown down. Andrei climbed first, fearless and stout. He seized the rope and pulled Ned up. From the rowboat, Ned kept only his cane. The fishes could have the last of the jerky, he decided. He placed a hand against the railing of the ship, steadying himself.
“My lord,” the captain said politely, “I am Dale Seaworth. This is the Wraith, on patrol per order of the Master of Ships. ”
Seaworth. The name echoed in Ned’s mind. He had heard it before. Storm’s End, it clicked suddenly in his thoughts. Storm’s End, and the siege.
“Your father,” Ned said slowly, measuring the young man before him. “I know him.”
Dale Seaworth’s face brightened with a smile. “The Onion Knight, ” he said, laughter in his voice and a fondness in his brown eyes. “Ser Davos Seaworth.”
Beside him, Andrei stood stiff and silent, his axe still in his hand tensely. The sailors gave him a wide berth, casting wary glances in his direction. “At ease, ” Ned murmured. The Kossar’s posture eased—if only slightly—though his eyes remained sharp and watchful, like an old hawk.
Dale hesitated before speaking again. “My lord, if I may… how is it that you have had to flee? Last we heard, you were King Robert’s Hand.”
Four days, Ned thought grimly. Had the ravens not yet reached Dragonstone?
Ned became aware of the silence, of the weight of curious gazes upon him. He shook his head. “I would speak with you in private, Dale Seaworth.”
The young captain bowed and gestured toward his cabin. Ned followed, Andrei trailing behind like a silent shadow. The captain’s cabin was spartan and practical. A large, oak table was nailed to the boards, with nautical maps and charts neatly upon it. Andrei took his place by the door without a word.
Dale gestured for the seat across the captain’s chair, and Ned accepted it gratefully.
Dale reached for a decanter and poured a stream of deep red wine into a cup, offering it across the table. “Here, my lord, you have a thirst in your eyes.” Dale Seaworth offered.
Ned nodded. “My thanks,” he said softly, draining half the cup in a single swig. He held the cup out, offering it to Andrei. The Kossar stepped forward quietly, accepting the cup and drinking greedily. A rivulet of red flowed down from the side of his lips, staining his coarse beard.
Ned exhaled slowly. “I must speak with your lord.” He hesitated, the weight of the past days pressing against his chest. “He must know. All that has happened in King’s Landing—he must be the first to hear it from my lips.”
Dale nodded. “The Wraith is fast, and we are not far away from Dragonstone. We have a cabin for you, my lord. Your swornsword…”
“It will do,” Ned said. “You have my gratitude.”
Dale smiled softly.
The time passed in a haze. Ned slept for most of it, sinking into the bed they’d been provided. Andrei, too, slept heavily, his snores filling the small room like the rumble of a distant storm. They woke at the sound of the dinner bell, eating with the crew. The soup was thick with leeks and beef, too salty to be called pleasant, but it was warm and abundant. Ned ate three bowls. Like the day, the night came and went in a blur, the two of them stirring only in the late morning light.
They stood at the prow of The Wraith, looking eastward. The jagged outline of Dragonstone already loomed on the horizon, its rocky spires jutting out like black swords against the sky.
True to its name and its captain’s words, The Wraith moved with the wind, cutting through the sea with startling speed. The salty breeze whipped against Ned’s face, rough and relentless at times, soothing at others. To his right, Andrei leaned casually against the railing, watching the island grow nearer.
“Have you been on many ships?” He asked.
Andrei took a long swig from the wineskin that the crew had given him. The seamen had, all and one, been impressed by their survival at sea. “Some.” Andrei nodded. “Help patrol… water.”
“A coastal realm,” Ned inquired, raising an eyebrow.
“One sea. Dangerous. Raiders.” Andrei’s face was dark.
“What was its name?”
Andrei drank again, deeply. “Sea of Claws.” Andrei’s voice was flat, as if the name itself held weight.
Ned grimaced. The name alone was enough to carry an ominous tone.
Andrei looked at him with eyes that were as dark as coal. He shifted his gaze to the looming island. “Dragonstone… important island?”
“Important enough,” he said. “A stronghold for the Targaryens once…” He trailed off. “If the gods are good, we will not linger long on it. There is a darkness to it. The Valyrians built it with magic, and dragonfire.”
“There is island… magic. Albion.”
“Have you been there?”
Andrei shook his head. “Far. Dangerous.” He looked away, to the east, and Andrei stiffened, cursing quietly to himself and looking up.
Ned could see it now. Grim beyond doubt, Dragonstone was a lonely, black citadel in the wet waste surrounded by storm and salt and sea, with the smoking shadow of the mountain at its back, belching heat and fire. This is a dark place, Ned thought to himself, dark and old and terrible.
As the ship drew closer, the silhouette of Dragonstone emerged from the horizon—its towering spires like jagged teeth rising from the sea. The island was a dark, rocky mass, crowned by the ancient blackstone castle at its gloomy heart, its walls carved from the very stone of the island. The keep loomed like some forgotten, cursed monument to an age long past, its stone battlements weathered and grey and defiant, carved with strange, draconic shapes that seemed to flicker in the mist.
The sea churned around the island, turbulent as if to warn any who dared approach. Above the cliffs, the wind carried a whisper of ancient fires, of old blood and old power that still lingered in the air, heavy and oppressive and terrifying. Dragonstone, ever dark and foreboding, watched over the bay like a sleeping giant.
“Ursun, Dazh,” he heard Andrei mutter to himself, “Zashchiti menya ognem.”
Dragonstone awaited, Ned thought grimly, as did Stannis Baratheon. King Stannis now, Ned reminded himself once more.
Notes:
What you all have been waiting for...
Andrei 'Ursun Grylls' Yeltska and Ned 'I want to go home' Stark
Chapter 34: Lorenzo IV
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The fire crackled merrily in the hearth.
Lorenzo sat staring, reclining in the comfortable, gilded chair. Generous, jolly Lord Mace had given him a room closer to the flowery heart of Highgarden, close to the inner halls where the Tyrells stayed. The bed was as large as three tavern beds, and lined with green sheets and golden adornments. The floor, shelves and tables were all of rich, refined timber, and servants attended to his needs; stoking the fire, serving the food, bringing red wine and black ink and white quills as he asked.
While it paled to the grand palazzo of Lupo, in beautiful Luccini, it was a grand honour no less, he supposed. A luxury that most men would fight and kill and die for, he thought with light amusement bubbling in his chest.
The greed of mankind was fascinating, as were the many fatal flaws of Man’s condition in the world, but greed, or ambition, fascinated him. He rapped his pale, slender fingers against the wooden handles of the chair, closing his eyes and listening to the rhythm. His lute rested on the bed, and Lorenzo found himself mesmerised by the rhythm of his fingers and the flames as he thought.
Aegon the Conqueror had brought fire to Westeros and united the realm under the banner of the dragon. Since then, tales were sung of his glory and cruelty, of his mercy and his fire. Yet, Lorenzo found himself wondering, why did he do it? What had led him to lead three dragons and two sisters and an army to subjugate a continent. There were many a good men, with a talent for war and dreams of glory be it here or back home, but Aegon the Dragon did not seem so simple.
Was it greed? Lorenzo wondered. Was it ambition?
Even before him, he remembered from the books, the Valyrian Freehold and the Ghiscari. Great empires, like the Remans of old. What had driven them to such heights? I must speak to Willas on this, Lorenzo decided, idly.
He opened his eyes slowly.
There were a pair of red eyes, glimmering like blood rubies in the flickering yellow flames, observing him warily. Lorenzo tried to smile, his fingers stiff and still.
“Ah,” he started politely, “You have caught me at a most inopportune time.”
The scarlet eyes did not seem to hear him. They blinked once. He could see more of the face now, and the pale, unblemished skin, and hair as red as burnished copper.
He looked into her eyes and he saw his own. Emeralds and rubies, the sea and the flame. A wonderful title for a song, he reflected. Sea fire.
The fire burnt quieter, with black tinges and dark embers. He saw a silent garden with black roses bloom within the flame, and a hooded figure in a pitch black cloak tending to his flowers. Ah, Lorenzo licked his dried lips, King Death.
A skull, as white and pristine as fresh fallen snow, smiled its macabre smile at him. It opened its mouth revealing the pit of black beyond but no words came, nor sound, but Lorenzo understood. Look, it told him, and look he did.
He saw blue eyes now, as bright as the sky. “No,” he murmured softly. A lake?
A lake as blue as sapphire glimmering in the sun of summer. It was grand, he thought, like the sapphire eye of an old, forgotten god. There was golden light pulsing softly at the very edge of the lake’s surface, and he saw two shadows.
One of the shadows was familiar, he thought.
There was red again, like blood, and the red melted into the pristine blue. Like a swirling, mixing palette of paint, Lorenzo watched as violet came to life in a splash of stormy water and a tongue of fire. Violet eyes, Lorenzo saw, and three dragons.
“Interesting…” He muttered softly. Morr, Lorenzo thought, the god of the dead, dreams and prophecy. Is this what is truly, or what may yet to be?
Morr did not deign to respond, but as he slept, the three-eyed crow did.
“Fly,” the crow demanded.
“I already am,” Lorenzo said, amused.
“Not you,” the crow responded, irritated. “Him.”
They were in the sky now, above the frigid, empty North. There was a stark, white beauty to the land, he thought with a playful smile, like ice itself. A winged wolf flew with them. They made for an interesting trio, Lorenzo thought in his waking dream. A crow with three eyes, a flying wolf with broken legs, and a bard.
Their flight was a blur; and he saw beasts and creatures aplenty. Stags and wolves and lions, krakens and vipers and dragons. There was something else, Lorenzo thought, looking to the far north. He could see a glimpse of light there and the light seemed to burn around a silent spectre. It grew blinding gold and Lorenzo turned away, looking south instead. And he nearly recoiled.
“Green fire,” he whispered, entranced by the emerald flames. The emerald flames burned hungrily, and ate away at wood and flesh and bone and steel.
“Who said that?” A boyish voice asked nervously.
Lorenzo glanced at the wolf. There was something he had not noticed, petals of black roses swirled around the wolf like dancers, circling its furs.
“Hello,” the boy asked, “Who are you?”
“Just a bard,” said Lorenzo, smiling.
He watched as the ebony bird flew around the wolf, snapping at the beast. When at last, the wolf had slept, the crow turned to him.
“You are a curious one,” the crow said to him, with three cold eyes.
“Am I?” Lorenzo inquired. “I had thought a talking avian with three eyes would be a stranger sight.”
“You see a three-eyed crow, and perhaps I do too,” the black bird said cryptically. “You do not want to know what I see of you.”
“Do I not?” Lorenzo challenged.
“You are… interfering with powers beyond your control, singer of the sea.”
“I assure you, crow,” Lorenzo spoke, “I have interfered as much as I have controlled. I would assuredly be gone from here in a flash if I could.”
“You would,” the three-eyed crow agreed, “but you cannot. They have decreed.”
“They have,” Lorenzo accepted. “Who are you then? You are not one of them.”
“I was here before your arrival,” the crow chuckled, tilting its head at the sleeping wolf. “A three-eyed crow will be here after your departure.”
“Three eyes,” Lorenzo noticed, “And you could never notice the one-eyed.”
The crow shuddered with rage. “Speak not of that foulness. I see with a thousand eyes and one, singer, and those I cannot see, you would shudder to imagine.”
“Would I?” came Lorenzo’s cold response. “I have seen the shadow of gods, and sang their song. I have seen the fate of the world, my world.”
“So have I,” the crow shook his head. “So have I.”
They twirled in the night air, hummingbird and crow. The stars were out in the black sky, shining like white torches, and they flew amongst the constellations of this world.
“You have changed things,” the crow said eventually.
“Have I?”
“You will, yours have.”
“For the better?” Lorenzo asked, curious. The crow was silent.
“We have a purpose, yes?” Lorenzo pressed. “What is it then?”
The crow was silent again, its three eyes looking south.
“Look to your dreams, singer of the sea,” the voice allowed. “Here comes one, from the realm of dreams to the waking world. Look.”
He turned his head reluctantly, and saw a black, prancing stag, entwined with gilded flowers. A floral crown of summer scent hung temptingly inches away from its antlers, and the beast charged forth, raising its mighty head.
Lorenzo opened his eyes, and saw the rays of dawn spilling into the room.
Well, he thought, how enlightening.
He rose slowly, taking the time to carefully dress himself. A green tunic embroidered with flowers, and light leather breeches. He slipped into soft, brown leather boots and slung his crimson cape around his neck. Parchments were scattered across the table, with lyrics and half-written songs on them. A show really, he did not need those. A spectacle for the spies who came to his room when he was not here.
He slung his lute around himself with ginger care, slow and gently. His stiletto rested by his belt, forever hidden from view by his red cape.
“A meal with Willas at noon,” he muttered to himself, remembering the day’s schedule. “Sing for the Tyrells at dinner.”
He glanced at the sun, rising slowly over the horizon. Yet another day in this castle of roses, Lorenzo thought, and no closer to … to whatever they were seeking.
Maybe Lucia would have dreamt of something, he thought with mirth.
He found her in her room, down near the guest quarters. Her fight with Ser Garlan had earned her renown and respect, and the knight had personally ensured her stay in Highgarden, relishing in the presence of a worthy training opponent.
Judging by the scowl on her face, he must have interrupted her prayers.
“Did you dream?” He asked.
“Yeah,” she grunted, “Bacon and bread.”
“Those, you will find aplenty in the hall,” Lorenzo smiled. “And of the more meaningful kind?”
Her gaze was annoyed and curious. “Do I look like you?”
Lorenzo shrugged. It was worth a try, he thought. Perhaps, some day, Myrmidia would gift her devout with troubling nightmares and cryptic visions as well. Lorenzo thought wryly as they walked.
They broke their fast in the Great Hall. Lucia ravaged a fresh, warm loaf of bread, and juicy streaks of bacon, washing it down with ale. He much preferred a sweeter, softer start to the day, and sliced at the honey cake before him gently. He speared it with a gilded fork and chewed slowly, relishing in the taste of the honey.
“So,” Lucia asked in her native tongue, low and growly, still chewing loudly on her bread and bacon. “What have you learned?”
“I assume you have no interest in the latest trends for silk and satin in Oldtown?”
“No.”
“A shame,” he sipped at the goblet of Arbor Gold. “There is troubling news. Pillaging, I hear, in the Riverlands. Burning, fighting. To the north.”
Lucia raised an eyebrow. “Bandits?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “Not as simple as that, I am afraid. An army.”
Her stern gaze grew thoughtful. “War, then.”
“Perhaps,” he said, heavy in thought. “The Lannisters.”
She shifted slightly in her seat, her face stiff.
“I assume you have heard many tales, yes? During your time south.” Lorenzo asked, slicing at the honeycake slowly. “I have heard all about the tragedy seventeen years ago, of the sun that set under a mountain.”
Lucia clenched her jaw. “Heard much about their lord. Reminds me of someone.”
Her gaze was dark, Lorenzo noticed. Best not to ask.
“I dreamt,” he said instead.
Lucia looked at him intently. “What did you see?”
“A stag entwined with flowers,” said Lorenzo. “Prancing for his crown.”
“Terrifying,” Lucia said drily. Lorenzo moved on, eying her shield.
“A spar soon?” He nodded his head at her mace.
“Aye.”
“You are enjoying your time, yes?”
She looked at him. “It could be worse,” Lucia said reluctantly. “But…”
“The stay here is grating,” he spoke for her, as he usually did. “You want to find the others, and find a way … back.”
“Yes,” she nodded. “How long more?” She demanded.
Lorenzo could only sigh. “I do not know, my friend.”
He thought of the crow’s words. “Perhaps… sooner than we might think. Until then, we must do our duty, no?”
“Duty,” Lucia snorted. “I fight in the yard, and you read and sing and eat with the ladies. A heavy burden.”
Lorenzo smiled. “Perhaps we should take each other’s role. I shall wear the steel, and you the silk. I shall wield the mace, and you the lute.”
Lucia almost shuddered. “Keep singing, and I’ll keep fighting.”
Midday found him in Willas Tyrell’s solar, a decanter of Arbour Gold between them. There was an aged book in Willas’ hand, Inventories, he recognised.
“Valyrian steel,” Willas mused. “My father still dreams of one.”
“Even as a boy,” Lorenzo lied, “I dreamt of having one.”
“Every child from Dorne to the Wall dreams of that,” Willas laughed. The young lord reclined in his seat, drinking slowly from his wine. “I confess, a childish fantasy still flies in my head at times, of finding those blades lost to history and time.”
Lorenzo raised his goblet. “Which one?”
“Can any one of them be said to be better than the other?” Willas mused, more to himself than to Lorenzo. “Orphan-Maker,” Willas decided.
Lorenzo raised one fine eyebrow.
“A dreadful name, certainly,” Willas agreed. “One that should be erased and replaced. Are you familiar with the history of the blade?”
“I cannot say I am.”
“It belongs to House Roxton, or rather, it should. Ser Jon Roxton, the Bold, wielded it during the Dance.” Willas waved his hand. “A series of battles later, it found a new wielder in Lord Unwin Peake.” He sniffed. “And after that…” He shrugged.
“Ah,” Lorenzo said. “House Roxton is small, and shan’t protest loudly if House Tyrell were to find the blade.”
“Indeed, some gift of dragons or a cut in taxation would temper their protests.”
“And House Peake has a dearth of friends,” Lorenzo said wryly. “Rename the sword to something fitting, and House Tyrell shall have a golden status.”
Willas smiled. “Sharp. Like Orphan-Maker.”
“And House Tarly is the only house in the Reach with a sword from Valyria,” Lorenzo commented, recalling his readings.
“A thorn in my father’s mind,” Willas sighed. “Lord Tarly is a military man. A gifted general who won his battles for him. And the sword…”
“Emphasises that.”
“Yes,” Willas nodded. “The Hightowers had a blade of their own once. Vigilance, a smoky black blade with a pommel that was said to look like frozen wildfire.”
“They must not have heeded the warning of their blade then,” Lorenzo noted. “How did it go missing?”
“The Dance, again,” said Willas, annoyed. “The dragons dance and the realm shivers and shakes. We are glad to be rid of them.”
“Yes,” Lorenzo lied again, “Any good Braavosi would agree.”
Willas sighed. “A child’s fantasy,” he murmured, a forlorn look of resignation in his eyes. “An entertaining thought, regardless.”
“Perhaps,” Lorenzo said with a playful smile, “Some group of brave adventurers will bring you a sword someday.”
“That would be fitting for a tale,” Willas sighed, glancing out the window.
“You seem a man who needs a tale or a song to escape to, my lord.”
“Astude,” Willas smiled wryly. “Perhaps ten.”
Lorenzo’s smile was soft. “What troubles you so? Has Orphan-Maker haunted your dreams?”
Willas laughed slightly. “If only that were the problem.” The heir to Highgarden rubbed his eyes tiredly. “There is… a web all around us. Sometimes, it feels like the world is just that. A climb, a fall. It is… tiring.”
Lorenzo kept his gaze on Willas. “I understand, my lord,” he said softly, “More than you think I would.”
Willas’ eyes were curious but he did not ask. “A Valyrian steel cane would not be so bad,” Willas Tyrell mused.
Lorenzo’s lips curled into a smile. “A fresh design for the smiths, I am sure.”
An urgent knock on the door interrupted their conversation.
“Enter!” Willas commanded.
A thin, reedy man bowed low and deeply. “My lord,” he said nervously, “It is your father. He has called for your presence in his chambers. Your brother, Ser Loras, has returned. Lord Renly is with him.”
Willas raised his eyebrows. “Very well,” he said slowly. “I shall be there.”
The servant bowed again, closing the door behind him.
“Another time, then?” Willas said, rising. Even with his cane, he walked confidently.
Lorenzo rose, following him. “I shall have a song ready.”
Willas shook his head with amusement.
Lorenzo stood in silence, watching intently as Willas Tyrell walked with urgency.
Renly Baratheon, the Tyrells. The stag entwined with flowers.
He shook his head. The crow had its sense of humour.
He found Lucia in the courtyard. To my utter surprise.
The yard was ringing with the clash of steel, and the roar of men as they clashed their swords and spears and shields. It was a song, he supposed, just not an alluring one. Lucia sat on a sturdy bench, drinking greedily from a waterskin. Droplets of water leaked from the skin, dripping down onto the steel of her plate. Sunlight shone on her from above, basking her in a golden radiance. Her gilded mace sat across her metal lap, and her steel shield leaned against the wooden bench, the proud eagle emblazoned upon the cold face of the shield, frozen forever in its flight.
Once, he had chanced upon a magnificent painting in Lupo’s halls. It was new, freshly acquired from a Magrittan merchant who had smiled and simpered and strolled off with near a hundred gold crowns. Within the painting was Fury, the shieldmaiden of Myrmidia and the minor goddess of righteous vengeance. In the light of the sun, he thought, Lucia looked like Fury.
“The sun suits you,” he commented.
“Better than it suits you,” Lucia responded. Lorenzo smiled.
“I had an intriguing conversation with young Willas Tyrell about Valyrian steel,” he started, watching in amusement at Lucia’s barely disguised interest. “It was interrupted when a servant came calling. Judging by the fact that, usually, your duels with Ser Garlan would be for another hour…”
She nodded. “Servant came calling.”
“Ser Loras has returned, with Renly Baratheon in tow.”
Lucia laughed. It was a rare sound, Lorenzo thought, of genuine amusement.
“Entwined with flowers,” Lucia ran her hand through her sweat-tossled hair.
“Best to not say that out loud,” he warned casually.
She shrugged. “Why do you think they’re here?”
Lorenzo glanced at the sky, “For the view, perhaps. ‘Tis a beautiful view.”
“Flowers,” Lucia derided, “Flowers and flowers and more flowers.” She drank the last of the water from the skin and threw it behind her.
“Beneath every flower is a row of thorns, my friend. The worth of a flower is not just in its beauty. I would know.”
“Some of them, maybe,” Lucia agreed, reluctantly.
They sat in silence, then. The warrior and the bard, they made for a strange pair as they always had. The eagle and the hummingbird, Lorenzo thought, the mace and the lute, the steel and the silk.
“If you were given a Valyrian steel sword,” Lorenzo asked suddenly, curious. “Would you use it?”
“Use it?” Lucia wondered. “I-”
“Ah, there you are, young Lorenzo!”
Lorenzo blinked at the jolly face of Mace Tyrell. There was a man standing behind him, lean and lithe with a handsome, clean-shaven face. He was tall and broad, but had a mouth that was meant for smiling. Fine, straight hair as black as night fell to his shoulders, with blue-green eyes that watched him curiously and intently. He was dressed in a dark green doublet, with a cloth-of-gold half cape draped over one shoulder, clasped with a golden stag.
“This is Lord Renly Baratheon,” Lord Mace introduced.
Lorenzo rose, and Lucia rose behind him slowly and hesitantly. He gave a slight bow.
“I have heard much of your voice,” Renly Baratheon said with a smile, “Lord Mace, Lady Margaery, they all have assured me that your voice is as good as gold.”
“Better, my lord,” Lorenzo said softly, “Better than gold.”
Renly laughed, a rich, almost melodious sound.
“I shall look forward to it for the feast then.” The young lord declared, patting him on the shoulder.
Lorenzo bowed as Renly left. “A feast, my lord?” He asked a smiling Mace Tyrell.
“Why, yes! I believe a marriage and coronation deserves a good song, no?”
What? He could almost feel Lucia stiffening behind him.
Mace Tyrell sauntered off, humming The Rose to himself.
Lucia looked at him flatly. “Saw that coming?”
Lorenzo was silent. A prancing stag reaching for a floral crown it could never see.
Look to your dreams, the crow’s words echoed to him.
“Find what you can,” he said suddenly, “Talk to Ser Garlan. I will do the same with Willas and Lady Margaery where I can.”
Lucia nodded slowly.
The week passed in a blur.
Everywhere he went, servants ran about working in preparation. Barrels of wine were gathered from the cellars. Fruits of all colours were slowly prepared, and he saw long lines of cooks assembling themselves slowly, like some bizarre army. Lords and knights streamed in as well, with banners of hunters and fruits and beasts. No bards came, however, for all knew that House Tyrell had a prized singer in their service, one whose voice could silence a hall to tears or bring life into the hearthfire.
The Tyrells busied themselves in closed meetings with Renly Baratheon during these days. Lord Mace, Lady Olenna, Willas, Garlan, Lady Margaery and Ser Loras. It was terribly maddening. What had happened?
Dread news slowly spread amongst the mouths of the servants. The King was dead, some whispered, King Robert was slain by poison or an assassin’s blade, or the Queen, or Stark wolves. Each tale grew more absurd but all agreed on a single fact.
King Robert Baratheon was dead.
King’s Landing was in turmoil, Renly had declared. It was a city wrapped in the fetid grip of madness and chaos now, and order was needed. And someone needed to bring the chaos to heel.
How convenient, Lorenzo thought.
The man was younger than him, Lorenzo realised with amusement. Renly Baratheon was a charming man, with a bright, friendly smile. All seemed to love him; the servants and the squires, the maidens and the knights and the lords.
Do they truly? He wondered to himself. Still, word slowly came from the road as one week became two. There was a terrible massacre in the city, some said. An explosion in the Red Keep. The Starks had morphed into wolf-like monsters and killed the king, and the Lannisters had turned into lions to stop them.
He was in the hall, breaking his fast with Lucia, when a pair of free riders passed by them. “Heard it was the Hand, that northern lord. Tried to usurp the throne, he did. They say that swornsword of his killed one of the king’s own uncles, or something.”
“Lord Stark?” The other asked, doubt in his voice.
“Aye, that be the one. That swornsword, some big fellow. That same cunt who won the melee back during the tourney, when the fat king was still alive. The one with the crowned bear on his shield, and the axe.”
“That one?”
Lorenzo shared a glance with Lucia. A coincidence, surely?
“Aye, they say he set the whole of the Red Keep on fire. They say he used some magic to make a man’s head explode. Killed dozens of men, he did. Some northern savage with their barbaric magicks, surely.”
Lucia’s eyes were wide. Lorenzo smiled stiffly as he approached the mercenary in leathers. The man was dark of hair and armour, and no doubt of heart.
“Good sirs,” Lorenzo smiled brightly, “I could not help but to overhear your conversations. Talks of magicks?” He asked, inserting doubt in his voice.
“Aye, magicks, lad.” The man said, nodding. “What was his name? Andrey, me think. Big, burly brute of a man. Not like those warlocks in children’s tales.”
“Dreadful,” Lorenzo smiled tightly, walking away.
Lucia’s face was stiff and her hand was tense upon her mace. “Any bright ideas?” She asked dryly, with urgency in her voice.
“None,” he shook his head. “We must wait and see.”
“What has that old-timer done now,” she grumbled. “If we’re hearing of this here, half of this damned land would be hearing of it too. Wait,” she asked, her eyes widening once more. “Did they mention Gunther?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “Even if he were there, we would not hear of it.” He said, his smile returning.
“True,” Lucia agreed.
“We’ll do what we have been doing,” Lorenzo proposed. “Now, we know where Andrei is. There has been progress.”
Lucia grunted. “Keep singing, then.”
Lorenzo gave her a strained smile. “Keep fighting, then.”
And sing he did, when the day came at last.
They stood in the lush, green fields of the Reach, barely a league away from Highgarden under the cool, open sky. The air was filled with the scent of blooming roses and fruit trees wafting with the gentle summer breeze that rolled over the thousands of men and women gathered on that verdant sea. Atop dozens, if not hundreds, of fastened posts, banners fluttered in the summer wind.
Banners, there were aplenty. Golden trees and red huntsmen, nightingales and suns and moons, apples and grapes and oak leaves, golden cranes and black crows. He saw a stone white watchtower on a grey field, with a fire on top. Above all flew two banners. The green and gold rose of Tyrell, and the black and gold of Baratheon. The golden rose was intertwined with the black stag, a union of beauty and might.
Beneath the vast blue sky, rows of silk-draped pavilions stood like multi-coloured flowers blooming brightly from the green earth, their flags and banners rippling in the gentle breeze. There must have been hundreds of knights and lords and ladies, in their finest silks and velvets or steel. It seemed almost as if all the chivalry and might of the Reach had been gathered but he knew better.
There was a grand stand at one end of the field, with a raised platform of rich wood. Golden petals were scattered upon it, and the Lady Margaery waited, beautiful and smiling. The Septon of Highgarden stood by her.
Renly Baratheon came, riding on a black steed barded with gold.
Subtle, Lorenzo thought.
He was clad in magnificent armour, enamelled in deep green and edged with gold. He wore a helm with golden antlers, and his cloak was a dazzling emerald hue. All were silent as he rode. He had a flair for theatrics, Lorenzo thought, not unlike some of the princes he knew. The lords and knights of the Reach watched on either side as he rode past them, smiling and waving to them as he did.
First was the marriage; the prayers, the vows and the singing.
Lady Margaery wore her maiden’s cloak of green and gold, and Lord Mace removed the cloak gently with a wide, pleased smile. The man himself seemed even happier than the soon-to-be Queen. Then came the black and gold.
“With this kiss, I pledge my love, and take you for my lady and wife.”
“With this kiss, I pledge my love, and take you for my lord and husband.”
Then came the coronation. Lorenzo watched in silence as Renly knelt before the septon of Highgarden. The old priest anointed Renly with the sacred seven oils and placed a crown upon Renly’s head. It was a ring of soft gold roses, and on its front was a stag’s head made of dark green jade, with golden eyes and antlers.
“Rise, Renly of House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.” The septon declared.
Ser Loras was the first to kneel, raising his bright longsword. “King Renly!”
“King Renly! Highgarden! Storm’s End!” came the roar from thousands of men, raising swords in salute. The golden sunlight caught and danced and flickered between the steel, and the light was blinding.
Then came the feast.
Surely, Lorenzo thought, even these fields had never before seen such splendour.
Rows upon rows of long trestle tables draped in green and gold silk stretched far and wide, with the bounty of the Reach laid upon them adorned with fresh-cut roses and ivy. This was a celebration of summer’s bounty, Lorenzo thought, a spectacle of colour. The scent of herbs and honey and roast meat filled the air.
There were roasted peacocks ringed with candied petals and lemon-glazed grapes; loaves of freshly baked bread shaped like roses and served with rich butter and honey drizzled in golden spirals, roasted hens with rosemary, honeyed peaches, lemon cakes, apple tarts with golden raisins.
“From stormy shore to garden fair, the stag of gold doth rise! With emerald cloak and flowing hair, a king with laughing eyes!” Lorenzo sang from his seat at the edge of the grand stand. King Renly sat on a throne, Queen Margaery clapping by his side.
“The summer sun bows to his reign, all swords to him are sworn! The youngest stag, the boldest heart, a crown of roses worn!” The song was light and lively, like summer itself, and thousands closed their eyes to listen along.
“No shade can dim his shining grace, nor shadow touch his crown! With sword in hand and laughter bright, he'll strike his rivals down!” Lord Mace Tyrell was beaming brightly, but the Queen of Thorns was guarded. Her eyes watched the new king with cold judgement, watching and observing.
“Fair knights ride forth at his command, their vows like steel and stone! And where he treads, the garden blooms, and kingdoms call him home!” Lady Margaery was all smiles and charm, her words like honey and her eyes as sweet as the smell of roses. Yet, it was the Knight of Flowers whose smile was true and genuine.
“His hand is swift, his will is strong, his foes shall bend the knee! A thousand swords, a thousand hearts, march forth for victory!” It was a fast song, meant to stir the hearts. King Renly smiled, bright as copper, and laughed and clapped. He stood radiant and bright, the image of a king from a smiling, summer song. Summer ends.
“Where roses twine with antlers proud, no enemy may stand! For beauty walks beside his crown, and power guides his hand!” Willas Tyrell sat on the left end of the table of honour, talking quietly to Ser Garlan. He did not seem like a man whose sister had just married a king, Lorenzo observed.
The feast stretched deep into the night, with wine flowing like the Mander’s waters. Laughter, music, and boasting filled the air as knights swore their blades to Renly, believing him already victorious. The sun had long fallen, casting the sky to black, a black that glimmered with bright, shining stars.
He tried to search for Lucia, then, but failed. As the night continued, the tables were lit with the soft glow of candlelight. Torches had been brought, and lanterns too, thousands of flickering lights in the night sea of gloomy dark.In the dark, the flickering of the flames casted long, twisting shadows across the soft earth of the Reach. Ominous, Lorenzo thought to himself, strumming gently from his seat. It was a soft, calm tune now, a sound of peace. Yet, when he looked at Renly Baratheon, he did not see peace. As the fire of the torches flickered and danced, a plume of shadow was thrown briefly across his youthful face. For a moment, the golden roses of Renly’s crown seemed to drip with crimson tears.
Notes:
I actually really like both Garlan and Willas (even though we have not really seen him). Lucia and Lorenzo, of course, are perfect parallels for the two brothers.
Sidenote, while Andrei has appeared as the 'protagonist' for this part of the story, that was simply because of the direction of the plot. King's Landing and all. Now that the story is truly starting, and changing, the others will be taking up equally prominent roles in the narrative too.
Chapter 35: Catelyn II
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It was too far to make out the banners clearly, but even through the drifting fog she could see that they were white, with a dark smudge in their center that could only be the leaping direwolf of Stark, grey upon its icy field. When she saw it with her own eyes, Catelyn reined up her horse and bowed her head in thanks. The gods were good. She was not too late.
“They await our coming, my lady,” Ser Wylis Manderly said, “as my lord father swore they would.”
“Let us not keep them waiting any longer, ser.” Ser Brynden Tully put the spurs to his horse and trotted briskly toward the banners. Catelyn rode beside him.
Ser Wylis and his brother Ser Wendel followed, leading their levies, near fifteen hundred men: some twenty-odd knights and as many squires, two hundred mounted lances, swordsmen, and freeriders, and the rest foot, armed with spears, pikes and tridents. Lord Wyman had remained behind to see to the defenses of White Harbor. A man of near sixty years, he had grown too stout to sit a horse. “If I had thought to see war again in my lifetime, I should have eaten a few less eels,” he’d told Catelyn when he met her ship, slapping his massive belly with both hands. His fingers were fat as sausages. “My boys will see you safe to your son, though, have no fear.”
His “boys” were both older than Catelyn, and she might have wished that they did not take after their father quite so closely. Ser Wylis was only a few eels short of not being able to mount his own horse; she pitied the poor animal. Ser Wendel, the younger boy, would have been the fattest man she’d ever known, had she only neglected to meet his father and brother. Wylis was quiet and formal, Wendel loud and boisterous; both had ostentatious walrus mustaches and heads as bare as a baby’s bottom; neither seemed to own a single garment that was not spotted with food stains. Yet she liked them well enough; they had gotten her to Robb, as their father had vowed, and nothing else mattered.
She was pleased to see that her son had sent eyes out, even to the east. The Lannisters would come from the south when they came, but it was good that Robb was being careful. My son is leading a host to war, she thought, still only half believing it. She was desperately afraid for him, and for Winterfell, yet she could not deny feeling a certain pride as well. A year ago he was a boy. What was he now? she wondered.
Halfway between summer and winter, she thought, half between boy and man.
Outriders spied the Manderly banners—the white merman with trident in hand, rising from a blue-green sea—and hailed them warmly. They were led to a spot of high ground dry enough for a camp. Ser Wylis called a halt there, and remained behind with his men to see the fires laid and the horses tended, while his brother Wendel rode on with them to present their father’s respects to their liege lord.
The ground under their horses’ hooves was soft and wet. It fell away slowly beneath them as they rode past smoky fires, lines of horses, and wagons heavy-laden with hardbread and salt beef. On a stony outcrop of land higher than the surrounding country, they passed a lord’s pavilion with walls of heavy sailcloth. Catelyn recognized the banner, the bull moose of the Hornwoods, brown on its orange field.
Just beyond, through the mists, she glimpsed the walls and towers of Moat Cailin ... or what remained of them. Immense blocks of black basalt, each as large as a crofter’s cottage, lay scattered and tumbled like a child’s wooden blocks, half-sunk in the soft boggy soil. Nothing else remained of a curtain wall that had once stood as high as Winterfell’s. The wooden keep was gone entirely, rotted away a thousand years past, with not so much as a timber to mark where it had stood. All that was left of the great stronghold of the First Men were three towers ... three where there had once been twenty, if the taletellers could be believed.
We never should have left it to ruin, she thought. No one imagined another war.
The Gatehouse Tower looked sound enough, and even boasted a few feet of standing wall to either side of it. The Drunkard’s Tower, off in the bog where the south and west walls had once met, leaned like a man about to spew a bellyful of wine. And the tall, slender Children’s Tower, where legend said the children of the forest had once called upon their nameless gods to send the hammer of the waters, had lost half its crown. It looked as if some great beast had taken a bite out of the crenellations along the tower top, and spit the rubble across the bog. All three towers were green with moss. A tree was growing out between the stones on the north side of the Gatehouse Tower, its gnarled limbs festooned with ropy white blankets of ghostskin.
“Gods have mercy,” Ser Brynden exclaimed when he saw what lay before them. “This is Moat Cailin? It’s no more than a—”
“—death trap,” Catelyn finished. “I know how it looks, Uncle. I thought the same the first time I saw it, but Ned assured me that this ruin is more formidable than it seems. The three surviving towers command the causeway from all sides, and any enemy must pass between them. The bogs here are impenetrable, full of quicksands and suckholes and teeming with snakes. To assault any of the towers, an army would need to wade through waist-deep black muck, cross a moat full of lizard-lions, and scale walls slimy with moss, all the while exposing themselves to fire from archers in the other towers.” She gave her uncle a grim smile. “And when night falls, there are said to be ghosts, cold vengeful spirits of the north who hunger for southron blood.”
Ser Brynden chuckled. “Remind me not to linger here. Last I looked, I was southron myself.”
Standards had been raised atop all three towers. The Karstark sunburst hung from the Drunkard’s Tower, beneath the direwolf; on the Children’s Tower it was the Greatjon’s giant in shattered chains. But on the Gatehouse Tower, the Stark banner flew alone. That was where Robb had made his seat. Catelyn made for it, with Ser Brynden and Ser Wendel behind her, their horses stepping slowly down the log-and-plank road that had been laid across the green-and-black fields of mud.
She found her son surrounded by his father’s lords bannermen, in a drafty hall with a peat fire smoking in a black hearth. He was seated at a massive stone table, a pile of maps and papers in front of him, talking intently with Roose Bolton and the Greatjon. At first he did not notice her ... but his wolf did. The great grey beast was lying near the fire, but when Catelyn entered he lifted his head, and his golden eyes met hers. The wolf was not alone, the mother direwolf was by him, watching all intently.
The lords fell silent one by one, and Robb looked up at the sudden quiet and saw her. “Mother?” he said, his voice thick with emotion.
Catelyn wanted to run to him, to kiss his sweet brow, to wrap him in her arms and hold him so tightly that he would never come to harm ... but here in front of his lords, she dared not. He was playing a man’s part now, and she would not take that away from him. So she held herself at the far end of the basalt slab they were using for a table. His direwolf got to his feet and padded across the room to where she stood. It seemed bigger than a wolf ought to be. “You’ve grown a beard,” she said to Robb, while Grey Wind sniffed her hand. The mother wolf closed her eyes of sun, resting but all gave her a wide berth, even the Greatjon. Especially him.
He rubbed his stubbled jaw, suddenly awkward. “Yes.” His chin hairs were redder than the ones on his head.
“I like it.” Catelyn stroked the wolf's head, gently. “It makes you look like my brother Edmure.” Grey Wind nipped at her fingers, playful, and trotted back to his place by the fire and his mother.
Ser Helman Tallhart was the first to follow the direwolf across the room to pay his respects, kneeling before her and pressing his brow to her hand. “Lady Catelyn,” he said, “you are fair as ever, a welcome sight in troubled times.” The Glovers followed, Galbart and Robett, and Greatjon Umber, and the rest, one by one. Theon Greyjoy was the last. “I had not looked to see you here, my lady,” he said as he knelt.
“I had not thought to be here,” Catelyn said, “until I came ashore at White Harbor, and Lord Wyman told me that Robb had called the banners. You know his son, Ser Wendel.” Wendel Manderly stepped forward and bowed as low as his girth would allow. “And my uncle, Ser Brynden Tully, who has left my sister’s service for mine.”
“The Blackfish,” Robb said, his voice strong and hard. “Thank you for joining us, ser. We need men of your courage. And you, Ser Wendel, I am glad to have you here. Is Ser Rodrik with you as well, Mother? I’ve missed him.”
“Ser Rodrik is on his way north from White Harbor. I have named him castellan and commanded him to hold Winterfell till our return. Maester Luwin is a wise counsellor, but unskilled in the arts of war.”
“Have no fear on that count, Lady Stark,” the Greatjon told her in his bass rumble. “Winterfell is safe. We’ll shove our swords up Tywin Lannister’s bunghole soon enough, begging your pardons, and then it’s on to King’s Landing to hunt lions.”
“My lady, a question, as it please you.” Roose Bolton, Lord of the Dreadfort, had a small voice, yet when he spoke larger men quieted to listen. His eyes were curiously pale, almost without color, and his look disturbing. “It is said that you hold Lord Tywin’s dwarf son as captive. Have you brought him to us? I vow, we should make good use of such a hostage.”
“I did hold Tyrion Lannister, but no longer,” Catelyn was forced to admit. A chorus of consternation greeted the news. “I was no more pleased than you, my lords. The gods saw fit to free him, with help from my fool of a sister.” She ought not to be so open in her contempt, she knew, but her parting from the Eyrie had been unpleasant. She had offered to take Lord Robert with her, to foster him at Winterfell for a few years. The company of other boys would do him good, she had dared to suggest.
Lysa’s rage had been frightening. “Sister or no,” she had replied, “if you try to steal my son, you will leave by the Moon Door.” After that, there was no more to be said.
The lords were anxious to question her further, but Catelyn raised a hand. “No doubt we will have time for all this later, but my journey has fatigued me. I would speak with my son alone. I know you will forgive me, my lords.” She gave them no choice; led by the ever-obliging Lord Hornwood, the bannermen bowed and took their leave. “And you, Theon,” she added when Greyjoy lingered. He smiled and left them.
Catelyn only shook her head.
There was ale and cheese on the table. Catelyn tilled a horn, sat, sipped, and studied her son. He seemed taller than when she’d left, and the wisps of beard did make him look older. “Edmure was sixteen when he grew his first whiskers.”
“I will be sixteen soon enough,” Robb said, calmly.
“And you are fifteen now. Fifteen, and leading a host to battle. Can you understand why I might fear, Robb?”
His look grew stubborn. “There was no one else, Mother.”
“No one?” she said. “Pray, who were those men I saw here a moment ago? Roose Bolton, Rickard Karstark, Galbart and Robett Glover, the Greatjon, Helman Tallhart ... you might have given the command to any of them. Gods be good, you might even have sent Theon, though he would not be my choice.”
“They are not Starks,” he said, as firm as ice. “They are men, seasoned with war and hardened by winter, but they are not wolves.”
At that, the mother direwolf opened its golden eyes, staring curiously at them.
“You were fighting with wooden swords less than a year past.” Catelyn said softly.
“And now I must fight with steel ones.” Robb responded, firmly but gently.
No, Catelyn thought. Not half between a boy and man.
When had he grown up? Catelyn wondered, reaching across the table and touching his hair. Was it when we left?
“You are my firstborn, Robb. I have only to look at you to remember the day you came into the world, red-faced and squalling.” She sighed.
He rose, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I am,” he agreed, “And I am my father’s oldest. The direwolf must march south for war and into the maw of winter, so be it.”
She felt a shiver run through her at his words. War, winter, he spoke of those words easily but firmly, like he was a man nearing sixty rather than sixteen.
“Have you heard about father?” He asked.
“Yes.” The reports of Robert’s sudden death and Ned’s disappearance had frightened Catelyn more than she could say, but she would not let her son see her fear. “Lord Manderly told me when I landed at White Harbor. Have you had any word of your sisters?”
“There was a letter,” Robb said, scratching his direwolf under the jaw. “One for you as well, but it came to Winterfell with mine.” He went to the table, rummaged among some maps and papers, and returned with a crumpled parchment. “This is the one she wrote me, I never thought to bring yours.”
Something in Robb’s tone troubled her. She smoothed out the paper and read. Concern gave way to disbelief, then to anger, and lastly to fear. “This is Cersei’s letter, not your sister’s,” she said when she was done. “Clear as day. The real message is in what Sansa does not say. All this about how kindly and gently the Lannisters are treating her ... I know the sound of a threat, even whispered and sweetened. They have Sansa hostage, and they mean to keep her.”
“There’s no mention of Arya,” Robb pointed out, cold in his anger.
“No.” Catelyn did not want to think what that might mean, not now, not here.
“I had hoped ... if you still held the Imp, a trade of hostages ... ” He took Sansa’s letter and crumpled it in his fist, and she could tell from the way he did it that it was not the first time. Ice burned in his blue eyes. “Is there word from the Eyrie? I wrote to Aunt Lysa, asking help. Has she called Lord Arryn’s banners, do you know? Will the knights of the Vale come join us?”
“Only one,” she said, “the best of them, my uncle... but Brynden Blackfish was a Tully first. My sister is not about to stir beyond her Bloody Gate.”
“Gods damn her, then,” he said, his voice as cold as winter. She felt her soul recoil.
He glared at the map on the table furiously. “I have eighteen thousand men,” he mused. The fifteen-year-old boy had melted away, and the cold, proud lord remained. She could see it in his eyes.
“Robb?” She asked carefully.
“The Lannisters hold Sansa, that we can be sure,” he said, staring at the spot of King’s Landing on the yellowed map. “They spoke not of Arya, and we know that Father has vanished. Do you think…”
“No,” she said immediately, the thought too horrid to linger. “If they had been… they would not be able to keep it under wraps for long.”
Robb hummed softly.
“My son,” she placed her hand gently against his cheek, “You have… changed.”
Robb tried to smile. “I have had… dreams as of late, Mother. Dreams of…” He paused, looking into the fire. “Dreams of a white wolf in winter, striding through virgin snow amidst bare, tall trees. Always, I see a white fire burning and I hear a howl as powerful as any war horn we have.”
Catelyn knew not what to say. Robb continued. “Since then, I have felt… ready,” he nodded at the slumbering mother direwolf. “Especially with her here, I feel ready for winter, for war.”
His voice was determined. “If I go to King’s Landing and swear fealty, I will never be allowed to leave. If I turn your tail and retreat to Winterfell, my lords will lose all respect for me. Some may even go over to the Lannisters. Then the queen, with that much less to fear, can do as she likes with her prisoners, with Sansa. Our best hope, our only true hope, is to defeat the foe in the field. Lord Tywin or the Kingslayer. If I can hold either captive, a trade might very well be possible.” He mused.
She agreed, pride swelling in her bosom. “So long as you have power enough that they must fear you, your sister should be safe. Cersei is wise enough to know that she may need her to make her peace, should the fighting go against her.”
Robb nodded grimly. “If we lose…”
“If you lose, there is no hope for any of us,” Catelyn told him. “They say there is naught but stone at the heart of Casterly Rock. Remember the fate of Rhaegar’s children.” She remembered.
“Then I will not lose,” he vowed.
“Tell me what you know of the fighting in the riverlands,” she said. She had to learn if he was truly ready.
“Less than a fortnight past, they fought a battle in the hills below the Golden Tooth,” Robb said. “Uncle Edmure had sent Lord Vance and Lord Piper to hold the pass, but the Kingslayer’s army descended on them and put them to flight. Lord Vance was slain. The last word we had was that Lord Piper was falling back to join your brother and his other bannermen at Riverrun, with Jaime Lannister on his heels. Yet, none saw the man on the battlefield. There has been a tale…” He shook his head and chuckled.
“It was Andrei, they say. When the Kingslayer came for father, Andrei fought him like a bear, mauled the Kingslayer fierce.”
Gods, she had nearly forgotten about the man. It felt like a lifetime since she had talked to her lord husband about the strange yet familiar man. If he had fought the Kingslayer and given him such savagery, she thought in satisfaction, then he is welcome to Winterfell’s halls forever.
“That’s not the worst of it, though. All the time they were battling in the pass, Lord Tywin was bringing a second Lannister army around from the south. It’s said to be even larger than Jaime’s host.” Robb continued, a grimace falling on his face.
“Father must have known that, because he sent out men to oppose them, under the king’s own banner. He gave the command to some southron lordling, Lord Derik or something like that, but Ser Raymun Darry rode with him, and the letter said there were other knights as well, and a force of Father’s guardsmen. Only it was a trap. Lord Derik had no sooner crossed the Red Fork than the Lannisters fell upon him, the king’s banner be damned, and Gregor Clegane took them in the rear as they tried to pull back across the Mummer’s Ford. This Lord Derik and a few others may have escaped, but Ser Raymun was killed, and most of our men from Winterfell. What is left of the Piper forces, and this force, are scattered but they have started to bite at Lord Tywin’s forces. The men speak of some killer in the Riverlands, going about slaying Lannister men most viciously.”
He shook his head, hoarfrost in his wintry eyes. “Lord Tywin has closed off the kingsroad, it’s said, and now he’s marching north toward Harrenhal, burning as he goes. There is fire everywhere.”
Grim and grimmer, thought Catelyn. It was worse than she’d imagined. “You mean to meet him here?” she asked.
“If he comes so far, but no one thinks he will,” Robb said. “I’ve sent word to Howland Reed, Father’s old friend at Greywater Watch. If the Lannisters come up the Neck, the crannogmen will bleed them every step of the way, but Galbart Glover says Lord Tywin is too smart for that, and Roose Bolton agrees. He’ll stay close to the Trident, taking the castles of the river lords one by one, until Riverrun stands alone. We need to march south to meet him.”
The very idea of it chilled Catelyn to the bone. What chance would a fifteen-year-old boy have against seasoned battle commanders like Jaime and Tywin Lannister? “Is that wise? You are strongly placed here. It’s said that the old Kings in the North could stand at Moat Cailin and throw back hosts ten times the size of their own.”
“Yes, but our food and supplies are running low, and this is not land we can live off easily. We’ve been waiting for Lord Manderly, but now that his sons have joined us, we need to march.”
She was hearing the lords bannermen speaking with her son’s voice, she realized, but his voice was growing. Over the years, she had hosted many of them at Winterfell, and been welcomed with Ned to their own hearths and tables. She knew what sorts of men they were, each one. She wondered if Robb did.
And yet there was sense in what they said. This host her son had assembled was not a standing army such as the Free Cities were accustomed to maintain, nor a force of guardsmen paid in coin. Most of them were smallfolk: crofters, fieldhands, fishermen, sheepherders, the sons of innkeeps and traders and tanners, leavened with a smattering of sellswords and freeriders hungry for plunder. When their lords called, they came... but not forever. “Marching is all very well,” she said to her son, “but where, and to what purpose? What do you mean to do?”
Robb hesitated. “The Greatjon thinks we should take the battle to Lord Tywin and surprise him,” he said, “but the Glovers and the Karstarks feel we’d be wiser to go around his army and join up with Uncle Ser Edmure against the Kingslayer.”
Robb drew a map across the table, a ragged piece of old leather covered with lines of faded paint. One end curled up from being rolled; he weighed it down with his dagger. “Both plans have virtues, but ... look, if we try to swing around Lord Tywin’s host, we take the risk of being caught between him and the Kingslayer, and if we attack him ... by all reports, he has more men than I do, and a lot more armored horse. The Greatjon says that won’t matter if we catch him with his breeches down, but it seems to me that a man who has fought as many battles as Tywin Lannister won’t be so easily surprised.”
“Good,” she said. She could hear echoes of Ned in his voice, as he sat there, puzzling over the map. “Tell me more.”
“I’d leave a small force here to hold Moat Cailin, archers mostly, and march the rest down the causeway,” he said, “but once we’re below the Neck, I’d split our host in two. The foot can continue down the kingsroad, while our horsemen cross the Green Fork at the Twins.” He pointed. “When Lord Tywin gets word that we’ve come south, he’ll march north to engage our main host, leaving our riders free to hurry down the west bank to Riverrun.” Robb sat back, smiling coldly.
Catelyn frowned down at the map. “You’d put a river between the two parts of your army.”
“And between Jaime and Lord Tywin,” he said. “There’s no crossing on the Green Fork above the ruby ford, where Robert won his crown. Not until the Twins, all the way up here, and Lord Frey controls that bridge. He’s your father’s bannerman, isn’t that so?”
The Late Lord Frey, Catelyn thought. “He is,” she admitted, “but my father has never trusted him. Nor should you.”
“I won’t,” Robb promised. “What do you think?”
She was impressed despite herself. He looks like a Tully, she thought, yet he’s still his father’s son, and Ned taught him well. He is a wolf, meant for war and winter.
“Which force would you command?”
“The horse,” he answered at once. Again like his father; Ned would always take the more dangerous task himself.
“And the other?”
“The Greatjon is always saying that we should smash Lord Tywin,” Robb mused, “But I want cold cunning for this task, not wanton courage.”
He has learned, thought Catelyn, proud.
“Roose Bolton,” Robb decided. “The man is unnerving but cautious.”
“Then let us pray he will unnerve Tywin Lannister as well.”
Robb nodded and rolled up the map. “I’ll give the commands, and assemble an escort to take you home to Winterfell.”
Catelyn had fought to keep herself strong, for Ned’s sake and for this stubborn brave son of theirs. She had put despair and fear aside, as if they were garments she did not choose to wear... but now she saw that she had donned them after all.
“I am not going to Winterfell,” she heard herself say, surprised at the sudden rush of tears that blurred her vision. “My father may be dying behind the walls of Riverrun. My brother is surrounded by foes. I must go to them.”
Robb looked at her. “Mother,” he said softly.
“Do not make me get on my knees and beg, Robb.”
Her son sighed. “Very well, but I want you far from the fighting, and with a constant guard.” Her son was a man now, thought Catelyn.
“As you say,” she agreed.
As the host trooped down the causeway through the black bogs of the Neck and spilled out into the riverlands beyond, Catelyn’s apprehensions grew. She masked her fears behind a face kept still and stern, yet they were there all the same, growing with every league they crossed. Her days were anxious, her nights restless, and every raven that flew overhead made her clench her teeth.
She feared for her lord father, and wondered at his ominous silence. She feared for Edmure, and prayed that the gods would watch over him if he must face the Kingslayer in battle. She feared for Sansa in the lion’s den, and Ned and Arya wherever they had gone, and for the sweet sons she had left behind at Winterfell.
And yet there was nothing she could do for any of them, and so she made herself put all thought of them aside. You must save your strength for Robb, she told herself. He is the only one you can help. You must be as fierce and hard as the north, Catelyn Tully. You must be a Stark for true now, like your son.
Robb rode at the front of the column, beneath the flapping white banner of Winterfell, and with two direwolves by his side. Grey Wind was growing ever larger, thought Catelyn. Each day he would ask one of his lords to join him, so they might confer as they marched; he honored every man in turn, showing no favorites, listening as his lord father had listened, weighing the words of one against the other. He has learned so much from Ned, she thought as she watched him.
The Blackfish had taken a hundred picked men and a hundred swift horses and raced ahead to screen their movements and scout the way. Robb had sent Theon with him. Catelyn had wondered at that in private.
“Theon?”
“He is good with a bow,” said Robb, “But your uncle has much to teach him.”
The reports Ser Brynden’s riders brought back did little to reassure her. Lord Tywin’s host was still many days to the south... but Walder Frey, Lord of the Crossing, had assembled a force of near four thousand men at his castles on the Green Fork.
“Late again,” Catelyn murmured when she heard. It was the Trident all over, damn the old man. Her brother Edmure had called the banners; by rights, Lord Frey should have gone to join the Tully host at Riverrun, yet here he sat.
“Four thousand men,” Robb repeated, perplexed and angry.
She had ridden forward to join Robb and Robett Glover, his companion of the day. The vanguard spread out behind them, a slow-moving forest of lances and banners and spears. “Expect nothing of Walder Frey, and you will never be surprised.”
“He’s your father’s bannerman.” said Robb, drily.
“Some men take their oaths more seriously than others, Robb. And Lord Walder was always friendlier with Casterly Rock than my father would have liked. One of his sons is wed to Tywin Lannister’s sister. That means little of itself, to be sure. Lord Walder has sired a great many children over the years, and they must needs marry someone. Still... ”
“Do you think he means to betray us to the Lannisters, my lady?” Robett Glover asked gravely, his hand on his pommel.
Catelyn sighed. “If truth be told, I doubt even Lord Frey knows what Lord Frey intends to do. He has an old man’s caution and a young man’s ambition, and has never lacked for cunning.”
“We must have the Twins, Mother,” Robb said quietly. “There is no other way across the river. You know that.”
“Yes. And so does Walder Frey, you can be sure of that.”
That night they made camp on the southern edge of the bogs, halfway between the kingsroad and the river. It was there Theon Greyjoy brought them further word from her uncle. “Ser Brynden has crossed swords with the Lannisters. There are a dozen scouts who won’t be reporting back to Lord Tywin anytime soon. Or ever.” He grinned, blood splattered across his face. “Ser Addam Marbrand commands their outriders, and he’s pulling back south, burning as he goes. He knows where we are, more or less, but the Blackfish vows he will not know when we split.”
“Unless Lord Frey tells him,” Catelyn said sharply. “Theon, when you return to my uncle, tell him he is to place his best bowmen around the Twins, day and night, with orders to bring down any raven they see leaving the battlements. I want no birds bringing word of my son’s movements to Lord Tywin.”
“Ser Brynden has seen to it already, my lady, and mine own bow,” Theon replied with a cocky smile. “A few more blackbirds, and we should have enough to bake a pie. I’ll save you their feathers for a hat.”
She ought to have known that Brynden Blackfish would be well ahead of her. “What have the Freys been doing while the Lannisters burn their fields and plunder their holdfasts?”
“There’s been some fighting between Ser Addam’s men and Lord Walder’s,” Theon answered. “Not a day’s ride from here, we found two Lannister scouts feeding the crows where the Freys had strung them up. Most of Lord Walder’s strength remains massed at the Twins, though.”
That bore Walder Frey’s seal beyond a doubt, Catelyn thought bitterly; hold back, wait, watch, take no risk unless forced to it.
“If he’s been fighting the Lannisters, perhaps he does mean to hold to his vows,” Robb said.
Catelyn was less encouraged. “Defending his own lands is one thing, open battle against Lord Tywin quite another.”
Robb turned back to Theon Greyjoy. “Has the Blackfish found any other way across the Green Fork?”
Theon shook his head. “The river’s running high and fast. Ser Brynden says it can’t be forded, not this far north.”
“I must have that crossing!” Robb declared, cold in his anger, like his father. “Our horses might be able to swim the river, but not with armored men on their backs. We’d need to build rafts to pole our steel across, helms and mail and lances, and we don’t have the trees for that. Or the time. Lord Tywin is marching north...” He balled his hand into a fist.
“Lord Frey would be a fool to try and bar our way,” Theon Greyjoy said with his customary easy confidence. “We have five times his numbers. You can take the Twins if you need to, Robb.”
“Not easily,” he muttered, “and not in time. While we mount a siege, Tywin Lannister will bring up his host and assault us from the rear. And what would the Rivermen say? True, none hold any love for the Freys but they are Rivermen none the same.”
Smart, Catelyn thought, ready to speak those words.
Robb glanced from her to Greyjoy. He seemed a man grown now, in mail and with a sword by his side. What word he might have said, she would not know. A guard poked his head into the tent. “A man has come to see you, my lord,” he said.
“Let him in then,” Robb said. His blue eyes widened, as did hers, when he saw the scarred, grimy face of the man who entered and stood before them.
“Jory?” She asked, her heart soaring.
“How?” Robb asked, gesturing for Theon to bring the exhausted Cassel a drink.
“Lord Robb,” Jory Cassel bowed, “Lady Catelyn, Theon.” He accepted the drink gratefully, gulping it down like a man dying of thirst. One eye was scarred and blind.
“Where is…” Her voice caught in her throat. “Where is my husband? My daughter? What happened in that accursed city?”
“Sit, Jory,” Robb urged, “Tell us it all.”
“A long tale,” he warned. “Lord Stark, he was investigating Lord Jon Arryn’s death. Andrei was helping him closely, so he would know more than I do. When King Robert wanted Daenerys Targaryen dead, Lord Stark nearly stormed out of King’s Landing in rage. I hear the king was most wroth.”
That sounded like her husband, Catelyn thought. Oh, Ned.
“Littlefinger, Old Gods take that damned man, came to him when we were preparing to leave the city. Something about the investigation, I surmised. It was there that the Kingslayer attacked us.” He said grimly, his eyes haunted.
“They say Andrei fought him,” Robb said.
“They speak true,” Jory almost smiled. “It was six of us guarding Lord Stark, six to Lannister’s twenty. I saw Andrei cut down a dozen men and fight the Kingslayer to a still. Savaged him something fierce, and sent him riding away. Saved my life.”
A savage shiver of satisfaction rippled in Catelyn’s mind. “What happened then?” She urged Jory on.
“We brought Lord Stark back to the tower,” he explained. “Andrei too, the man was bleeding a sea of blood.” House Stark owes that man much.
“The King spoke to Lord Stark and made him Hand once more, and left for a hunt.”
“A hunt?” Robb asked, incredulous. Jory nodded stoically.
“After that, things happened fast, my lord. Lord Stark woke, and sat on the throne. He sent Alyn and Harwin and our men to deal with the Mountain…” From his grimace, she knew that he had heard the tales. She felt a pang of pain in her heart for all the brave men of the north who died so far from home.
“Lord Stark was preparing to send Lady Sansa and Arya back to Winterfell, by sea. Then, it all went to the seven hells. The King came back from the hunt, only he was dying. A boar had gored him fierce.”
Robert Baratheon, dead to a boar? She thought in horror and shock.
“The king was not long for the world. He spoke to Lord Stark. I know not what they said but after that, Lord Stark was grim. Grimmer than usual. When King Robert died, Lord Stark called for the Small Council to confirm him as Lord Regent.”
“What…” Robb muttered. Just what had happened in the city?
“Littlefinger,” Jory nearly spat, “Promised us the City Watch. We marched into the throne room, Lord Stark and Andrei leading us.”
Littlefinger, thought Catelyn. She remembered young Petyr Baelish in Riverrun’s halls, and the smiling man who had promised to help her husband.
“We were betrayed,” Jory said. “The Queen tore up King Robert’s will. The City Watch turned on us. It was eight of us, and Andrei and Lord Stark against the Watch, the Red Cloaks, and the Kingsguard.”
Her eyes were wide with horror. “My husband?”
Jory shook his head. “Andrei fought like a demon, my lady. He protected Lord Stark fiercely. If it were not for him…” He muttered, his eyes far away. “He pulled me aside two hours before that, dragged me into the city, muttering something about fire bombs. We bought glass bottles, you see, of wine. Stuffed them with a cloth. When the fighting started, we lit the cloth on fire and threw them.”
Robb blinked. “Where is my lord father now?”
“We were overwhelmed, my lord. Littlefinger… placed a blade at Lord Stark’s throat.”
Her vision spun and swam. Petyr? She gasped, horrified. The last she had seen him, in King’s Landing, he had smiled and bowed and promised...
“My lady, my lord,” Jory said, his eyes haunted. “Andrei… did something. Do you remember that strange device, that Maester Luwin inspected?”
Robb nodded, but Catelyn’s ears and eyes were far away.
“What of it?” Her son asked, impatient.
“It was a weapon,” said Jory, “And when Andrei wielded it, Littlefinger’s head… pardon my words, exploded like a crushed tomato.”
Her legs were weak, and she trembled. Robb rose at once, guiding her to his seat.
“It was me, and Donnis and brave, young Wyl left. The throne room was frozen in fear. We held the hallway to let Andrei and Lord Stark run. They took Wyl first, a spear to his chest. Then, Donnis, it took three men to take him. I killed four more but Ser Barristan came, and my sword flew. He did not kill me, as Joffrey wanted, but he took me alive. They threw me into the Black Cells.”
“How did you escape?” asked Robb, wonder in his voice.
Jory laughed bitterly. “I would have died there, my lord. The torturer took an eye from me, and gave me a beating fierce. It was Ser Barristan who freed me. The boy king dismissed him, him, and sent men to seize him. Fool. He killed the torturer, and led me to a horse. We rode hard. Killed men on our way out.”
“Is… Is he here?” asked Catelyn, cursing her voice.
Jory shook his head. “We parted ways after we fled King’s Landing, my lady. He rode for Maidenpool, and I thundered up the Kingsroad.”
Robb placed a hand on Jory’s shoulder. “You have rode far and fought hard, Jory. I would send you to food and bed, but I must know about my sisters.”
Jory nodded. “No one knows where Andrei and Lord Stark vanished too. When we fled, Ser Barristan mentioned that the Small Council was in a bind as well.”
Relief flooded her. Thank the gods.
“Lady Sansa…” Jory trailed off. “Ser Barristan said that she went before the court and king to beg for mercy for Lord Eddard.”
Robb grimaced. “And Arya?”
“No one knows, my lord.”
“Jory,” she said softly. “Thank you.”
He bowed deeply, shame on his face. “I should have died there… I…”
“Speak not of that,” Robb demanded. “My father would not have wanted you to die a senseless death. And you are here now, and your words have helped us much.”
Jory bowed again. The man seemed ready to collapse, thought Catelyn.
“Go,” Catelyn tried to smile. “Eat, Jory. Eat and drink and sleep. You are amongst Northerners now.”
Jory’s smile was like the sun in winter.
“Gods,” Robb muttered as Jory left. “Where could they be now? Father and Arya and Andrei? Are they together, or have they been scattered? Could they still be hiding deep in the Red Keep, or somewhere within the city…”
“That would do us no good, Robb,” she said, for her own good as well. “They are not in Cersei Lannister’s paws. That is good enough as it is.”
Robb looked at her with shining blue eyes. “Aye, you have the right of it, Mother.”
The next morning it was Ser Brynden Tully himself who rode back to them. He had put aside the heavy plate and helm he’d worn as the Knight of the Gate for the lighter leather-and-mail of an outrider, but his obsidian fish still fastened his cloak.
Her uncle’s face was grave as he swung down off his horse. “There has been a battle under the walls of Riverrun,” he said, his mouth grim. “We had it from a Lannister outrider we took captive. The Kingslayer has destroyed Edmure’s host and sent the lords of the Trident reeling in flight.”
A cold hand clutched at Catelyn’s heart. “And my brother?”
“Wounded and taken prisoner,” Ser Brynden said. “Lord Blackwood and the other survivors are under siege inside Riverrun, surrounded by Jaime’s host.”
Robb growled. “We must get across this accursed river if we’re to have any hope of relieving them in time.”
“That will not be easily done,” her uncle cautioned. “Lord Frey has pulled his whole strength back inside his castles, and his gates are closed and barred.”
Robb closed his eyes. Behind him, Grey Wind growled but the mother wolf snapped her jaws at him and he went silent.
“The Freys have held the crossing for six hundred years, and for six hundred years they have never failed to exact their toll,” Robb said. “We must find out what he wants.”
It was near midday when their vanguard came in sight of the Twins, where the Lords of the Crossing had their seat. The Green Fork ran swift and deep here, but the Freys had spanned it many centuries past and grown rich off the coin men paid them to cross. Their bridge was a massive arch of smooth grey rock, wide enough for two wagons to pass abreast; the Water Tower rose from the center of the span, commanding both road and river with its arrow slits, murder holes, and portcullises. It had taken the Freys three generations to complete their bridge; when they were done they’d thrown up stout timber keeps on either bank, so no one might cross without their leave. The timber had long since given way to stone.
The Twins—two squat, ugly, formidable castles, identical in every respect, with the bridge arching between—had guarded the crossing for centuries. High curtain walls, deep moats, and heavy oak-and-iron gates protected the approaches, the bridge footings rose from within stout inner keeps, there was a barbican and portcullis on either bank, and the Water Tower defended the span itself.
One glance was sufficient to tell Catelyn that the castle would not be taken by storm. The battlements bristled with spears and swords and scorpions, there was an archer at every crenel and arrow slit, the drawbridge was up, the portcullis down, the gates closed and barred. The Greatjon began to curse and swear as soon as he saw what awaited them. Lord Rickard Karstark glowered in silence. “That cannot be assaulted, my lords,” Roose Bolton announced.
“Nor can we take it by siege, without an army on the far bank to invest the other castle,” Helman Tallhart said gloomily. Across the deep-running green waters, the western twin stood like a reflection of its eastern brother. “Even if we had the time. Which, to be sure, we do not.”
As the northern lords studied the castle, a sally port opened, a plank bridge slid across the moat, and a dozen knights rode forth to confront them, led by four of Lord Walder’s many sons. Their banner bore twin towers, dark blue on a field of pale silver-grey. Ser Stevron Frey, Lord Walder’s heir, spoke for them. The Freys all looked like weasels; Ser Stevron, past sixty with grandchildren of his own, looked like an especially old and tired weasel, yet he was polite enough. “My lord father has sent me to greet you, and inquire as to who leads this mighty host.”
“I do.” Robb spurred his horse forward. He was in his armor, with the direwolf shield of Winterfell strapped to his saddle. Grey Wind padded by his left, and the mother wolf on his right. In his furs and with the wolves, Catelyn thought, her son was the North in all of its wintry fury.
The old knight looked at her son with a faint flicker of amusement in his watery grey eyes, though his gelding whickered uneasily and sidled away from the direwolves. “My lord father would be most honored if you would share meat and mead with him in the castle and explain your purpose here.”
His words crashed among the lords bannermen like a great stone from a catapult. Not one of them approved. They cursed, argued, shouted down each other.
“You must not do this, my lord,” Galbart Glover pleaded with Robb. “Lord Walder is not to be trusted.”
Roose Bolton nodded. “Go in there alone and you’re his. He can sell you to the Lannisters, throw you in a dungeon, or slit your throat, as he likes.”
“If he wants to talk to us, let him open his gates, and we will all share his meat and mead,” declared Ser Wendel Manderly.
“Or let him come out and treat with Robb here, in plain sight of his men and ours,” suggested his brother, Ser Wylis.
Catelyn Stark shared all their doubts, but she had only to glance at Ser Stevron to see that he was not pleased by what he was hearing. A few more words and the chance would be lost. She had to act, and quickly.
“Very well,” Robb said. Her tongue caught in her mouth. “Yet, I am remiss to go in without heraldry to greet your father as he deserves.” He glanced at Catelyn, and at the wolves. “The direwolf is the sigil of my house, and my mother is daughter to your liege. Surely, Lord Walder will not oppose to their presence?”
Ser Stevron’s face was stiff. “I am certain my lord father would be pleased to speak to the Lady Catelyn and you, my lord,” Ser Stevron said. “To vouchsafe for our good intentions, my brother Ser Perwyn will remain here.”
“He shall be our honored guest,” said Robb. Ser Perwyn, the youngest of the four Freys in the party, dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to a brother.
Catelyn spurred her horse forward and did not look back, following her son’s lead. Lord Walder’s sons and envoys fell in around her.
Her father had once said of Walder Frey that he was the only lord in the Seven Kingdoms who could field an army out of his breeches. When the Lord of the Crossing welcomed Catelyn in the great hall of the east castle, surrounded by twenty living sons , thirty-six grandsons, nineteen great-grandsons, and numerous daughters, granddaughters, bastards, and grandbastards, she understood just what he had meant. Lord Walder was ninety, a wizened pink weasel with a bald spotted head, too gouty to stand unassisted. His newest wife, a pale frail girl of sixteen years, walked beside his litter when they carried him in. She was the eighth Lady Frey.
“My lord of Frey,” Robb said coldly, his wolves still by his side.
The old man squinted at him suspiciously. “Direwolves, heh. Why are you here, and you too, my lady?”
Catelyn had been a girl the last time she had visited the Twins, but even then Lord Walder had been irascible, sharp of tongue, and blunt of manner. Age had made him worse than ever, it would seem.
“Father,” Ser Stevron said reproachfully, “you forget yourself. Lady Stark is here at your invitation.”
“Did I ask you? You are not Lord Frey yet, not until I die. Do I look dead? I’ll hear no instructions from you.”
“This is no way to speak in front of our noble guest, Father,” one of his younger sons said.
“Now my bastards presume to teach me courtesy,” Lord Walder complained. “I’ll speak any way I like, damn you. I’ve had three kings to guest in my life, and queens as well, do you think I require lessons from the likes of you, Ryger? Your mother was milking goats the first time I gave her my seed.” He dismissed the red-faced youth with a flick of his fingers and gestured to two of his other sons. “Danwell, Whalen, help me to my chair.”
They shifted Lord Walder from his litter and carried him to the high seat of the Freys, a tall chair of black oak whose back was carved in the shape of two towers linked by a bridge. His young wife crept up timidly and covered his legs with a blanket. When he was settled, the old man beckoned Catelyn forward and planted a papery dry kiss on her hand. “There,” he announced. “Now that I have observed the courtesies, my lady, perhaps my sons will do me the honor of shutting their mouths. Why are you here?”
Robb did not move from his position. “To ask you to open your gates, my lord,” Catelyn replied politely.
“To Riverrun?” He sniggered. “Oh, no need to tell me, no need. I’m not blind yet. The old man can still read a map.”
“To Riverrun,” Catelyn confirmed. She saw no reason to deny it. “Where I might have expected to find you, my lord. You are still my father’s bannerman, are you not?”
“Heh,” said Lord Walder, a noise halfway between a laugh and a grunt. “I called my swords, yes I did, here they are, you saw them on the walls. It was my intent to march as soon as all my strength was assembled. Well, to send my sons. I am well past marching myself, Lady Catelyn.” He looked around for likely confirmation and pointed to a tall, stooped man of fifty years. “Tell her, Jared. Tell her that was my intent.”
“It was, my lady,” said Ser Jared Frey, one of his sons by his second wife. “On my honor.”
“We do not doubt your honour, Lord Frey,” Robb said, coolly.
“Is it my fault that your fool brother lost his battle before we could march?” He leaned back against his cushions and scowled at her, as if challenging her to dispute his version of events. “I am told the Lannisters went through his forces like an axe through ripe cheese. Why should my boys hurry south to die? All those who did go south are running north again.”
Catelyn would gladly have spitted the querulous old man and roasted him over a fire, but they had only till evenfall to open the bridge. Calmly, she said, “All the more reason that we must reach Riverrun, and soon. Where can we go to talk, my lord?”
We’re talking now,” Lord Frey complained. The spotted pink head snapped around. “What are you all looking at?” he shouted at his kin. “Get out of here. Lady Stark wants to speak to me in private. Might be she has designs on my fidelity, heh.”
The mother wolf was snarling quietly now but calmed when Robb placed a hand upon her head.
“Go, all of you, find something useful to do. Yes, you too, woman. Out, out, out.” As his sons and grandsons and daughters and bastards and nieces and nephews streamed from the hall, he leaned close to Catelyn and confessed, “They’re all waiting for me to die. Stevron’s been waiting for forty years, but I keep disappointing him. Heh. Why should I die just so he can be a lord? I ask you. I won’t do it.”
“I have every hope that you will live to be a hundred.”
“That would boil them, to be sure. Oh, to be sure. Now, what do you want to say?”
“We want to cross,” Robb told him.
Walder Frey turned to him. “Oh, do you? That’s blunt. Why should I let you?”
For a moment her anger flared. “If you were strong enough to climb your own battlements, Lord Frey, you would see that twenty thousand men outside your walls.”
“They’ll be twenty thousand fresh corpses when Lord Tywin gets here,” the old man shot back. “Don’t you try and frighten me, my lady. Your husband’s vanished, your father’s sick, might be dying, and Jaime Lannister’s got your brother in chains. What do you have that I should fear? That son of yours, glaring at me there? I’ll match you son for son, and I’ll still have eighteen when yours are all dead.”
“Match, my lord?” Robb said, his voice was as cold as winter. Grey Wind was growling now, and the mother wolf did not stop him. Walder Frey tried to give the beasts a contemptuous glare but she saw fear in his eyes.
“You swore an oath to my father,” Catelyn reminded him.
He bobbed his head side to side, smiling a strained smile. “Oh, yes, I said some words, but I swore oaths to the crown too, it seems to me. Joffrey’s the king now, and that makes you and your boy and all those fools out there no better than rebels. If I had the sense the gods gave a fish, I’d help the Lannisters boil you all.”
“Why don’t you?” she challenged him.
Lord Walder snorted with disdain. “Lord Tywin the proud and splendid, Warden of the West, Hand of the King, oh, what a great man that one is, him and his gold this and gold that and lions here and lions there. I’ll wager you, he eats too many beans, he breaks wind just like me, but you’ll never hear him admit it, oh, no. What’s he got to be so puffed up about anyway? Only two sons and one of them’s a twisted little monster. I’ll match him son for son, and I’ll still have nineteen and a half left when all of his are dead!” He cackled. “If Lord Tywin wants my help, he can bloody well ask for it.”
That was all Catelyn needed to hear. “I am asking for your help, my lord,” she said humbly. “And my father and my brother and my lord husband and my daughters are asking with my voice.” She gave Robb a look. He understood.
“Aye,” Robb agreed. “The North is asking for your help, Lord Frey, as is the Riverlands.”
Lord Walder jabbed a bony finger at her face. “Save your sweet words, my lady. Sweet words I get from my wife. Did you see her? Sixteen she is, a little flower, and her honey’s only for me. I wager she gives me a son by this time next year. Perhaps I’ll make him heir, wouldn’t that boil the rest of them? You say you want to cross the river?”
“We do.”
“Well, you can’t!” Lord Walder announced crisply. “Not unless I allow it, and why should I? The Tullys and the Starks have never been friends of mine.” He pushed himself back in his chair and crossed his arms, smirking, waiting for her answer.
Robb spoke for her. “And here we are, asking for a hand in friendship. And as friends, I believe the North and the Twins can help each other aplenty.”
“Can they?” Lord Walder asked greedily. “Will you help me get rid of a daughter, then? You are unwed, young wolf, last I hear.”
Robb smiled thinly. “And so is Lord Edmure.” Catelyn glanced at her son.
“That flop of a fish? Heh, he’s a prisoner, is he not?”
“Aye,” Robb nodded. “And he shall be most grateful when the North and the Twins free him from the lion’s gilded cage.”
Lord Walder laughed. “A daughter for Edmure. A daughter for you. A son for one of your daughters. A squire for you, and two boys to foster at Winterfell.”
“My lord husband is Lord of Winterfell,” Catelyn reminded, “He has plans of marriage for our children.” And my daughters are not yet safe.
Robb smiled thinly with cold eyes. “I will take a son of yours as squire, my lord, and Winterfell shall raise two more of your sons.”
Walder Frey waved a hand. “So be it, then.”
A swollen red sun hung low against the western hills when the gates of the castle opened. The drawbridge creaked down, the portcullis winched up, and Lady Catelyn Stark rode forth with her son to join their lords bannermen. Behind her came Ser Jared Frey, Ser Hosteen Frey, Ser Danwell Frey, and Lord Walder’s bastard son Ronel Rivers, leading a long column of pikemen, rank on rank of shuffling men in blue steel ringmail and silvery grey cloaks.
They crossed at evenfall as a horned moon floated upon the river. The double column wound its way through the gate of the eastern twin like a great steel snake, slithering across the courtyard, into the keep and over the bridge, to issue forth once more from the second castle on the west bank.
Catelyn rode at the head of the serpent, with her son and her uncle Ser Brynden and Ser Stevron Frey. Behind followed nine tenths of their horse; knights, lancers, freeriders, and mounted bowmen. It took hours for them all to cross.
Afterward, Catelyn would remember the clatter of countless hooves on the drawbridge, the sight of Lord Walder Frey in his litter watching them pass, the glitter of eyes peering down through the slats of the murder holes in the ceiling as they rode through the Water Tower. The larger part of the northern host, pikes and archers and great masses of men-at-arms on foot, remained upon the east bank under the command of Roose Bolton. Robb had commanded him to continue the march south, to confront the huge Lannister army coming north under Lord Tywin.
For good or ill, her son had thrown the dice.
Ned, she wondered, where are you?
All the horrors and betrayals coiled in her gut; the smile of a young Petyr Baelish, still a ward at Riverrun. She tried to imagine the man, holding a knife to her husband, her brave, honourable husband. She felt her heart shatter, and turn to stone.
He is dead to me, she decided, I will kill him with my own hands if he were not dead.
She prayed to the Father for justice and Ned, she prayed to the Maiden for mercy and her daughters, and she prayed to the Warrior for victory and her son.
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 55, 59
westeros really needs emails...
that said, I wrote some short omakes featuring conversations between the party members and certain characters from the series. Victarion and Andrei was the first pair. Wondering what other pairs to use. Open to suggestions...
Chapter 36: The Garden of the Gods
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“I want that one,” snarled the white wolf.
“A fine choice, brother,” the hunter chuckled dryly, his eyes to the north.
“What of you, love?” The Earth Mother asked gently.
“One of the wild,” the King of Nature decided.
“How fitting,” the trickster sniffed. “I, myself, enjoy what passes as civilisation here.”
“Of course,” scoffed the eagle. “What passes as honor here is nought but lies and honeyed words, fitting for the false lady than the path of the sun. And war here is butchery.”
“It is terrible,” wept her sister, the dove. “The people, the children, the women. The path of mercy is seldom walked here.”
“Nor the path of wisdom,” whispered the owl, shielding the eyes of the dove. “Nor the path of justice. Seven faces this god of theirs has, and fourteen blind eyes.”
“Blind,” rasped the raven. “Blind to what is to come. Blind to what has come.”
“You have been quiet, king of storms,” the cat offered, breaking the silence.
“There are others beneath the sea,” rumbled He of The Waves. “These men, born of iron, feed something dark with blood and salt.”
“As they do on land,” the lady of the sun said, with righteous fury. “They feed the Blood God with every senseless slaughter, with every butchery.”
“War is primal,” agreed the wolf, “with savagery but this is the delight of the Prince of Excess.”
“I like not the lives of the masses,” the dove cried. “The Fly Lord will claim them with his green hand if this continues.”
“As will the Architect of Fate,” whispered the owl.
“We are in agreement, then?” The trickster said lightly.
“We are,” came the chorus of voices, each divine and distant.
“The Young Wolf,” growled the winter lord. “He is of war, he is the blood of winter, and he runs with the wolves. None else shall claim him.”
“None else shall have him, brother,” the King of the Forest shook his head. “I am undecided but my hunt shall be to the north, beyond the wilds.”
“My sight is not as far as my husband’s,” declared the mother. “I have chosen mine.”
“These waters are bloody,” grumbled the lord of the sea. “Mine will be of the water, unlikely to be one of yours.”
“You all know well my choice,” laughed the black cat. “From the iron to the gold.”
“Again, we work in tandem,” the dove finally smiled. “Mercy is seldom chosen in this land. Compassion is rarely offered. I shall sing to the maiden of mercy.”
“I am happy for you, sister,” the eagle grunted. “I have one of mine walking the land, along with the singer.”
“Is this land so barren of choice?” the cat wondered.
“Not for thieves and warriors,” the eagle scoffed, “but for the honorable warrior, for one who can stand for civilisation, art, beauty? I have yet to find one worthy.”
“Too many strictures,” muttered the white wolf.
“What was that, you old wolf?”
The lord of war bared his fangs. “My axe and your spear,” he challenged. “Or my champion and yours. Better, both at the same time.”
“Brother,” groaned the lord of the wilds.
“Sister,” muttered the lady in white.
“Enough,” the Blind Justice shook her head, placing a silver scale before them. “They are coming, and you choose to war amongst each other now?”
“We will not be alone,” came the word of death on the wind. “The winged wolf will fly with black roses.”
“Justice and wisdom,” the owl said, glancing at the imbalanced scale. “There are few on this realm with both. There are those with iron justice, and there are those with gilded wisdom. Yet, I find none that can stand for both.”
“For now,” the raven declared. “Until the death.”
“As you say,” the owl relented.
“We will not be alone, you say,” the mother mused. “Where is the bear?”
“In slumber,” the wolf huffed. “He has his chosen. He slumbers in the snow for now.”
“Why, I thought snow is your domain,” said the cat playfully. The wolf growled.
“What of the maiden in those ponds to the west, distributing swords?” The hunter wondered.
“Her ilk have their eyes on other wonders,” said the owl. “As with the ones of the mountains.”
“An old fire has awakened,” warned the raven. “We are not the last.”
“What about him?” The eagle wondered, eying the twin-tailed comet in the sky.
“Look where the comet soars,” the winter wolf chuckled. “There is your answer.”
“There is something troubling,” the hunter murmured. “Something unlike us. Something ravenous and hungry. I shall range far and wild, and gaze upon it myself.”
“What about the bloody-handed,” the eagle said coldly.
“I am not all-seeing,” whispered the owl, who sees all. “Ever since mankind committed the first murder, He has seized the hearts of men with his bloody hand.”
“It would be a trouble,” muttered the cat, losing his smile. “I like him not. And nine’s a crowd as it is already, and one more slumbers, and one soars in the sky. We do not need twenty-two.”
“Nor do I,” whispered Mercy. “Enough blood will be spilled here without his coming.”
“It may be that the choice is not in our hands,” announced the raven.
The garden shivered now; old, dark trees swaying in the wind. The watchful face on the white trees opened its eyes, weeping with red sap. And from the rustling of the leaves, and the rushing of the stream, came the song of the stones and the soil, and of the old.
“You who have called us here,” the wolf demanded. “Speak.”
“Yes,” agreed the cat. “Sing us this song you have mentioned. This song of ice and fire.”
“And do it swiftly,” said the eagle, already soaring. Golden light glimmered from her wings.
“But do it well,” the owl whispered. “There is ill wisdom in blind haste.”
“All mothers agree,” the mother of the gods agreed.
“The seas are rumbling, gods of the old lands,” the storm king muttered.
“And I must weep for the maidens and the children,” said the dove sternly.
“I must hunt,” growled the hunter. “So let us be done with this.”
“Speak now,” quoth the raven. “Or do so nevermore.”
And the weirwood tree opened its mouth, and it spoke.
Notes:
Whether you view this as omake or canon, dear reader, I leave it entirely to you...
I put this together on a whim, thanks to the inspiration by IronZealot196.
Enjoy this conversation that mortal men were never meant to hear!
Chapter 37: Appendix
Notes:
I would just like to give a quick thank you to all the readers, be it those who have been following for some time or if you have just discovered it through Spacebattles or what not. All the kudos and comments I get are really motivating. Already, I enjoy writing this fic because I really do love both settings and the response I get really fuels and encourages me. In fact, the main reason why I started running my campaign was to create a long-running narrative to 'avert' the End Times. Quick shoutout to one of my players, momijibun, who plays Gunther, and is writing a story based on the travels of our party and it can be read at Erstes Licht: A Self-Indulgent Five Year Plan to Avert the End Times
Considering there are many readers who are here primarily from the side of ASOIAF, as well as the backstories of the characters and the growing influence of the Warhammer Fantasy Gods, I wanted to put together a quick information summary, of sorts, to help keep track of all the names and information and such!
Chapter Text
The Party
I would just like to point out that there are aspects of their backstories that are not yet revealed or expanded upon even in the ongoing campaign. Moreover, there are parts of their past that they are unlikely to share to the people of ASOIAF or think about. For information that might/will appear in the future of the fic, I will put a [?].
Name: Andrei Yeltska
Age: 38
Nationality: Kislev (Nomadic Ungol)
Former Occupation: Kossar [From 18 to about 37]
Family: Mother died in childbirth. Never knew his father.
Faith: Ursun primarily. Salyak, Dazh, Tor to a lesser degree.
Backstory: Andrei was born into one of the many nomadic Ungol tribes of Kislev, and his birth came with the death of his mother. His father was never known to him, and he assumed that the man simply died somewhere. As a result, he was a troubled, violent child, even for the standards of the Ungols. By 18, he left the tribe and joined the Kossars, riding for Erengrad, Kislev’s main port city. It was during his training that he met Dmitri, a Gospodar.
The two became friends and comrades, with Dmitri being the one to help ‘civilise’ the wild Andrei. For close to twenty years, Andrei served with the Kossars, patrolling the oblasts of Kislev, rotating through the cities of the Motherland, and fighting all the dark foes of Men; Greenskins, Beastmen, Northmen, Chaos Warriors, Trolls, Dark Elves and more. By 37, he had grown into a jaded, tired veteran. And in his last battle, he was commanded to burn a stanista accused of heresy. He left, instead. Riding away, he found coin and food as a mercenary in the Empire before meeting the party at Ubersreik.
Name: Folke Eiser [No longer a POV Character, but still relevant]
Age: 32
Nationality: Nordland, the Empire
Former Occupation: Handgunner in the Nordland State Troops [From 18 to 30]
Family: A wife, Sol, and a young son, Aver.
Faith: Primarily Ulric and Taal.
Backstory: Folke grew up in Kiepford, one of the many coastal towns along the cold coast of Nordland, forever guarding the Empire from the longships of Norsca. Kiepford was a military outpost that grew into a village, then a town, and Folke grew up with soldiers and soldiers’ sons. His father was a hunter, and so it was no surprise that he joined up with the army when he was a man. The only cheer that came through Kiepford was a travelling troupe of singers, actors and performers, and it was here he met Sol.
Through his many tours across the Empire, he eventually met Sol again and the two fell in love. She moved back to Kiepford while he was determined to serve through the rest of his time swiftly and settle down. After his last battle with the State Troops, he returned home to find Kiepford burned, sacked and ruined. Folke Eiser died that day, and a broken, haunted man left. He spent time as a bounty hunter, roaming across the Empire before eventually meeting the party at Ubersreik.
Name: Lucia
Age: 24
Nationality: Magritta, Estalia
Former Occupation: Gang Leader. Bandit Leader [From childhood to about 23]
Family: Lucia is a bastard. Her mother was a prostitute. Her father was a renowned general and head of a wealthy family in Magritta, the Aguilar Family.
Faith: Myrmidia.
Backstory: Lucia was born the bastard daughter of a Magrittan noble and general, impregnated on a common prostitute. For the first few years of her life, money flowed from him to support them until it stopped. Lucia grew up as a violent street urchin, then a street brawler, and ended up fighting in the fighting pits of Magritta where she met various other youths, Amador being one of them. After one of the many petty gang wars they fought in, Lucia returned ‘home’ to find her mother dead from a pox.
Soon after, Lucia attempts to raid the Archecclesiatium of Magritta but she meets a former gladiator, Pythus, who ends up training her in the ways of Myrmidia. Torn between two loyalties, she leads a splinter group away from Magritta. Her men and her form the Hounds of Cantabrio, bandits plaguing the road to steal from the rich and give to the poor. More people join them; Jacomo, a wild-eyed Imperial, and Veronique, a disgraced Bretonnian. Eventually, the Hounds fell apart. Three betrayals, Lucia felt that day; from Amador’s daggers, Jacomo’s mace and Veronique’s arrow. She was left for dead, and would have died, if Lorenzo had not passed by the forest she was in.
Name: Lorenzo ‘Voceleste’ Seasinger
Age: 23
Nationality: Luccini, Tilea
Former Occupation: Court bard [From 18 to 20]
Family: None.
Faith: All.
Backstory: An unnamed boy grew up in a [REDACTED] in [REDACTED]. His mother was never known, nor his father. [REDACTED] was burnt and sacked when he was still a boy by a group of bandits. They found the young boy singing amidst the fire. Niccolo, the old, savvy leader of the bandits decided to take the boy in out of amusement. The boy was clever, and took to the world and all lessons with a vigour. The bandits grew to enjoy him, but Niccolo knew that the bandit’s life was not for him. And so, they bid him farewell at the gates of fair Luccini. And stealing the name of the Prince of Luccini, the boy was named Lorenzo.
Lorenzo made a name for himself, singing along the streets of Luccini. His talent grew, as did his name and he was hired by various merchants, nobles before being recognised by Lorenzo Lupo himself. He became Lupo’s court bard, singing to the tune of the deadliest stage of politics in the land. A scandal forced the young Lorenzo to flee for his life, where he was sheltered by Shallyans for a time, and he spent his time learning from them. Eventually, the bard knew his purpose. He boarded a ship, leaving Tilea behind. Landing in Estalia, he found a dying Lucia in the Sombra Woods and brought her back to life. From there, the pair wandered through Bretonnia before, as per Lorenzo’s request, they arrived in Ubersreik where the party was formed.
Name: Gunther
Age: 20
Nationality: Nuln, the Empire
Former Occupation: Thief [From 14 to about 19]
Family: Father. Mother. An older brother, Erich. An older sister, Eva. A younger brother, Kristoff. A younger sister, Klara. Gunther is the middle child.
Faith: Ranald. (He was not so devout when he was younger but now…)
Backstory: Gunther grew up with a comfortable life. His family was upper middle-class, his father worked in a prestigious foundry in Nuln and his mother served new nobility. Erich, who all thought would take over the father, left to join the State Troops. And not too long after, tragedy struck. Accusations of thievery caused the father to lose his job, and his hands and reputation. The mother lost her job as well, and was forced to become a washerwoman. In this climate, Eva, ever wilful, decided to leave the family to pursue her dreams of becoming a bard. Gunther’s father became a broken husk of a man, his mother grew bitter, and he was forced to become a thief to support them, and his two younger siblings.
He fell in with the Schatzenheimer Family, working as a thief for the gang. It was here that he met the few people he would call acquaintances. Hans, an enforcer for the Family. Randolph, a fence and information broker who gave Gunther his tasks, and his sister, Ida, who helped to run the tavern they used as a front. Viola, a prostitute that Hans frequented and Gunther befriended. All fell apart amidst a sudden bloody gang war with a Tilean crime family, the Valentinas, provoked by a failed heist that Gunther and Hans were in. Gunther was forced to flee Nuln in the night, leaving his family behind. Ubersreik was not too far away, and it was there that he met the party.
If you are interested to read their story back in the Old World, feel free to click on the link. It is a wonderful narrative expansion based on the ongoing campaign that I am DMing. I hope this helps to make these characters’ backstory easier to understand!
The Gods
With the rising presence of the gods of Warhammer Fantasy, I wanted to make a list to help understand them and their many names a lot easier.
Ulric is the God of War, Winter and Wolves. He is the primal, savage might of winter, of the howling of wolves in the night forest. He is the Winter God, and the Lord of Battle. He is the Lord of Predators, the Snow King and the patron of warriors. He is often represented by white wolves and white fire. He is the brother to Taal.
Rhya is Goddess of Fertility, Motherhood and Nature. She is the Earth Mother, who watches over harvests and the fields. She is the Bountiful, who watches over the valleys and the mothers. She is Taal’s Wife and the Summer Queen, and is often represented by does, nude statues and a motherly woman with a crown of wheat.
Taal is the God of Beasts and Forest, the King of the Hunt and the Lord of the Wild. He is the Father of Rivers, the All-Father and the Master of Nature. His domain is the wild, his devout the hunter, and his is the primal majesty of the forest. He is represented by the Great Stag, or a hunter, and together with Rhya, they form the Coil of Life.
Manann is the God of the Sea and Tides. He is the Master of the Maelstrom and the King of Storms. He is the Lord of the Ocean, volatile and unpredictable; powerful and ferocious yet capable of tender beneficience. He is represented by an albatross, or a crowned man with a trident, and ships and water. He is the son of Rhya and Taal.
Morr is the God of Death, Dreams and Prophecy. He is King Death and the Father of Crows, the eternal enemy of the Undead. He is the Watcher of the Garden, protector of dreams and the guardian of the souls of the departed. He is often represented by ravens, black roses, and a skeletal figure in a black robe and hood. He is the husband of Verena.
These first five are the Old Gods of the Pantheon; primal, old beings that represent aspects of the natural world. The following four are the New Gods of the Pantheon, fundamentally tied to mankind.
Verena is the Goddess of Learning and Justice, the Lady of Wisdom and Knowledge. She is the Judge and the Just, the Balancer of the Scales. She is the Patron of Scribes and the Delver Into The Past, the Keeper of Lore. She is often represented by the owl or a blind maiden holding a scale. She is the wife of Morr.
Shallya is the Goddess of Mercy, Healing and Compassion. She is the White Dove of Mercy whose wings flutter over a world in need, and the Lady in White, whose golden tears shall embrace the world with love. She is often represented by a maiden in white robes, or snow white doves. Shallya and Myrmida are the daughters of Morr and Verena.
Myrmidia is the Goddess of Honourable War, Strategy and Civilisation. She is the Patronness of Battle, who watches over all soldiers. She is the Queen of Muses and the Mother of Invention, the visionary of art and war. She is known as the Eagle, and is often associated with light and the sun.
Ranald is the God of Luck, Freedom and Thieves. He is the Dealer, worshipped by thieves and merchants. He is the Deceiver, worshipped by tricksters, and the Night Prowler for all rogues. He is the Liberator, the divine symbol of freedom from tyranny. He is often represented by cats, and associated with coins and dice.
Then, you have the Gods of Law; older beings that were once ancient entities of pure Order. They are now a spent force and their pantheon remains unfathomable.
Solkan is the God of Law and Light, and of Vengeance and Fire. He is the Avenger and the Merciless, the Fire of Vengeance and the Fist of Retribution. He is the most popular of the Gods of Law now, a belief largely constrained to the realms of Tilea and Estalia.
Then, you have the various patron gods of the various realms of men.
Ursun is the Father Bear of Kislev, and the god of strength and fatherhood. He is the patron of the Tzardom of Kislev. A fierce powerful figure who demands of his people courage and strength. There are other gods of Kislev as well, chief amongst them; Salyak, the goddess of mercy, Dazh, the god of the sun, Tor, the god of lightning and storm.
Sigmar is the God of the Empire, the unificator of men and the embodiment of the spread of civilization. He is the God-King, and the divine protector, of the Empire of Man whose light and strength shall cleanse this world of corruption and chaos. He is often represented by the Twin-Tailed Comet, the Golden Hammer, and the Gryphon.
There are many other gods such as Bretonnia’s Lady, the pantheons of the Dwarfs and Elves but since they are not that important to the story for now, I shall not mention them. Hope this is useful!
Chapter 38: Andrei VII
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Lord Stark.”
“Lord Stannis,” Ned greeted.
The man before them was tall, broad-shouldered and sinewy, close to his own height. He had dark blue eyes and a heavy brow and a mouth not used to smiling. It was a mouth for frowning and barked commands aboard ships or during battles. There was a tightness to his face, like cured leather, and only the fringes of hair gathered atop his head, like the shadow of a crown. This man is iron, thought Andrei.
“Your travel has been perilous,” Stannis Baratheon stated bluntly.
“It has,” Eddard agreed with a grimace.
“Two men on a rowboat, a fisherman’s boat. How is it that you paddled away from King’s Landing?”
“I did not,” Eddard Stark nodded at Andrei. “It was his arms and axe that carried me here.”
Stern eyes glanced at him. Andrei held himself sturdy, almost hearing the shouting of strict, angry sergeants. “You have done your lord a great duty,” Lord Stannis said.
Andrei only nodded.
“A duty that will bring change to the realm,” whispered the red woman, her voice low and throbbing like the crackling fire by her. She had been so silent that Andrei had almost forgotten her presence. “Like a cleansing flame,” she whispered. A priestess, he knew at once by the fervour in her voice.
They were in a great round chamber, its walls hewn from bare black stone. Four tall narrow windows pierced the gloom, each gazing to a different corner of the world. At the room’s heart was a massive slab of carved wood. It was more than fifty feet long, perhaps half that wide at its widest point, but less than four feet across at its narrowest. On its surface were painted the Seven Kingdoms; rivers and mountains, castles and cities, lakes and forests.
Stannis Baratheon’s face was unreadable, his shadow stretching long in the firelight. He glanced at her briefly before turning back to Ned.
“Speak, Lord Eddard.”
The priestess rose, gliding towards them with unnatural elegance. Her robes trailed behind her like tails of fire. In her hands was a smooth cup of red, which she offered with a slow bow, low enough that the firelight played across the curve of her chest.
“My thanks,” Eddard said stiffly, drinking deeply from the cup.
There was another cup in her hands and she sauntered towards him. Her red eyes peered into his and she stared at him curiously. He stared back but accepted her drink. Behind her, he could see Stannis Baratheon clenching his jaw.
Lord Eddard spoke, the whole tale as it were. From the letter of Lysa Arryn to the Kingslayer’s attack on them by the brothel. When mention was made of the book, Stannis scowled.
“I know the book well,” he said darkly. “I perused it with Lord Arryn before his demise. The King’s Great Matter, we named it, in fear of the ears within the walls.”
“And I read that book well,” Ned replied, his face solemn. “When at last I realised, I made to send my daughters home. But…”
“Robert died,” Stannis said coldly.
Ned swallowed. “He came back from his hunt, gored by a boar.”
Stannis glared at the fire. His gaze was gloomy and furious. “Continue,” he bit out.
“I meant to send you a letter,” Ned explained. “I had arranged for my daughters to be sent north by ship, and it would have docked at Dragonstone.”
“But Cersei struck first.”
“She did, the gods curse her, she did,” Ned paused. “You suspected the matter already then?”
“I did,” Stannis turned his gaze to the sea, storming and raging beyond the docks. “I had my suspicions. I brought them to Jon Arryn and we investigated them.”
“Robert’s bastards,” Eddard said, hesitatingly.
“Black of hair, each one, and blue of eyes. And not a soul in King’s Landing could tell. Perhaps, they did. Secrets are worth more than steel and silver in that city, my knight of onions told me once.”
Eddard closed his eyes.
“How is it that you fled?” Stannis asked brusquely.
Andrei frowned, as did Ned. “We marched into the throne room,” Eddard Stark explained, “With the City Watch. Littlefinger’s promised aid.” He said bitterly.
“Littlefinger,” Stannis spat. “You trusted that flesh peddler?”
“It was my wife’s insistence,” Ned said stiffly.
“Your wife was wrong, and this matter of capturing and releasing the Imp,” Stannis ground his teeth, his eyes darkening with fury. “What do you have to say to that, Lord Stark?”
Eddard grimaced. “She believed he hired a catspaw to kill my son, Bran.”
“And who led you to believe this?” The red woman asked in a melodious voice.
“Baelish,” Ned said, closing his eyes.
Stannis rose. “He will have his due.”
Eddard smiled wanly. “He already has.”
Stannis turned his iron gaze onto the Lord of Winterfell. “Explain.”
Eddard glanced at him. Andrei stood forward. “He hold dagger to Lord Stark neck,” Andrei said flatly. “I kill him.” That was a good killing, he thought.
Stannis’ lips twitched slightly. “Good.” The hard man blinked once, and again, and looked at the red priestess, who only smiled.
“The mockingbird crushed in the bear’s paws,” Melisandre said confidently.
Andrei was growing tired of prophecies. Lorenzo was bad enough. He did not fancy a singer of fire along with a singer of the sea. Stannis ignored her.
“The throne is mine, as Robert’s heir,” he declared, “That is law. I have a duty to the realm. Even to Robert. He loved me but little, I know, yet he was my brother. The Lannister woman gave him horns and made a motley fool of him. She may have murdered him as well, as she murdered Jon Arryn. For such crimes there must be justice. Starting with Cersei and her abominations. But only starting. I mean to scour that court clean. As Robert should have done after the Trident.”
His gaze fell upon Ned.
“Ser Barristan once told me that the rot in King Aerys’s reign began with Varys. The eunuch should never have been pardoned. No more than the Kingslayer. At the least, Robert should have stripped the white cloak from Jaime and sent him to the Wall, as you urged.”
He watched as Eddard’s eye flew over his injured leg. “As you say, Your Grace,” Ned moved to speak but Stannis held his hand up.
“I am not yet king,” Stannis said through clenched teeth. “I have not been crowned.”
“As you say, my lord,” Ned conceded, “Will you sail for King’s Landing?”
Stannis held his gaze, his expression carved from stone. “I would, with an army. Ships, I have aplenty. Men, fewer.”
“King’s Landing is undefended,” said Eddard cautiously.
“Do you know for certain, Lord Stark?” Melisandre asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You have been at sea for days, Lord Stark,” Stannis reminded. “Much can happen in a few days. The Crownlords are a fickle assortment of fools, more likely to bend to the Lannisters than dream of loyalty. Should even two thousand of their ranks gather atop the walls of King’s Landing, mine four thousand will perish amidst the waves.” Stannis grinded out bitterly.
“Is that the muster of the Narrow Sea?” asked Lord Eddard slowly.
“More will trickle in, sellswords too and sellsails. Six thousand in all, at most.” Stannis said, unhappily.
“The North will rally behind you,” Ned assured, “As will the Riverlands, at my wife’s command. And the Vale…” He trailed off, unsure.
“Lysa Arryn is mad,” said Stannis, plainly. “Your loyalty is… appreciated, Lord Stark, but your son is a boy, with twenty thousand swords against twice his numbers in Lord Tywin Lannister. The Riverlands are already on fire, and that fire will spread.”
Ned frowned. “I have faith in Robb. The Riverlands…”
Stannis gestured towards the Painted Table, where two carved lions stood upon the Riverlands. One loomed west of Riverrun, and the other was east of Raventree Hall, close to the Crossroads. “The Kingslayer marches on Riverrun with an army. His father has seized Harrenhal with another. No, I need the Stormlands.” Stannis said with a bitter determination.
Andrei studied at the map table, as did Lord Eddard. Melisandre paid no attention to the map of men or wooden lions, and only gazed into the flames.
“My lord,” she said suddenly. “Perhaps, the lord’s faith in his son is not misplaced.”
Stannis’ head snapped towards her. “What do you see?” He barked.
Eddard’s face was troubled as he regarded at the Red Woman. The lord gave him a glance but Andrei shook his head. Visions and prophecies, he thought unhappily, those have plagued us since … what was that town called?
Ubersreik, the name surfaced. Ubersreik, where he had met the others.
Melisandre only smiled, her lips curving. “Great victories, my lord. A victory by a river, a victory by the sea, and a victory in a city.”
Stannis was unconvinced. “Those can be Lannister victories,” he pointed out.
“No,” Melisandre shook her head. “Victory in service to Azor Ahai. Victory against the Great Other.”
Stannis only frowned.
Great Other? Andrei thought, exchanging a glance with Eddard.
“Lord Stannis,” Eddard said slowly, “I would write a letter to my son and lady wife, informing them of… my presence here. No doubt, there is much rumour and little truth of what had happened.”
“Very well,” Stannis nodded curtly. “Speak to Maester Cressen. You will do best to send your letters to Seagard. Swathes of the Riverlands no doubt have fallen and Jason Mallister is the best man amongst the riverlords.”
Eddard rose slowly, bowing in gratitude.
They left Stannis and the Red Woman in the great drum room, a guard leading them to the Maester’s chambers. The halls of Dragonstone were dark and gloomy, wrought of black stone. Dragons were abundant; with small dragons framing gates and dragon claws holding torches. He saw all manner of creatures designed and carved from the ebony; basilisks and griffins, hellhounds and wyverns and…
A minotaur? Andrei nearly cursed aloud. Beside him, Eddard noticed his tension.
“Nothing,” he muttered, but his eyes lingered on the shadowed, horned head.
The maester was an old man, frail with a bad hip, with wrinkly skin and trembling hands. “Ah, Lord Stark,” he said in a tired, drowsy voice, as if rowsed from a dream, slowly rising with the support of his cane.
“Please,” Lord Stark said at once, gesturing to his own cane. “Do not rise on my behalf, maester. I have need of a raven.”
Maester Cressen looked at him shrewdly through aged eyes. “To your son and lady wife, yes? You will need a bird to… Seagard.”
Eddard offered a faint smile. “Age has not taken your wits, Maester.”
Cressen laughed softly. “It has, my lord.” His voice was quiet and wistful. “It has.”
The old maester drew a sheet of parchment, and prepared a quill and a pot of ink, placing it upon a sturdy table. There were opened books and half-written letters here, and the old man cleared them away. He bowed slightly. “I shall busy myself with the ravens as you write, Lord Eddard. I pray it does not disturb.”
He sat with Ned as he wrote, facing away from the table.
“Robb, Cat,” Eddard whispered as he wrote. “I am alive and well, and have arrived at the island of Dragonstone where I now stay as a … honored guest of Lord Stannis Baratheon. Andrei is with me, and were it not for him, I would be a prisoner of the Lannisters, without doubt.” Eddard paused.
“I do not know what has happened to the girls,” he said thickly, “But I know that Joffrey cannot be king. Stannis Baratheon is the rightful heir to the throne. Forgive my lack of explanation but some tales cannot be told with ink. This letter will be sent to Seagard, where I entrust men loyal to House Mallister and House Tully to deliver this to your hands. I pray that I hear from you, of your safety.”
“Another letter,” Ned muttered to himself, “One to Jason Mallister.”
Andrei glanced at him. “You know him?”
“Aye,” Ned nodded distractedly as he wrote. “We fought together in the Rebellion, and against the Greyjoys. A good man, honorable.”
They watched as the Maester rolled the messages and tied them to a cawing raven. There was something intelligent in the raven’s eyes, Andrei thought, and for a moment, they seemed to flash green in the fading sunlight.
Lorenzo? Andrei thought. The sea must have almost made him mad.
“You look like a man who has been through a most perilous journey, Lord Stark,” Maester Cressen said with a soft, tired smile.
“Most perilous,” Ned agreed.
“A tale for another day?” The maester sat. “I shall tell the servants to bring you your meals at sunset. Until then, please rest, my lord. Enjoy Dragonstone’s… dragons.”
“I shall try,” Ned said.
They left the maester to his rest then. The guard, in Baratheon livery, led them to a pair of rooms opposite each other within the dark tower. He bowed before turning and walking away. Andrei moved to stand by Eddard’s door but the lord laughed.
“Go, Andrei,” he said, smiling. “Rest. Of all men in Westeros, Lord Stannis has no reason to wish me ill.”
He nodded slowly. “Rest good, Lord Stark.”
Ned covered a yawn. “I will.”
Andrei stood still as the lord closed the door. He glanced about the dark hallway and at the dragon circling his door. He felt little desire to head in. Despite the journey, he did not feel exhausted as he should have been. He felt… restless.
Dale Seaworth’s words had proved true, and the young captain had placed them on Dragonstone’s docks by midday. That was three hours ago. He scratched at his cheek. Maybe the fishing village?
Truthfully, he had little idea where he was going. The halls twisted and turned with unfamiliar paths, and the walls were alive with dragons. Dragons everywhere he looked. No, not all dragons. There were worse things carved into the ghastly walls and towers of Dragonstone, twisted beasts and nameless horrors, their blackened forms leering in the dim light. There was a smell to Dragonstone, an unpleasant odour. It smelled of the salt of the sea, and smoke and brimstone.
And sulphur.
Andrei halted, his gaze drawn to the looming shadow of the volcano. It was asleep now, like a dormant, slumbering dragon but the air was thick. Sulphur, he mused.
“Come, Patches!” A girl’s voice called out.
From the door of the stairway, a strange pair emerged. A young girl, and a … jester?
“Oh,” the girl said, “Pardon me.”
A sad child, Andrei could see it in her eyes. Blue as the sea, yet dimmed, and she had large ears with a jutting jaw. Half of her cheek and most of her neck were covered in cracked, flaky grey skin, hard and lifeless as stone.
That was a mutation he had not seen before. He had seen men with eyes or ears or mouths growing across their bodies. He had seen women born with horns, or teeth in their eyes. Babies born with tails and furs, that had to be thrown into the fire.
Stone flesh is not so bad, he thought, good, natural armour.
“Hello,” the girl said awkwardly.
“Hello,” Andrei responded.
“I am Shireen Baratheon, and this is Patches. Patchface, I mean.”
The jester had been silent upon seeing him, and stared at him with wide, empty eyes. He was slump-shouldered and dough-soft, with green and red motley tattoos covering his face in patches. He wore a tin helm, with a rack of antlers strapped to them and bells hung from the antlers.
“Patches?”
The fool was murmuring quietly to himself. Andrei watched him cautiously.
“Aye, aye, aye,” Patchface sang to himself. “Under the sea, bears swim and roar, I know, I know, I know. Under the sea, bears dream of snow, oh, oh, oh.”
If not for the girl, he would have reached for his axe.
“Who are you?” Andrei asked brusquely.
The jester tilted his head. “Under the sea, names die and cry, aye, aye, aye. In the dark, we die and cry, aye, aye, aye.”
“Patches?” Shireen asked, shakened.
“The sea, under the sea,” Patchface sang to himself, walking away. “Under the ice, a million eyes, aye.”
Shireen’s eyes were wide and frightened, and Andrei suddenly remembered that he had yet to introduce himself.
Lucia should be here, he thought, she was the one who knew how to talk to children.
He knelt slowly. “Andrei,” he rumbled gently. “I come with Lord Stark, lady.”
“I have heard,” Shireen said softly, still looking in the direction where the fool had walked. He was gone now, disappearing around a black doorway.
“How did you arrive?” She asked curiously, blinking in realisation.
“Boat and ship.”
She tilted her head quizzically.
“Fisherman boat,” he mimed rowing. “Ship picked us up.”
“A rowboat,” her eyes widened, “In the Blackwater?”
“Aye,” Andrei grumbled. He was starting to speak like the Northerners now, he realised uncomfortably.
“You must tell me it all,” Shireen said excitedly. “How long did you row?”
He rose awkwardly. “Four days?”
They talked as they walked, the young girl offering to lead him to the kitchens for food and drink.
“Where in the North are you from, Lord Andrei?” Shireen asked.
He shook his head. “Not lord.”
“Ah,” she said, “Ser?”
He shook his head once more. “Just Andrei.” He said uncomfortably.
“Alright then,” she agreed, “Call me Shireen.” She looked at him expectantly.
“Winterfell,” he said.
“Are the tales true? I read that Winterfell has hot springs running underneath the stone.”
Andrei nodded stiffly. “Aye, good water. Hot.”
Shireen giggled. “Winterfell must smell pleasant. Dragonstone has an… aroma.”
Andrei nodded again.
They sat and talked for what must have been for an hour. It was mainly the girl talking and Andrei nodding, but she hurled a constant barrage of questions that he awkwardly answered.
“Which House are you from, Andrei?”
“...Yeltska.”
“Huh,” Shireen played with her black hair. “I have not heard of a House Yeltska.”
Andrei drank from his wineskin.
The girl was lonely, he knew, and sad. The fools of this world must fear the stone on her face. Fools, he thought. There were worse things to fear, in this world or his own.
“Your… stone,” Andrei rumbled. Shireen Baratheon stiffened.
“Stone good. Strong. Can stop dagger or arrow.”
She blinked owlishly at him. He took another swig of the wine. It was decent, he thought, drinkable.
“I…” Shireen said hesitatingly. “Thank you.”
Andrei nodded. They sat in silence then, Kossar and child sharing a bench. He drank occasionally from the leather skin while she sipped from a cup of cool water.
“Shireen!” A man called out, shaking his head fondly. “The maester was looking for you.” He made a tsking sound.
“Ser Davos,” Shireen rose with a smile, embracing the man.
He was a slight man with a common face. A well-worn cloak, stained by salt and spray and faded from the sun, draped his thin shoulders over a brown doublet and breeches that matched brown eyes and hair. About his neck a pouch of worn leather hung from a thong. His small beard was well-peppered with grey, and he wore a leather glove on his left hand.
“I did not meant to worry the Maester,” Shireen said, ashamed.
He tussled her hair. “Run along now, then. While he has not yet turned into a dragon to find you.”
Shireen giggled. “Goodbye, Ser Davos. Goodbye, Andrei!”
He returned her wave awkwardly.
“You are Lord Stark’s man, yes?” Ser Davos asked.
Andrei nodded and rose, accepting the man’s hand. “Andrei Yeltska.”
“Davos Seaworth,” he smiled easily, “Lord Stannis’ man. You look like the sort of man to have many stories. Alas, duty calls. Some other time then? With a good mug of ale.”
That sounded appealing, Andrei thought. He nodded, watching as the man left.
The walk back to his room was silent. There was a weight to Dragonstone, he felt, a heavy oppression and not just of the stench of sulphur, though that clung to the air like a persistent fog. A weight of history, he could tell. This place has seen much.
A weight of … magic as well. The thought filled him with unease. He much preferred a good axe and shield but if it were magic, he much preferred the ice and frost of Kislev’s daughters, or the wizards of the Empire at least. This one, he thought, is old; old and dark and terrible. He could feel it in the marrow of his bones.
A strange sensation pricked at him as he opened his door. He felt warm.
She sat on his bed, her pale hands on her red robes elegantly. Her crimson gaze was burning with curiosity. “I have seen much in the fire when it comes to you,” Melisandre purred seductively.
Andrei sighed. “Bed mine. I sleep.”
The red woman laughed, a rich and melodious sound. “A man of will,” she praised, “Like Stannis Baratheon.” She had lit the fire in his room, he realised, and it was roaring with life and light, throwing dancing shadows across the floor.
What does she want?
“Have you heard the tale of Azor Ahai?” She asked, with a sultry accent.
He gave her a wary look but shook his head.
“He was a legendary hero,” she whispered fervently. “He wielded Lightbringer, a sword of fire and light. When the Long Night came to consume the world in darkness, a hero rose to fight this darkness. He labored for thirty days and thirty nights at the sacred fires of a temple, to forge a hero’s sword.”
There was a disturbing fire in her scarlet eyes. “When he tempered the blade in water, it shattered. He worked the steel for fifty days and fifty nights then, and quenched it in the heart of a lion. It shattered. He knew what he had to do then.”
Andrei sat on the chair facing the bed. “What.”
“Azor Ahai worked for a hundred days and nights until it was finished. This time, he called for his wife, Nissa Nissa, and asked her to bare her breast. He drove his sword into her living heart, and her blood tempered his blade and it became Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.” She whispered reverently.
This was a tale that she knew well, Andrei thought, and repeated often. He thought of Ghal Maraz, that sacred, holy hammer of the Emperor of Man. Truth be told, he much preferred the hammer to the sword.
“There will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.” Her unsettling eyes settled on him.
“Stannis Baratheon is Azor Ahai,” Melisandre declared. “I have seen it in the flames.”
Andrei sipped from his wineskin. The bard tells the tales better.
Melisandre stared at him, slowly rising from the bed. “You will help him,” she said, assuredly. “I have seen it. The roar of your axe shall be amongst the steel to place him on this throne of metal.”
Andrei was growing tired. His wineskin was growing empty now, too empty for her declarations and visions.
Melisandre approached him. Her robes were scarlet satin and blood velvet, and they shimmered like tendrils of fire. There was a red gold choker around her neck, he noticed, with a blood ruby. As she neared him, he felt the warmth grow.
By Dazh’s fire, Andrei nearly recoiled.
“What… you want?” He demanded.
Melisandre smiled a terrible smile. She placed a gentle, slender hand against his cold mail and he felt a warmth blooming under the steel and against his arm.
Her red eyes looked into his. Moving faster than he could have expected, she snapped forward and took hold of him under the chin bringing her own face close so they were nose-to-nose and looking each other directly in the eyes, neither blinking.
His hand was on his axe in an instant, drawing it and placing it by her throat. She smirked, peering into his eyes.
For what seemed like an age, her expression remained the same but then her eyes widened. “What are you?” she demanded. “Your eyes look out elsewhere.”
“A realm of snow and ice,” she muttered to herself. “A great man, a leader, on a bear with a glacial sword. His daughter with a crown of ice. Bears, they ride, and they fight with them.” She looked deeper, and through her warmth, Andrei felt frozen.
“Dome buildings, ice castles, great rivers. An arrow, an axe. A man rides away from a battle. South. South, to a land of men. No, an Empire.” She whispered.
“Griffons and horses, sticks of steel and wood that belch fire and death. Great wagons of steel spewing steam. A comet in the sky, with twin tails of fire. A hammer, the hammer. Skullsplitter. A skull in a laurel wreath, a golden cross behind it. Harathoi Koiran." Melisandre was trembling now, like she was shattering.
“A bear of frost from the north, an eagle of sunlight from the south, a boy who danced with shadows, and he who sings the gods’ song. There are others, yes, a beast of a man and a man of a beast. Why are you here? A trade, a deal; from old to old, and new to new.” She gasped, sweat glistening on her forehead.
“A light, a siege, an end that must not come. A war, a great war, the war. So many… What are these things? Monsters, monsters all. The star, the eight-pointed star. No, stop, no more. R’hllor, protect me. Eagles, ravens, owls, doves. No. No. Death.” Her voice cracked. The red woman shivered violently. “I hear your rattling. North, yes, north. Death comes, and the Dark Brothers too.” She was weeping.
Andrei tried to step back but her grip was iron and burning and firm.
“The chosen, the chosen must be ready. The dove’s girl, yes, and the shadow of fortune. The wolf with black roses and the wolf of war. The huntress, the mother and the champion of the sea. The owl’s boy must become a man and become more than a king. And the Prince That Was Promised will emerge beneath a twin-tailed comet.”
Melisandre shivered and collapsed into his arms, her warmth fading to a chilling cold.
Notes:
Here we go! Very proud of this chapter, and I know it has been a long time coming. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 39: The Battle of the Whispering Wood
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Catelyn
The woods were full of whispers this night.
Moonlight winked on the tumbling waters of the stream below as it wound its rocky way along the floor of the valley. Beneath the trees, warhorses whickered softly and pawed at the moist, leafy ground, while men made nervous jests in hushed voices. Now and again, she heard the chink of spears and swords, the faint metallic slither of chain mail, but even those sounds were muffled under the blanket of dark night.
“It should not be long now, my lady,” Hallis Mollen said. He had asked for the honor of protecting her in the battle to come; it was his right, as Winterfell’s new captain of guards, and Robb had not refused it to him.
With Jory returned, she had thought that he would resume his position but Jory had only shook his head grimly, a dark look in his one eye.
“I am a sword now, my lady,” he said quietly, “Not a shield.”
And a sword he became, another one amongst Robb’s six thousand.
Of that number, she had thirty around her, charged to keep her unharmed and see her safely home to Winterfell if the fighting went against them. Robb had wanted fifty; Catelyn had insisted that ten would be enough, that he would need every sword for the fight. They made their peace at thirty, neither happy with it.
“It will come when it comes,” Catelyn told him. When it came, she knew it would mean death. Hal’s death perhaps ... or hers, or Robb’s. Or the Kingslayer’s. No one was safe. No life was certain. Catelyn was content to wait, to listen to the whispers in the woods and the faint music of the creek, to feel the warm wind in her hair.
She was no stranger to waiting, after all. Her men had always made her wait. “Watch for me, little cat,” her father would always tell her, when he rode off to court or fair or battle. And she would, standing patiently on the battlements of Riverrun as the waters of the Red Fork and the Tumblestone flowed by.
Brandon Stark had bid her wait as well. “I shall not be long, my lady,” he had vowed. “We will be wed on my return.” Yet when the day came at last, it was his brother Eddard who stood beside her in the sept.
Ned had lingered scarcely a fortnight with his new bride before he too had ridden off to war with promises on his lips. At least he had left her with more than words; he had given her a son. Nine moons had waxed and waned, and Robb had been born in Riverrun while his father still warred in the south. She had brought him forth in blood and pain, not knowing whether Ned would ever see him. Her son. He had been so small ...
And now it was for Robb that she waited ... for Robb, and for Jaime Lannister, the gilded knight who men said had never learned to wait at all. “The Kingslayer is restless, and quick to anger,” her uncle Brynden had told Robb. And he had wagered their lives and their best hope of victory on the truth of what he said.
“Let it be his doom then,” Robb declared, coldly.
If Robb was frightened, he gave no sign of it. Catelyn watched her son as he moved among the men, touching one on the shoulder, sharing a jest with another, helping a third to gentle an anxious horse. His armor clinked softly when he moved. Only his head was bare. Catelyn watched a breeze stir his auburn hair, so like her own, and wondered when her son had grown so big. Fifteen, and near as tall as she was.
A helmet, she thought, he should wear one.
Her son had shook his head with a smile. “Let the men see my face. Let them know who leads them.” And that was the matter concluded.
Let him grow taller, she asked the gods. Let him know sixteen, and twenty, and fifty. Let him grow as tall as his father, and hold his own son in his arms. Please, please, please. As she watched him, this tall young man with the new beard of blood and hard eyes, and the direwolves prowling at his heels, all she could see was the babe they had laid at her breast at Riverrun, a lifetime ago.
The night was warm, but the thought of Riverrun was enough to make her shiver. Where are they? she wondered. Could her uncle have been wrong? So much rested on the truth of what he had told them. Robb had given the Blackfish three hundred picked men, and sent them ahead to screen his march. “Jaime does not know,” Ser Brynden said when he rode back. “I’ll stake my life on that. No bird has reached him, my archers have seen to that. The Greyjoy boy is good with his bow. We’ve seen a few of his outriders, but those that saw us did not live to tell of it. He ought to have sent out more. He does not know.”
“How large is his host?” her son asked.
“Twelve thousand foot, scattered around the castle in three separate camps, with the rivers between,” her uncle said, with the craggy smile she remembered so well and found strength in. “There is no other way to besiege Riverrun, yet still, that will be their undoing. Two or three thousand horse.”
“The Kingslayer has us three to one,” said Galbart Glover.
‘True enough,” Ser Brynden said, “yet there is one thing Ser Jaime lacks.”
“Yes?” Robb asked.
“Patience.”
Their host was greater than it had been when they left the Twins. Lord Jason Mallister had brought his power out from Seagard to join them as they swept around the headwaters of the Blue Fork and galloped south, and others had crept forth as well, hedge knights and small lords and masterless men-at-arms who had fled north when her brother Edmure’s army was shattered beneath the walls of Riverrun. They had driven their horses as hard as they dared to reach this place before Jaime Lannister had word of their coming, and now the hour of the wolf was at hand.
Catelyn watched her son mount up. Olyvar Frey held his horse for him, Lord Walder’s son, two years older than Robb, and ten years younger and more anxious. He strapped Robb’s shield in place and handed up his helm. When he lowered it over the face she loved so well, a tall young lord sat on his grey stallion where her son had been. It was dark among the trees, where the moon did not reach. When Robb turned his head to look at her, she could see only cold black inside his visor.
“I must ride down the line, Mother,” he told her.
‘Go, then,” she said. “Let them see you.”
“It will give them courage,” Robb said.
And who will give me courage? she wondered, yet she kept her silence and made herself smile for him. Robb turned the big grey stallion and walked him slowly away from her, Grey Wind and the mother wolf shadowing his steps.
Behind him, his battle guard formed up. When he’d forced Catelyn to accept her protectors, she had insisted fiercely that he be guarded as well, and the lords bannermen had agreed. Many of their sons had clamored for the honor of riding with the Young Wolf, as they had taken to calling him proudly. Torrhen Karstark and his brother Eddard were among his thirty, and Patrek Mallister, Smalljon Umber, Daryn Hornwood, Theon Greyjoy, no less than five of Walder Frey’s vast brood, along with older men like Ser Wendel Manderly and Robin Flint.
One of his companions was even a woman in mail: Dacey Mormont, Lady Maege’s eldest daughter and heir to Bear Island, a lanky six-footer who had been given a morningstar at an age when most girls were given dolls. Some of the other lords muttered about that, but Catelyn would not listen to their complaints. “This is not about the honor of your houses,” she told them. “This is about keeping my son alive and whole.”
And if it comes to that, she wondered, will thirty be enough? Will six thousand be enough? It has to be.
A bird called faintly in the distance, a high sharp trill that felt like an icy hand on Catelyn’s neck. Another bird answered; a third, a fourth. She knew their call well enough, from her years at Winterfell. Snow shrikes. Sometimes you saw them in the deep of winter, when the godswood was white and still. They were northern birds.
They are coming, Catelyn thought. “They’re coming, my lady,” Hal Mollen whispered. He was always a man for stating the obvious. “Gods be with us.”
She nodded as the woods grew still around them. In the quiet she could hear them, far off yet moving closer; the tread of many horses, the rattle of swords and spears and armor, the murmur of human voices, with here a laugh, and there a curse.
Eons and ages seemed to come and go. The sounds grew louder and closer. She heard more laughter, a shouted command, splashing as they crossed and recrossed the little stream. A horse snorted. A man swore. Another cursed. And then at last she saw him ... only for an instant, framed between the twisting branches of the ancient trees as she looked down at the valley floor, yet she knew it was him.
Even at a distance, Ser Jaime Lannister was unmistakable. The moonlight had silvered his gilded armor and the gold of his hair, and turned his crimson cloak to night’s black. He was not wearing a helm, and the lion was snarling.
He was there and he was gone again, his silvery armor obscured by the trees once more. Others came behind him, long columns of them, knights and sworn swords and freeriders, three quarters of the Lannister horse.
“He is no man for sitting in a tent while his carpenters build siege towers,” Ser Brynden had promised. “He has not wielded his blade for weeks, severe enough his injuries that Ned’s man had given him. This will be a bait he cannot resist.”
Nodding, Robb had studied the map her uncle had drawn him. Ned had taught him to read maps. “Raid him here,” he said, pointing. “A few hundred men, no more. Tully banners. When he comes after you, we will be waiting”—his finger moved an inch to the left—“ here.”
And here he came, the Lion of Lannister. And against him warred the wolf, two of them and six thousand, led by her son. She could not hear the prayer she whispered to the Warrior, as the Battle in the Whispering Wood began around her.
Theon
Theon grinned wildly as he rode with the Blackfish’s three hundred.
He had chafed at the command at first, stung and bitter.
“You’re sending me away?” He had asked Robb, trying to mask the sting.
Robb only raised an eyebrow. “I would have you, a friend, ride with the Blackfish. Learn with him. This is war. We both have much to learn, Theon.”
Robb had it true, thought Theon. Ser Brynden had taught him much, and with each lesson, Theon grew more eager. He had thought his own archery was good and sharp, but seeing the Blackfish with his bow was like seeing Ser Barristan the Bold with the blade. A master, and I am far from it. He thought, with rare humility.
The Blackfish had laughed. “Thrice your experience, lad. More.”
First, he had ridden with the Blackfish and his outriders, screening ahead of the Northern army as they left Moat Cailin. One group rode a day ahead of the army, another a day ahead of the previous, and the third a day ahead of the second. Ser Brynden Tully had taken him under his tutelage, muttering quiet lessons.
“See there those tracks,” pointed out the Blackfish once. “Wolves.”
Then, he had followed the old, grizzled knight as they ranged ahead away from the Twins, as Robb’s cavalry raced for Riverrun. Truly, he thought, a dead enemy is a thing of beauty. They had clashed twice with Lannister outriders. More stray cats than proud lions, Theon had joked, though the Blackfish only shook his head.
The first had been a dozen men ahorse who turned and fled upon seeing them.
Shooting frantic riders from horseback was hard, Theon thought, and bloody rewarding. Winterfell’s straw and canvas did not scream in pain when the arrow pierced through their frame. It was the iron in him, Theon thought proudly.
The second group was larger, and blind. He waited in the bushes with Ser Brynden and eight men. At a single barked command, ten arrows flew from the dark. Oh, the lions had screamed and roared but another shower of sharp steel had silenced them.
And now, Theon thought as he nocked his arrow on his bow, luring the Kingslayer to defeat. Seeing that smug grin fall will be something.
“Loose!” Ser Brynden ordered.
And as one, three hundred bows sang sweetly.
Of the three hundred arrows, perhaps fifty had found their mark and of that, fewer than half were fatal. Mine was, Theon thought. He was sure of it. Then came the screams, and the shouting, and the Lannister camp stirred from its slumber.
“Nock,” Ser Brynden called from his mount, his black bow already drawn.
“Draw,” the Blackfish snapped in his dry, hoarse voice.
“Loose!”
Again, a rain of arrows fell upon the Kingslayer’s camp, who was now rousing from their sleep. A rude awakening, Theon laughed to himself, arrows and trumpets.
They had loosed three more volleys before the Kingslayer must have judged them a nuisance enough, leading a charge of braying, mounted men. He saw more riders following the gilded knight, but in scattered streams and trickles of men.
“Turn,” the Blackfish barked. “Ride!"
Theon laughed with the rising wind, stirring the horse with his legs. With his bow in hand, he turned and fired another arrow. He watched as the steel tip pierced the brown flesh of a horse, some hedge knight’s paltry, and horse and men crashed onto the ground to be trampled by better mounts and warriors. The wind was gushing in his ear now, as did the twang of arrows. Many of the Blackfish’s handpicked outriders were skilled enough to wield their bows on horseback. And so am I.
“Arrowwind,” he muttered to himself, firing another arrow for a men-at-arms in mail. The arrow took him through the neck, and the fool fell from his horse.
Arrowwind is a good name, Theon thought, patting his grey mount. He slung the bow around himself, focusing on the ride. He risked another glance behind. The Kingslayer was drawing closer, and his men too. The moonlight silvered his armor and the gold of his hair and turned his crimson cloak to black. For a moment, he thought he saw the golden knight’s face. He looked half enraged and half in pain.
Theon turned, willing his horse to go faster.
A cruel but beautiful song played around him; the tread of many horses, the rattle of swords and spears and armor, the murmur of human voices, with here a laugh, and there a curse, and men tumbling from their horses with dying screams and cries.
War, Theon thought, this is war.
The ground was trembling now, like a maiden after her first time. Hundreds upon hundreds of hooves were pounding upon the soil, and the moonlight was pale upon the land. This is a night for butchery, Theon knew, and Robb wields the cleaver.
It was silvery moonlight and shifting shadows, dead leaves crushed underfoot, and tall, thin trees that shivered like old bones in the whispering wind.
There was the call of Maege Mormont’s brutal warhorn, a long low blast that rolled down the valley from the east, to tell them that the last of Jaime’s riders had entered the trap. It sounded like the song of a waking bear, Theon thought.
And there was the howling of two direwolves.
It was a terrible sound, a frightening sound, yet there was music in it too, an ancient melody of fang and claw. For a second, he felt something like pity for the Lannisters behind him. Then, he grinned fiercely. That is what death sounds like, fools.
HAAroooooooooooooooooooooooo came the answer from the far ridge as the Greatjon winded his own horn. To east and west, the trumpets of the Mallisters and Freys blew vengeance. North, where the valley narrowed and bent like a cocked elbow, Lord Karstark’s warhorns added their own deep, mournful voices to the dark chorus. Men were shouting and horses were rearing in the stream below.
The whispering wood let out its breath all at once, as the bowmen Robb had hidden in the branches of the trees let fly their steel-tip arrows and the night erupted with the screams of men and horses. All around them, riders raised their lances, and the dirt and leaves that had buried the cruel bright points fell away to reveal the gleam of sharpened steel. And now it begins, Theon felt his heart soar with the arrows.
“Winterfell!” he heard Robb’s shout as the arrows sighed again. He saw him now, from the west, leading a fist of wild, dark iron down the hill.
“Now!” The Blackfish commanded, his voice dry and fierce.
As one, three hundred outriders turned their horses to the right, racing along the river uphill before the fist of Karstack cavalry and the lances of Mormont, Mallister and Umber closed the gap. No freerider or hedge knight could do what they did.
“Wheel,” was the command and wheel they did.
“Fire at will!”
Theon laughed. From the hill on high, they could see it all; men and horse and wolf. The river gushed black and bold by their side. By nightfall, it would be red.
Robb
“Winterfell!” He roared atop his shaggy, grey mount as he swung his bright steel.
Around him, men roared and fought and died.
“Last Hearth!” He heard the deafening boom of the Greatjon from the east. “The Sun of Winter!” was Karstark’s furious cry from the north. He thought he heard Maege Mormont’s cackling from the west. He could almost hear Theon’s chuckling as the arrows fell precisely upon the Lannister riders, a rain of death.
Grey Wind and the mother wolf darted around him, biting and snarling like two sentinels of shadow and fur and fang. “Go!” He roared, and they understood.
He watched with grim satisfaction as the wolves of war cried havoc, slipping through the ranks of panicked horsemen, snapping and tearing flesh. Grey Wind tore a man’s arm at the shoulder, and his mother leapt and smashed into an armoured knight atop his barded horse. Wolf and knight fell, and only the wolf rose, with bloodied jaws.
This was a wild place yet untamed, thought Robb. There was something in the air, in the trees and the valley, in the wispy wind and in the cold howl of the wolves.
Two thousand horsemen, the Kingslayer had gathered on his fierce ride out. Two thousand corpses for the gods and the crows, Robb decided.
“Die!” A desperate rider came for him. Robb raised his sword, ready to parry.
A smoky grey blur hurtled through the chaos, tackling the man from his horse and onto the ground, snarling and savaging his throat open in a bloody, red mess. Robb shook his head at that, stirring his mount forward. There, he saw the Smalljon with his greatsword stained with blood, and Dacey Mormont bringing her mace down upon a men-at-arms in red. His skull burst and more red covered the corpse.
“The Stark boy, get him, kill him!” A pack of terrified, panicking riders came charging, desperation and panic in their wide, white eyes.
Robb smiled savagely. He nudged his stallion with his legs, charging towards them. He parried a blade with his own, passing by the man, and deflected a spear from the rider behind the first. “The Wolf of War!” He roared out, turning around and slashing his back open. His mount carried him ahead, trampling over a dying sellsword.
The valley rang with echoes. The crack of a broken lance, the clash of swords, the cries of “Lannister!” and “Winterfell!” and “Tully! Riverrun and Tully!”
The battle came alive. He heard hoofbeats, iron boots splashing in shallow water, the woody sound of swords on oaken shields and the scrape of steel against steel, the hiss of arrows, the thunder of drums, the terrified screaming of a thousand horses.
“To me!” He roared.
Grey Wind and the mother wolf howled with him, and he felt a wild, primal fury surge within him. He felt a deep lust. A burning, fiery desire for the battle. He clutched his blade tightly. Something was howling in him, demanding he swing that sword and swing it well and fierce. His northmen gathered around him, and he saw on their faces wild, hungry looks and he knew that he was not alone in this hunger.
“Feast on lion’s blood!” He commanded, and like a pack of starving wolves, they charged again. He had gathered a steel wedge of, perhaps, sixty men and he rode at the shining tip of the wolven spear. Jaime Lannister’s two thousand was crumbling now. They had closed the ends of the valley, pinched it shut with steel, and arrows continued to hiss through the night air, finding their mark in Westermen flesh.
All around the valley, his northmen had pounced upon the stunned, sleepy riders, braying with violence and anger. And now, they were the dagger to the golden heart.
Robb howled as he swung his sword, the blade singing and beheading a fleeing Westerman. The clash of blades had grown to become music to his ears; a loud, violent and dangerous song but one that made his heart beat something fierce.
“The wolf!” He thought he heard Torrhen Karstark shout. “The Winter Wolves!”
The Greatjon only bellowed, splitting a man in half with his ugly slab of steel.
“Winter!” Robb roared again, thrusting his sword at a mounted knight with the sigil of a boar. The man moved to deflect his blade but Robb pulled his sword back. He slashed him across the throat with Winterfell’s steel and watched with savage satisfaction as the red blood flowed down the bright steel. Moonlight caught on the red as he raised the sword, and Robb saw the blood on his face. It felt right.
He turned. A pair of golden eyes stared back at him. The mother wolf stood still, her smoky fur soaked in blood. Her head was tilted and her eyes watching.
“What is it?” He asked.
The wolf huffed, turning away and leaping for a fleeing rider.
The Kingslayer’s riders were breaking now, some throwing their swords and spears and shields to the ground. Cravens, he thought. This is the mercy of the wolf. He thrusted his sword through the beating heart of one man and opened the throat of another. “Take none alive but the Kingslayer and his lords!” he decreed.
His northerners answered with savage howls.
“Stark!” A voice grated on him over the din.
“STARK!” The Kingslayer shouted, limping towards him, bloodied and unbowed.
Gods, Robb almost laughed. The golden knight looked a dented mess. He limped slightly, and he spied blood spilling freely from his thigh, leaking down his greaves and boots, staining the gold with red. The Lannister colors, thought Robb, amused.
“Your blade is still unbloodied,” Robb Stark noticed from atop his horse.
“He fell off his horse,” laughed Theon, his horse trotting towards them. A ring of men were gathering slowly, enclosing the two of them in a steel circle. For all it was worth for the Kingslayer, that was the edge of his world now. Outside of that, the last of his two thousand died. “You should have seen it, Robb. He led the charge but when the waves crashed, he held his chest like a man in pain and was thrown off his horse.”
Red flushed across the Kingslayer’s face, and Robb smiled.
“You and me, squid,” the Kingslayer challenged. “Any of you against me, steel and steel. Lion and wolf.” The man’s voice was strained. He was in pain, Robb knew.
“My lord!” The Greatjon demanded. “Give me the honor!”
“Nay,” Rickard Karstark protested. “House Karstark closed the iron trap.”
“Twas Mormont that sounded the horns first,” Maege Mormont pointed out, fingering her bloodied mace.
On and on, his lords argued over the honor of defeating the Kingslayer in single combat as the ignored Kingslayer glared at them in rising anger.
Robb watched them silently with cold eyes before dismounting.
“Eddard,” he said softly and the world went quiet.
“Aye, my lord?” Eddard Karstark raised an eyebrow. His mail and leathers were splattered with blood and he rested his great axe upon his shoulder.
“I would borrow that,” asked Robb, “For a minute.”
Eddard nodded, holding his two-handed axe out. Robb stabbed his longsword into the bloodied soil before him and took the old, great weapon gingerly.
It felt appropriate, Robb thought. A duel, an honorable duel between warriors. Something called to him to use the axe, and the glint in the mother wolf’s eyes told him that he was right. “Come then,” he told the lion knight frowning at him.
Jaime Lannister snarled at him, every bit the lion, before leaping at him, his blade in hand. It would have worked if the man had not winced in pain, his smooth movement suddenly halting and stiff and slow. He had forgotten to favor his uninjured left, Robb realised, forgetting about the reopened, bleeding injury on his right thigh.
Robb shook his head. “The Kingslayer, the Lion of Lannister. I suppose it must not have been a hard feat to slay an old man. Even a cat could do that.”
That had stirred something in Jaime Lannister. His eyes went cold with anger and he limped forward without hesitation. The gilded sword came for him now, as it must have for the Mad King, and Father and Andrei, flashing through the cold night.
Robb raised his axe, parrying the bite. The axe should be heavier but it felt comfortable in his grip, like he had trained with it his whole life. He knew he had not.
That was an uncomfortable thought.
He did not know why he felt ready for the battle, as he did for the war and the winter soon to come. His blood had sung and howled for this. On the ride to Moat Cailin, he oft dreamt of a white wolf in a wintry forest howling violently and hungrily.
Ghost? He had wondered but he knew in his heart, it was not.
There was something other about the wolf; an ancient, powerful feeling that made Robb Stark kneel in the wild snow with nary a moment of hesitation. That was the other thing. It was just a dream, he had told himself when he woke in his tent. Yet, he had woken with a freezing shiver and his knees were pale and cold to the touch.
In his dreams, he had knelt before the white wolf. Its fangs were steel and its crown was bronze. There was an axe with an iron-shod haft behind the wolf, he remembered, leaning against a stone pillar with a brazier burning with white fire atop.
The wolf looked at him with cold, glinting eyes and spoke.
“The Young Wolf,” he had heard a man’s voice in his head, a warrior’s low, rolling grumble. “Forever young, eternally victorious. Yes, you have winter in your blood, and the heart of war. You will wield the axe in the winter to come.”
“You will kneel thrice in your life,” the voice declared sternly as the haunting howling of wolves and the cold cry of the winter snow grew louder around him.
“Once, before the shrine of the wolf,” the white wolf was gone now, dissipated amidst the flying snow, amidst the blizzard. “Where your blade shall sharpen for war and your hearth shall warm for winter.”
“Once, before the words of the patriarch,” the snow whispered in his ears, cold and warm and cold. “Where life comes from death, where light comes from shadow, where wolves howl together.”
“Once, before the coming of the ice,” blue eyes shimmered around him in the snow and they shattered like glass at the howl of a thousand white wolves. “Where the end comes, and you must fight.”
Robb mused on those words as he blocked a wild thrust from the Kingslayer.
What was that voice? One of the Old Gods? He deflected another desperate slash, bringing the axe forward in a vicious cut. It bit true, tearing through the mail of his left arm. Bits of chainmail and torn flesh flew from Jaime Lannister’s arm, and blood splashed on the ground. This is not a fair fight, thought Robb.
The man had not even healed from his injuries, Robb frowned.
It will not do to prolong this. He leapt forward, snarling. The Kingslayer’s blade came flashing through the night again but Robb was ready. He met steel with steel, thrusting the head of the axe against the gilded blade. Then, with a savage twist, he drove the heavy wooden haft into the wounded thigh, where it wept blood behind the gold plate, where the wound that a furious bear left behind had not yet healed.
The Kingslayer howled in pain, his grip on his sword slacking.
Robb hooked the steel of the blade with the head of the great axe, just as he had seen Andrei do it once in Winterfell’s yards. Jaime Lannister looked at him with wide eyes as his gilded sword flew through the air, stabbing itself onto the ground.
Then, he knew no more, as Robb smashed the flat of the axe against his face, and the golden lion of Lannister crumpled to the ground. He threw Eddard’s axe back to him and the slack-jawed young man caught it.
“The battle is over,” he declared. “Another victory awaits! Onwards!”
As he mounted his horse, the northmen roared in victory. “The Young Wolf! The Young Wolf! The Wolf of War! The Wolf of Winter!”
Catelyn
Little by little, the sounds dwindled and died, until at last there were only wolves. As a red dawn broke in the east, Grey Wind and his mother howled again.
Robb came back to her on the grey stallion he had taken down into the valley. The wolf’s head on his shield was slashed half to pieces, raw wood showing where deep gouges had been hacked in the oak, but Robb himself seemed unhurt. Yet when he came closer, Catelyn saw that his mailed glove and the sleeve of his surcoat were black with blood. “You’re hurt,” she said, worried.
Robb shook his head. “Lion’s blood.”
A mob of men followed him up the slope, dirty and dented and grinning, with Theon and the Greatjon at their head. Between them, they dragged the unconscious Ser Jaime Lannister. They threw him down in front of her horse, the fallen knight falling into the mud. “The Kingslayer,” Hal announced, unnecessarily.
Blood ran down one cheek from a gash across his scalp, but the pale light of dawn had put the glint of gold back in his hair. She could see red seeping from his thigh and his arms. It was a strange sight, she thought, the lion of Lannister laid so low.
“Kill him, Robb,” Theon Greyjoy urged. “Take his head off. Send it to the Queen.”
“No,” her son answered, peeling off his bloody glove. “He’s more use alive than dead.” He turned to his men, his men. He sounds like his father, Catelyn thought. He sounds like a man, a lord.
“Take him away and put him in irons,” he said sternly, “and make certain there’s a strong guard around him.”
The Greatjon nodded, gesturing for his men. The Kingslayer was led away to be bandaged and chained.
“The Kingslayer was more cat than lion this day,” Galbert Glover noted. “He could barely walk properly, let alone fight.”
Robb gave her a shrewd look. “My father’s swornsword,” he explained, “Andrei, he fought to defend my lord father when the Kingslayer tried to attack him and his men. It seems the tale was true, the Kingslayer was defeated most fiercely and bore the wounds to show. He could barely ride or walk.”
The Greatjon guffawed. “A proper Northman!”
“My lords,” she felt the need to interject, “We may have lopped the head off the snake, but three quarters of the body is still coiled around my father’s castle. We have won a battle, not a war.”
“But such a battle!” said Theon Greyjoy eagerly. “My lady, the realm has not seen such a victory since the Field of Fire. I vow, the Lannisters lost twenty men for every one of ours that fell. We’ve taken close to a hundred knights captive, and a dozen lords bannermen. Lord Westerling, Lord Banefort, Ser Garth Greenfield, Lord Estren, Ser Tytos Brax, Mallor the Dornishman ... and three Lannisters besides Jaime, Lord Tywin’s own nephews, two of his sister’s sons and one of his dead brother’s ...”
“And Lord Tywin?” Catelyn interrupted. This rashness could not continue. “Have you perchance taken Lord Tywin, Theon?”
“No,” Greyjoy answered, brought up short.
“Until you do, this war is far from done.”
Robb raised his head and pushed his hair back out of his eyes. “My mother is right. We still have Riverrun. Lord Tywin as well.”
He turned to his men, shouting commands this way and here. Olyvar came rushing, a rolled map in hand. Robb unfurled it over a dried stump, pinning it with a bloodied dagger. Her son scrutinised it, searching for an answer, and the proud, prickly lords of the North gathered eagerly around him. Grey Wind curled around his feet, and his mother licked his face and fur clean of the blood that coated it.
“Ser Brynden, I want three hundred eyes watching Riverrun. Theon, go with him. I want them blind to our approach.”
Her uncle nodded briskly, a satisfied look on his weathered face. Theon gave his customary smirk to her son, bowing playfully.
“They have split their forces in three camps,” the Blackfish explained. “North, west and south, each divided by the rivers. The northern camp is depleted now, perhaps three thousand men left. The other two camps are untouched, five thousand men at each. Mainly infantry.”
“We will attack this night,” Robb declared. “Give the men time to rest and prepare. We will strike while they are sleeping. At the hour of the wolf, you will lead the van to attack the north camp. Two thousand. I will lead the other four to cross the Tumblestone further west, and strike at the west camp. Who holds Riverrun?”
“Lord Tytos Blackwood,” Ser Brynden said. “A good commander.”
“He will sally out with his men at the sight of battle, then?” Robb asked.
The Blackfish nodded, and that was that.
“What of the south camp?” Lord Rickard Karstark grunted unhappily.
Robb shook his head. “We do not have enough men to strike at all three camps. Freeing Riverrun is more important. At the sight of the battle, if those troops in the south try to cross the river, we will slay them. If they flee, our outriders will harass them as far as High Heart.”
Lord Karstark nodded. His mail was stained with blood.
“To your men, my lords. Rest. We shall reconvene at midday.”
The assembled lords of the north bowed and trickled away. Catelyn approached her son with a slight smile.
“The last I saw your father command the Northmen was nine years ago.”
“The Greyjoy Rebellion,” Robb raised an auburn eyebrow.
“Another war,” she agreed. “They listen to you like they did him.”
Robb glanced at the map of Riverrun before them. “Mother, I-”
“My lord, my lady,” interrupted Lord Jason Mallister, marching towards them with an urgency on his calm, chiseled face that she had seen rarely. A letter was clutched tightly in one mailed fist. “Pardon my interruption but I have received a rider from Seagard with urgent news.”
Robb’s face was ice again. “Ironborn?”
Lord Mallister shook his head. “Nay, my lord. A raven, from Dragonstone. ”
She exchanged a look with her son. What could stern Lord Stannis want with them?
“There were two letters,” Jason Mallister explained, “The first was for me. It came from Lord Eddard. This one is for you.”
Ned, Catelyn thought, her heart freezing and soaring and crying. The Lord of Seagard handed the letter to them, before bowing and giving them their privacy.
Robb opened the letter and she read with him.
Robb, Cat, I am alive and well, and have arrived at the island of Dragonstone where I now stay as an honored guest of Lord Stannis Baratheon. Andrei is with me, and were it not for him, I would be a prisoner of the Lannisters, without doubt. I do not know what has happened to the girls but I know that Joffrey cannot be king.
Stannis Baratheon is the rightful heir to the throne. Forgive my lack of explanation but some tales cannot be told with ink. This letter will be sent to Seagard, where I entrust men loyal to House Mallister and House Tully to deliver this to your hands. I pray that I hear from you, of your safety.
“Dragonstone?” Robb asked thickly. “How?”
“I do not know, Robb,” Catelyn whispered, “but that matters little.”
“Aye,” he said. “A prisoner of the Lannisters… Sansa’s letter… Gods.”
“We must assume that Cersei Lannister has both Arya and Sansa,” she muttered quietly. She prayed every night for her daughters and for Ned, and it seemed that the gods must have answered some of them, and left some unanswered.
“Joffrey cannot be king,” Robb repeated. “That would make Stannis king.”
“It would,” she agreed. War had come to the Riverlands, she thought, and it would soon spread across the realm like a vicious plague. The Lannisters will never take Stannis as king. Two kings, Catelyn thought. Two kings bring war.
A flash of uncertainty crossed over Robb’s face. “What shall we do, Mother?”
She stole a glance at the rising sun. “Dragonstone is far away. Lord Stannis is a hard man, but just. Your father is safe now.” She would give thanks to the gods this night.
“The lords must know,” he said, working his jaw and clenching his fist.
“They must,” she agreed. “They are riding high after a victory, and this will stir them to fight something fierce. For their lord and his daughters.”
Robb nodded, his eyes facing east. That would not do, she thought to herself.
“Robb,” she said, placing a hand on her son’s shoulder. She lifted a finger, pointing it south. “Dragonstone is far away.” She repeated. “Riverrun is not. Lord Tywin is not.”
Her son looked at her with blue eyes that glimmered like chips of ice.
“Aye,” he agreed.
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 63 - For Catelyn's parts
Surprise Robb POV!
Always thought that a battle as vital as the Whispering Wood never got much detail. And we get another Stark child touched by the gods...
Of all of them, Robb as of now is the most influenced, considering he is stepping fast and deep into Ulric's domain of war, wolves and winter, but I do want to capture a realistic, natural growth and evolution as well. Hope I did that well. Anyways, hope you enjoyed!
Chapter 40: A Pride of Lions
Notes:
"So when the Lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the Wolf, the filthy Jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone." - Lord Byron
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tyrion
He tried a swallow of the ale. It was brown and yeasty, so thick you could almost chew it. Very fine, in truth. A pity his father had hanged the innkeep. “How is your war going?”
His uncle answered. “Well enough, for the nonce. Ser Edmure had scattered small troops of men along his borders to stop our raiding, and your lord father and I were able to destroy most of them piecemeal before they could regroup.”
“Your brother has done his duty,” his father said in a dark tone. “He smashed the Lords Vance and Piper at the Golden Tooth, and met the massed power of the Tullys under the walls of Riverrun. The lords of the Trident have been put to rout. Ser Edmure Tully was taken captive, with many of his knights and bannermen. Lord Blackwood led some survivors back to Riverrun, where Jaime has them under siege. The rest fled to their own strongholds.”
“Your father and I have been marching on each in turn,” Ser Kevan said. “With Lord Blackwood gone, Raventree fell at once, and Lady Whent yielded Harrenhal for want of men to defend it. Ser Gregor burnt out the Pipers, but Stone Hedge holds out in siege.”
“Leaving you unopposed?” Tyrion said.
“Not wholly,” Ser Kevan said. “The Mallisters still hold Seagard and Walder Frey is marshaling his levies at the Twins. There are raiders in the land too, slaying scouts and outriders with impunity.”
“No matter,” Lord Tywin said. “Frey only takes the field when the scent of victory is in the air, and all he smells now is ruin. And Jason Mallister lacks the strength to fight alone. Once Jaime takes Riverrun, they will both be quick enough to bend the knee. Unless the Starks and the Arryns come forth to oppose us, this war is good as won.”
“I would not fret overmuch about the Arryns if I were you,” Tyrion said. “The Starks are another matter. Lord Eddard—”
“Has vanished,” his father said coldly, “With his swornsword.”
“Vanished?” asked Tyrion, incredulous. “In a puff of smoke?”
Lord Tywin glared at him. “Your sister is sparse with details but we know enough. Baelish is dead, Sandor Clegane is at death’s door, two of the Kingsguard are out of commission. Two dozen or so of the Watchmen and Lannister men dead.”
Tyrion blinked rapidly. “What?” He asked intelligently.
“It was that savage of Stark’s,” Kevan said, “Yeltska, I believe.”
Tyrion faintly remembered the man back in Winterfell, stiff and silent. He seemed a warrior then, Tyrion thought, wild and fierce and solemn. Not the Warrior himself, Tyrion hoped. At this rate, perhaps the gods themselves would take sword and spear to fight them.
“Robb Stark has called the banners and sits at Moat Cailin with a strong host around him.” Kevan pointed.
“No sword is strong until it’s been tempered,” Lord Tywin declared. “The Stark boy is a child. No doubt he likes the sound of wolven warhorns well enough, and the sight of his banners fluttering in the wind, but in the end it comes down to butcher’s work. I doubt he has the stomach for it.” You certainly have one, my lord, Tyrion thought.
Things had gotten interesting while he’d been away, Tyrion reflected. “And what is our fearless monarch doing whilst all this ‘butcher’s work’ is being done?” he wondered. “War has come, and Robert Baratheon is not want to miss it.”
“Robert Baratheon is dead,” his father told him. “Your nephew reigns in King’s Landing.”
That did take Tyrion aback. “My sister, you mean.” He took another gulp of ale. The realm would be a much different place with Cersei ruling in place of her husband.
“If you have a mind to make yourself of use, I will give you a command,” his father said. “Marq Piper and Karyl Vance are loose in our rear, raiding our lands across the Red Fork.”
Tyrion made a tsking sound. “The gall of them, fighting back. Ordinarily I’d be glad to punish such rudeness, Father, but the truth is, I have pressing business elsewhere.”
“Do you?” Lord Tywin did not seem awed. “We also have a pair of Ned Stark’s afterthoughts making a nuisance of themselves by harassing my foraging parties. Beric Dondarrion, some young lordling with delusions of valor. He has that fat jape of a priest with him, the one who likes to set his sword on fire. Do you think you might be able to deal with them as you scamper off? Without making too much a botch of it?”
Tyrion wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled. “Father, it warms my heart to think that you might entrust me with ... what, twenty men? Fifty? Are you sure you can spare so many? Well, no matter. If I should come across Thoros and Lord Beric, I shall spank them both.” He climbed down from his chair and waddled to the sideboard, where a wheel of veined white cheese sat surrounded by fruit.
“First, though, I have some promises of my own to keep,” he said as he sliced off a wedge. “I shall require three thousand helms and as many hauberks, plus swords, pikes, steel spearheads, maces, battleaxes,, gorgets, greaves, breastplates, wagons to carry all this—”
The door behind him opened with a crash, so violently that Tyrion almost dropped his cheese. Ser Kevan leapt up swearing as the captain of the guard went flying across the room to smash against the hearth. As he tumbled down into the cold ashes, his lion helm askew, Shagga snapped the man’s sword in two over a knee thick as a tree trunk, threw down the pieces, and lumbered into the common room.
He was preceded by his stench, riper than the cheese and overpowering in the closed space. “Little redcape,” he snarled, “when next you bare steel on Shagga son of Dolf, I will chop off your manhood and roast it in the fire.”
Cersei
She was surrounded by fools.
Fools and doddering old men and useless lickspittles, Cersei raged to herself. A week, she had given them. A week to find a crippled man, a burly savage, and a wild child.
“We have combed every street, Your Grace,” Janos Slynt bowed, his frog face sweating and his jowls quivering. “Every alley, every tavern. The people have… grown restless at that.”
“I care not what the people think,” she said coldly. “A week, I gave you. A week to find a cripple, a savage, and a child. A week, Lord Slynt.”
“Your Grace,” Janos looked away, stammering. “Your Grace, I-”
“Leave me,” she glared at him, a fire burning in her eyes. Janos Slynt turned, leaving her chambers as swift as a foul wind. She turned her gaze for the pleasant sight in the gilded mirror. Her gold hair fell past her shoulders like streams of sunlight, and her green eyes were like emeralds that a master craftsman had carefully placed in a pale, perfect stature.
She wore sea-green silk trimmed with pale white Myrish lace, and wore a golden ring with an emerald as large as her eye, and a necklace of glittering diamonds. She rose elegantly, gliding for the decanter of Arbor Gold on the table.
Fools, she thought. She needed Jaime by her side. Jaime would have won there, she thought. Jaime would have killed him, and taken off Eddard Stark’s bloody leg.
Jaime would have… Jaime fled.
Her hand trembled slightly as she sipped from the gold. That terrible, deafening roar played itself over and over in her nightmares. The sight of Baelish’s head shattered and splattered across the floor and what remained of his eyes rolling loosely. When she had retreated to her chambers, she had vomited her breakfast into her chamberpot.
The thought of Jaime’s head exploding like a crushed egg came to her mind, and she shivered. She thought of her sweet Joffrey, and Tommen and Myrcella.
What savage magic did Stark bring with him? Cersei Lannister wondered to herself.
“When you play the game of thrones,” she had told him, “you win or you die.”
He haunted her dreams now, pale and grim and rotting like a dying man. “I win,” he said, with bloodied ice falling from his empty mouth. “You die.”
Valonqar, she thought to herself. Little brother. Eddard Stark was the younger brother, Cersei realised with horror. That horrible roar, like a dragon’s thunder, rang in her ears again. Eddard Stark could be hiding in the Keep itself right now, she thought, trembling. Him and that savage warlock of his, with his magic and his axe.
My children’s lives are in danger, she breathed. Gold shall be their shrouds, the words came.
“Guards!” She called.
Two Lannister men burst into her room, their swords drawn, and they glanced about her room wildly. Not Kingsguard, she thought bitterly. Not even knights.
With Jaime fled and the old man dismissed, that left five. With Arys Oakheart in a coma and Boros the Fat and Useless recovering from his wounds, that left three. Three! Joffrey had wanted to appoint the Hound as one of his seven but with the man as burnt as a bad streak of bacon, that dream had died. Jaime is as good as all the other six.
“Double the guards around my children’s chambers,” she demanded. “I want four men guarding my door at all times. A food tester too. Double the patrols, no, triple it.”
Her guards glanced at each other, but bowed lowly. “As you command.”
She sniffed. Good, they know their place.
She sat again, reclining in her golden seat, sipping from her wine. They needed a new Master of Coin now, she thought, even as her hands continued to tremble. A Westerman, yes, good and loyal, Cersei thought. Maybe Uncle Kevan?
That was far from the only position that needed a new master. Stannis Baratheon loomed in Dragonstone, and she knew he would not come to King’s Landing to bend his knee. Renly had fled south too, to Storm’s End or Highgarden or wherever had caught that fool’s eye.
A Lannisport Lannister, she decided for the Master of Ships. As for the Master of Law… She sipped at her wine slowly. The idea would come to her eventually, she knew. Yes, Joffrey would be king, her father would reign as Hand, Jaime would be the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. She was Queen. The Lion would roar over the whole of the land, and not a soul would dare stand in revolt and defiance. Not the stag, nor the wolf.
A lion still has claws, Cersei reminded herself, and mine are long and sharp and wicked.
She forced herself to drink again before settling the empty goblet on the tray beside her. She took a deep, slow breath and rose. There was much work to organise, she lamented, and the Queen had much responsibility. A feast to celebrate Joffrey’s coronation, yes, preparations for his nameday tourney.
They had the Redwyne twins with them, and the Redwyne Fleet would be frozen in their harbour for that. Sansa Stark still simpered for Joffrey foolishly. Her men would find Stark soon, she told herself, Eddard Stark and his daughter and his savage. Her father would crush the Stark boy and his mother, burn the Riverlands to naught but ash and march south to deal with Stannis and Renly both. Yes, Father and Jaime will win. They will.
And that night, when Cersei slept, she dreamt of a life of silence and misery, and black choked the gold from her life, and the valonqar haunted her dreams once more.
Jaime
“I know you are awake, Lannister.”
“I see you have your eyes on me,” his eyes opened slowly. He would have offered a golden smile if everything did not hurt so badly. His head pounded fiercely, like a regiment of war drummers were flaring within. His ribs seemed to have taken the pleasure to remind him of pain, while his thighs were weeping again. Oh, Jaime thought, and I just so happen to reek.
“Eye,” the grim-faced northerner corrected. “They took my left, and a finger.”
“Jory One-Eye, mayhaps they shall call you that,” Jaime japed. “Or Nine Fingers.”
“You remember my name,” Jory intoned coldly.
“I recall Stark yelling that,” Jaime shrugged, but the act sent a wave of pain through his shoulders, his chest and his ribs. His head too, for good measure.
“Seventeen men, I took with my blade tonight,” Nine Fingers told him. “More, we will take as we march south. All because of you.”
“For me?” He flared. “Pray tell, where is your lord’s wife? I seem to recall she took my little brother, if you recall him. Little man, sharp of wit. Certainly sharper than yours.”
“I do,” the One-Eye told him. “And your lord father wrote a bloody letter to that.”
“A Lannister always pays his debt,” Jaime was careful not to shrug this time. He glanced about. The cage they had locked him in seemed sturdy enough, and his wrists were chained together and to one of the bars. Six men in mail and furs watched him, spears in hand. “Six men to watch me? Stark must fear me running so.”
“No one fears you anymore, Kingslayer,” Jory gave a cold, empty laugh. “Not after you lost so shamefully. The only blood upon your sword was your own, if I recall.”
“If I were-”
“If,” Jory reminded him. “If you had not attacked Lord Stark in the street.”
“Whereever is your lord?” Jaime glared at him. “I do not see him.”
“Your eyes do not deserve to glance upon men of honor, Kingslayer,” Jory’s glance was contemptuous. “Your companions now will be rats and roaches.”
“Is that what you call yourselves in the North?”
“I have always wondered,” Jory shook his head. “I was six-and-ten when the Greyjoys rebelled. I heard about you, the tourney of Lannisport. They said you broke six lances against Jorah Mormont, the slaver. Robert gave the victory to him.”
“Mayhaps the old, fat king saw some kinship with him.”
“How many tourneys have you won?”
“I must have lost count.”
“I suppose it matters not, now,” Jory threw a wedge of cold, hard bread by his shackled hands. “I hear you did not fight when the Greyjoys burnt your Lannisport.”
Jaime glared at him, in a sullen silence. “I would prefer it with a warm stew.”
“A warm piss is what you’ll get, Kingslayer.”
“Kingslayer, is it?” Jaime snarled. “I heard the songs, or what you northmen pass as songs. The Young Wolf, your pup of a commander seems to call himself. My father will see to it that he stays forever young.”
“The Young Wolf,” Jory said reverently. “You were defeated by, who you call, a pup of a commander. Before that, you were defeated by a bear of a man. Your father has been tricked by us. Spare me your empty threats, Ser. You had best worry how you will eat that bread, caked in mud and filth as it is. Tomorrow, you will dine in Riverrun’s dungeons.”
Riverrun, Jaime recoiled. An army still waited there. One that has no clue that thousands of horses and wolves are about to descend upon them. He closed his eyes.
“You would have killed me,” Jory interrupted his peace. “Your men killed Tom and Heward.”
“Who?”
Jory’s smile was tight. “Tomorrow, I shall speak their names to you once more.”
“You best sing it to me. I have a poor memory for things I care little for, I fear.”
“You seem to care little for victory.”
“A stroke of luck,” Jaime shook his head. “You won one victory. That does not make your Young Wolf the Young Dragon come again. My father has another army.”
“Lannisters lose their armies almost as well as they lose their ships, it seems.”
“You have a clever tongue,” Jaime spat. “Mayhaps you should take up singing.”
“I do,” Jory told him. “Now, I do it with a sword.”
Jaime smirked through his mud-covered face. “You could not do that when your lord was besieged by me, I recall.”
“I did not need to,” Jory said calmly. “Twice now, you have been beaten by better men.”
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 56 - for Tyrion
Just a little something short! Tyrion and Cersei's POV are actually set before the events of the previous chapter (The Whispering Wood) but Jaime's is meant to be directly after obviously.
Again, I must thank you all for all the comments and encouragement I have received. This is the first proper fic that I have ever written, and I am blown away by the support I have received. Working hard on the next chapter!
Chapter 41: Bran II
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The oldest were men grown, seventeen and eighteen years from the day of their naming. One was past twenty. Most were younger, sixteen or less.
Bran watched them from the balcony of Maester Luwin’s turret, listening to them grunt and strain and curse as they swung their staves and wooden swords. The yard was alive to the clack of wood on wood, punctuated all too often by thwacks and yowls of pain when a blow struck leather or flesh.
“They don’t fight very well,” Bran said dubiously. He scratched Summer behind the ears as the direwolf tore at a haunch of meat. Bones crunched between his teeth.
“For a certainty,” Maester Luwin agreed with a deep sigh. The maester was peering through his big Myrish lens tube of bronze, measuring shadows and noting the position of the comet that hung low in the morning sky. “Yet given time ... Ser Rodrik has the truth of it, we need men to walk the walls. Your lord father took the cream of his guard to King’s Landing, and your brother took the rest, along with all the likely lads for leagues around. Many will not come back to us, and we must needs find the men to take their places.”
Bran stared resentfully at the boys below. “If I still had my legs, I could beat them all.” He remembered the last time he’d held a sword in his hand, when the king had come to Winterfell. It was only a wooden sword, yet he’d knocked Prince Tommen down half a hundred times. “Ser Rodrik should teach me to use a poleaxe. If I had a poleaxe with a long haft, Hodor could be my legs. We could be a knight together.”
Or a longsword, Bran thought, that is what knights use.
“I think that ... unlikely,” Maester Luwin said. “Bran, when a man fights, his arms and legs and thoughts must be as one.”
“There was a knight once who couldn’t see,” Bran said stubbornly, as Ser Rodrik went on below. “Old Nan told me about him. He had a long staff with blades at both ends and he could spin it in his hands and chop two men at once.”
“Symeon Star-Eyes,” Luwin said as he marked numbers in a book. “When he lost his eyes, he put star sapphires in the empty sockets, or so the singers claim. Bran, that is only a story, like the tales of Florian the Fool. A fable from the Age of Heroes.” The maester tsked. “You must put these dreams aside, they will only break your heart.”
The mention of dreams reminded him. “I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. The red hummingbird with the singing voice was there too. We went down to the crypts. Father was there too, and he looked tired.”
“And why was that?” Luwin peered through his tube.
“I don’t know,” said Bran. The dream had been deeply confusing, even more so than the other crow dreams. Father was there and he was not. He saw his lord father standing on the coast of a smoking island, Andrei by his side. Then, Andrei was not there. The big man was standing in some wintry landscape, with snow that reached to his knees. That frightened Bran. “Hodor won’t go down into the crypts.”
The maester had only been half listening, Bran could tell. He lifted his eye from the tube, blinking. “Hodor won’t ... ”
“Go down into the crypts. When I woke, I told him to take me down, to see if Father was truly there. At first, he didn’t know what I was saying, but I got him to the steps by telling him to go here and go there, only then he wouldn’t go down. He just stood on the top step and said ‘Hodor,’ like he was scared of the dark, but I had a torch. It made me so mad I almost gave him a swat in the head, like Old Nan is always doing.” He saw the maester’s frown and hurriedly added, “I didn’t, though.”
“Good. Hodor is a man, not a mule to be beaten.”
“In the dream, I flew down with the crow, but I can’t do that when I’m awake,” Bran explained. That was not a lie, Bran thought to himself, just not yet the truth. The crow had shown him more. They had flown to the edge of the North and he shivered atop the Wall. He had peered far and deep within the great, endless shadowy forests beyond, he thought he spied a great mouth emerging from the cold land itself.
Then, they flew away from the Wall and south to warmer winds. They flew across a land of rivers where he saw blood weeping from the eye of some being so large that they must have been a god. A dead god with an unblinking eye. That had terrified Bran. It was only the sound of howling wolves that had assured him.
They sounded like Summer, he thought.
The rivers ran red with blood, and wolves clashed with lions. He had watched with horror as they flew across. “More will come,” the crow had told him coldly.
“Blood and war…” The hummingbird whispered to itself.
“Your eyes are green,” Bran noted. “Like emeralds.”
The hummingbird sang in laughter. “Yours shall be too, when you see the green.”
East, they flew then. King’s Landing, he could almost recognise from the tales but it looked different, wrong somehow. It glimmered with gold so blinding that he could hardly see, and the gold turned to shadows. East, he had wanted to fly.
“Shall I?” The hummingbird asked.
“Very well.” The raven agreed.
And they flew up, up into the sky. They soared through white clouds and flew so close to the stars that Bran thought the dream would end. It did not. In a blink of an eye, they were flying down now. A huge expanse of land revealed itself before them.
“Glimpse the world that was,” the hummingbird muttered, amused.
They flew over a beautiful, verdant land, bright with life and colour. The rivers were as blue as crystals and the land seemed a field of emerald from above. Great cities littered the land and the coast, each as great as White Harbour and King’s Landing.
“Better,” the hummingbird insisted.
“You can hear my thoughts?” Bran asked.
“You were speaking.”
“‘I was?”
They flew west then, across a parched, hot realm where the sun shone harshly upon red sands and craggy hills. Here, he saw packs of violent hounds snapping and biting at each other, all in the shadow of great mountains and soaring eagles.
North, it was from there. For a moment, he thought he was in the Reach. Then, he saw the flying horses. Horses with wings! Bran felt wonder beyond belief.
“Where is this?” He asked the hummingbird with excitement, but the singing bird did not answer. The crow was silent as well but spoke gravely and grim.
“We must not linger, eyes are watching us.”
“They are,” the hummingbird hummed. “One last sight then?”
And then he saw.
They were flying over a range of mountains that seemed grey, when the land before them seemed to sprawl to eternity. When Bran looked to his right, the land looked like a broad chalice, partially surrounded by towering mountain ranges from which drained mighty, roaring rivers. Those were to the south, he thought. To the north, the rolling green hills and rapid streams of the south and east were gradually transformed into forested lowlands and deep waterways. Far to the east, he saw a great spine of mountains, so tall they looked like the walls for a fortress of giants.
“Where is this?” Bran asked with awe.
“The Empire.”
Before he could ask more, the crow hissed. “We have to leave, now.”
He did not understand why. Bran had turned to look at what the crow saw. He saw only a strange motley of animals; a red hound whose jaws dripped blood, a blue raven whose eyes pulsed, a pink serpent whose tongue flittered at him, and a green crow whose flesh was covered in painful blisters. They watched him.
Then, he woke, sweating.
“Why would you want to go down to the crypts?” Maester Luwin asked.
Bran blinked. “I told you. To look for Father.”
The maester tugged at the chain around his neck, as he often did when he was uncomfortable. “Bran, sweet child, one day Lord Eddard will sit below in stone, beside his father and his father’s father and all the Starks back to the old Kings in the North ... but that will not be for many years, gods be good. Your father is … in the south. You will not find him in the crypts.”
“He was there last night. I talked to him.”
“Stubborn boy,” the maester sighed, setting his book aside. “Would you like to go see?”
“I can’t. Hodor won’t go, and the steps are too narrow and twisty for Dancer.”
“I believe I can solve that difficulty.”
In place of Hodor, two were summoned. The wildling woman Osha was tall and tough and uncomplaining, willing to go wherever she was commanded. “I lived my life beyond the Wall, a hole in the ground won’t fret me none, m’lords,” she said. The other was Jeyne, the quiet girl that had come to Winterfell on the day of the direwolves, the one that Andrei had saved from wildlings. Since then, she served dutifully in the kitchens, but she was always solemn. Bran did not blame her.
“Summer, come,” Bran called as she lifted him in wiry-strong arms. The direwolf left his bone and followed as Osha carried Bran across the yard and down the spiral steps to the cold vault under the earth. Maester Luwin went ahead with a torch, and Jeyne came behind him with another. Bran did not even mind—too badly—that she carried him in her arms and not on her back. Ser Rodrik had ordered Osha’s chain struck off, since she had served faithfully and well since she had been at Winterfell. She still wore the heavy iron shackles around her ankles—a sign that she was not yet wholly trusted—but they did not hinder her sure strides down the steps.
Bran could not recall the last time he had been in the crypts. It had been before, for certain. When he was little, he used to play here with Robb and Jon and his sisters.
He wished they were here now; the vault might not have seemed so dark and scary. Summer stalked out in the echoing gloom, then stopped, lifted his head, and sniffed the chill dead air. He bared his teeth and crept backward, eyes glowing golden in the light of the maester's torch. He could hear Jeyne’s breathing, fast and fearful. Even Osha, hard as old iron, seemed uncomfortable. “Grim folk, by the look of them,” she said as she eyed the long row of granite Starks on their stone thrones.
“They were the Kings of Winter,” Bran whispered. Somehow it felt wrong to talk too loudly in this place. The world should be silent here.
Osha smiled. “Winter’s got no king. If you’d seen it, you’d know that, summer boy.”
“They were the Kings in the North for thousands of years,” Maester Luwin said, lifting the torch high so the light shone on the stone faces. Some were hairy and bearded, shaggy men fierce as the wolves that crouched by their feet. Others were shaved clean, their features gaunt and sharp-edged as the iron longswords across their laps. “Hard men for a hard time. Come.” He strode briskly down the vault, past the procession of stone pillars and the endless carved figures. A tongue of flame trailed back from the upraised torch as he went.
“Do you recall your history, Bran?” the maester said as they walked.
“Of course,” Bran said.
He looked at the passing faces and the tales came back to him. The maester had told him the stories, and Old Nan had made them come alive.
“That’s a Brandon, the tall one with the dreamy face, he was Brandon the Shipwright, because he loved the sea. His tomb is empty. He tried to sail west across the Sunset Sea and was never seen again. His son was Brandon the Burner, because he put the torch to all his father’s ships in grief. There’s Rodrik Stark, who won Bear Island in a wrestling match and gave it to the Mormonts. And that’s Torrhen Stark, the King Who Knelt. He was the last King in the North and the first Lord of Winterfell, after he yielded to Aegon the Conqueror. Oh, there, he’s Cregan Stark. He fought with Prince Aemon once, and the Dragonknight said he’d never faced a finer swordsman.”
They were almost at the end now, and Bran felt a sadness creeping over him. “And there’s my grandfather, Lord Rickard, who was beheaded by Mad King Aerys. His daughter Lyanna and his son Brandon are in the tombs beside him. Not me, another Brandon, my father’s brother. They’re not supposed to have statues, that’s only for the lords and the kings, but my father loved them so much he had them done.”
“The maid’s a fair one,” Osha said.
“Robert was betrothed to marry her, but Prince Rhaegar carried her off and raped her,” Bran explained. “Robert fought a war to win her back. He killed Rhaegar on the Trident with his hammer, but Lyanna died and he never got her back at all.”
“A sad tale,” said Osha, “but those empty holes are sadder.”
“Lord Eddard’s tomb, for when his time comes,” Maester Luwin said. “Is this where you saw your father in your dream, Bran?”
“No,” Bran said, pointing to the statue of Lyanna Stark. “He was there, by the statue and looking at… the tomb.” Then, he was not.
Maester Luwin stepped toward the open sepulchre, torch in hand. “As you can see, he is not anywhere here.”
Bran opened his mouth to speak but there was a shift in the darkness ahead. A black blur emerged from the end of the crypt, a black blur with blazing green eyes.
“Shaggydog?” Bran whispered, as Summer darted forth to play with his dark brother.
“Bran?” The darkness whispered back in a child’s voice, echoing down the dark chamber. Rickon stepped forth.
“Rickon?” Bran asked. “Why… are you here?”
“Father,” he babbled. “I saw him… I…”
“In your dream ...?”
Rickon nodded. He’s coming home now, like he promised. He’s coming home.”
Bran had never seen Maester Luwin look so uncertain before.
“Rickon,” Bran said, “would you like to come with me?”
“No. I like it here.”
“It’s dark here. And cold.”
“I’m not afraid. I have to wait for Father.”
“You can wait with me,” Bran said. “We’ll wait together, you and me and our wolves. In the maester’s tower, yes?”
“That is quite impossible,” Maester Luwin said.
Osha grinned. “The boy’s the lordling here, as I recall.” She handed Luwin back his torch and scooped Bran up into her arms again. “The maester’s tower it is.”
“Will you come, Rickon?”
His brother nodded. “If Shaggy comes too,” he said, running after Osha, and there was nothing Maester Luwin could do but follow, keeping a wary eye on the wolves.
Maester Luwin’s turret was so cluttered that it seemed to Bran a wonder that he ever found anything. Tottering piles of books covered tables and chairs, rows of stoppered jars lined the shelves, candle stubs and puddles of dried wax dotted the furniture, the Myrish lens tube sat on a tripod by the terrace door, star charts hung from the walls, shadow maps lay scattered among the rushes, papers, quills, and pots of inks were everywhere, and all of it was spotted with droppings from the ravens in the rafters.
“This is folly,” Maester Luwin said. “I agree that it is odd that both you boys dreamed the same dream, yet when you stop to consider it, it’s only natural. You miss your lord father, and you know that he is a captive. Fear can fever a man’s mind and give him queer thoughts. Rickon is too young to comprehend—”
“I’m four now,” Rickon said. He was peeking through the lens tube at the gargoyles on the First Keep. The direwolves sat on opposite sides of the large round room, gnawing on bones. Jeyne looked around in wonder.
“Too young, as I say, but you, Bran, you’re old enough to know that dreams are only dreams.”
“Some are, some aren’t.” Osha chimed in from a corner. “The children of the forest could tell you a thing or two about dreaming.”
He shook his head doggedly. “The children ... live only in dreams. Dead and gone.”
“Old Nan says the children knew the songs of the trees, that they could fly like birds and swim like fish and talk to the animals,” Bran said. “She says that they made music so beautiful that it made you cry like a little baby just to hear it.”
“And all this they did with magic,” Maester Luwin countered. “Magic that has left the world with the death of the dragons. Take a lesson, Bran. The man who trusts in spells is dueling with a glass sword, and when it shatters, he bleeds. As the children did. Here, let me show you something.” He stood abruptly, crossed the room, and returned with a green jar in his good hand. “Have a look at these,” he said as he pulled the stopper and shook out a handful of shiny black arrowheads.
Bran picked one up. “It’s made of glass.” Curious, Rickon drifted closer to peer over the table. “Dragonglass,” Osha named it as she sat down beside Luwin.
“Obsidian,” Maester Luwin insisted. “Forged in the fires of the gods, far below the earth. The children of the forest hunted with that, thousands of years ago. The children worked no metal. In place of mail, they wore long shirts of woven leaves and bound their legs in bark, so they seemed to melt into the wood. In place of steel swords, they carried blades of obsidian and spears of sharpened wood.”
“And still do.” Osha asserted.
“If magic is like a glass sword,” Bran asked, “should we not just be careful when wielding it then?” That made sense to him. A man merely needed to be careful with it, and to practice it well, no?
“Easier said than done, Bran,” sighed Maester Luwin.
Bran held the arrowhead up close. The black glass was slick and shiny. He thought it beautiful. “Can I keep one?”
“As you wish,” the maester said.
“I want one too,” Rickon said. “I want four. I’m four.”
Luwin made him count them out. “Careful, they’re still sharp. Don’t cut yourself.”
“Tell me about the children,” Bran said. It was important, he knew it.
“What do you wish to know?”
“Everything.”
Maester Luwin tugged at his chain collar where it chafed against his neck. “They were people of the Dawn Age, the very first, before kings and kingdoms,” he said. “In those days, there were no castles or holdfasts, no cities, not so much as a market town to be found between here and the sea of Dorne. There were no men at all. Only the children of the forest dwelt in the lands we now call the Seven Kingdoms.
“They were a people dark and beautiful, small of stature, no taller than children even when grown to manhood. They lived in the depths of the wood, in caves and crannogs and secret tree towns. Slight as they were, the children were quick and graceful. Male and female hunted together, with weirwood bows and flying snares. Their gods were the gods of the forest, stream, and stone, the old gods whose names are secret. Their wise men were called greenseers, and carved strange faces in the weirwoods to keep watch on the woods. How long the children reigned here or where they came from, no man can know.”
Bran felt his heart racing. Yours shall be too, when you see the green. The hummingbird’s voice sang in his head again, a haunting melody.
“But some twelve thousand years ago, the First Men appeared from the east, crossing the Broken Arm of Dorne before it was broken. They came with bronze swords and great leather shields, riding horses. No horse had ever been seen on this side of the narrow sea. No doubt the children were as frightened by the horses as the First Men were by the faces in the trees. As the First Men carved out holdfasts and farms, they cut down the faces and gave them to the fire. Horror-struck, the children went to war.”
Osha turned to spit on the ground but a warning look from the maester stopped her. Bran barely noticed, entranced as he was.
“The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, but it was too late to close the door. The wars went on until the earth ran red with blood of men and children both, but more children than men, for men were bigger and stronger, and wood and stone and obsidian make a poor match for bronze. Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called God’s Eye.”
The God’s Eye, Bran realised, reeling. The eye of a god that was weeping.
“There they forged the Pact. The First Men were given the coastlands, the high plains and bright meadows, the mountains and bogs, but the deep woods were to remain forever the children’s, and no more weirwoods were to be put to the axe anywhere in the realm. So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces.”
Rickon was shifting the arrow tips around on the table. Summer rose, and trotted to him, and Bran scratched him behind the ear.
“The Pact began four thousand years of friendship between men and children. In time, the First Men even put aside the gods they had brought with them, and took up the worship of the secret gods of the wood. The signing of the Pact ended the Dawn Age, and began the Age of Heroes.”
Bran’s fist curled around the shiny black arrowhead. “But the children of the forest are all gone now, you said.”
“Here, they are,” said Osha. “North of the Wall, things are different. That’s where the children went, and the giants, and the other old races. And now’s, they’re waking.”
Maester Luwin sighed. “Woman, by rights you ought to be dead or in chains. The Starks have treated you more gently than you deserve. It is unkind to repay them for their kindness by filling the boys’ heads with folly.”
“I’ve seen the Merman’s Court once, maester,” Jeyne said softly. “I saw a kraken and a leviathan locked in battle. Are they real?”
“The Summer Sea south of Dorne is said to be infested with krakens,” the maester admitted reluctantly. “Even in the Narrow Sea at times. As for leviathans, it is said that they can be found in both the Sunset Sea and the Shivering Sea.”
“Tell me where Children went,” Bran said. “I want to know.”
“Me too,” Rickon echoed. So he was listening.
“Oh, very well,” Luwin muttered. “So long as the kingdoms of the First Men held sway, the Pact endured, all through the Age of Heroes and the Long Night and the birth of the Seven Kingdoms, yet finally there came a time, many centuries later, when other peoples crossed the narrow sea.”
“The Andals,” Bran said. The maester nodded.
“The Andals were the first, a race of tall, fair-haired warriors who came with steel and fire and the seven-pointed star of the new gods painted on their chests. The wars lasted hundreds of years, but in the end the six southron kingdoms all fell before them. Only here, where the King in the North threw back every army that tried to cross the Neck, did the rule of the First Men endure. The Andals burnt out the weirwood groves, hacked down the faces, slaughtered the children where they found them, and everywhere proclaimed the triumph of the Seven over the old gods. So the children fled north.”
“Who came after?” The maester asked.
“Nymeria,” Bran responded, “and the Rhoynar.”
Maester Luwin nodded proudly. “And then the Targaryens.”
“Torrhen Stark was the last King in the North,” Bran said. “Did the Targaryens burn the weirwoods?”
“Good question, Bran,” the maester praised. “Men, Aegon burnt plenty. Trees, little.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think so?”
Bran thought hard. “There would be trouble from the north, and of those who believed in the Old Gods in the south.”
The maester smiled at him.
Later that day, as Osha brought him a platter of bread and cheese in his room, he stopped her. “Is it true?” He asked. “That there are children north of the Wall, and giants, and other things?”
“Aye, little lord,” Osha nodded. “Old beyond what you can think. Ancient. They’s all stirring too, and coming south, aye.”
With those words, she left him alone in his room and when she left, he shivered.
Children and giants and other things, Bran thought. It filled him with a terrible feeling, the excitement of a child melting into something colder.
That night, as he drifted to sleep, he dreamt once more. This time, the three-eyed crow was not there, nor was the singing bird with green eyes. He was in a dark, silent garden, with black roses blooming across the solemn field. There were tombstones here, somber slabs of stone each carved with words that were the sum of those who had once lived. It felt like Winterfell’s crypts, Bran thought.
There was a figure in a black cloak, the same silent figure whose face was hidden by a deep black hood. He was afraid. The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid, Father’s calm, assuring voice rang in his head. He would be brave.
“Hello?” Bran asked. The figure raised skeletal hands and dropped its black hood. In the hollow eyes of the white skull, he saw a golden comet with twin tails of fire.
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 66
Surely these dreams are harmless?
Chapter 42: Sansa II
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
In the tower room at the heart of Maegor’s Holdfast, Sansa gave herself to the quiet, mystefying darkness.
She drew the curtains around her bed, slept, woke weeping, and slept again. When she could not sleep, she lay under her blankets shivering with grief and fear as she held Jeyne’s hand. Servants came and went, bringing meals, but the sight of food was more than she could bear. The dishes piled up on the table beneath her window, untouched and spoiling, until the servants took them away again.
Wyl’s face was pale with fear when Joffrey had him and Donnis dragged before the Iron Throne. The throne room had been barren that day. Joffrey, King Joffrey sat upon that dark, terrible seat and two of the Kingsguard stood before its twisted steps. She had forgotten their faces, and could not bear to remember their names.
“This is what comes for traitors,” Joffrey assured her, his voice echoing across the empty, quiet hall. Traitors, traitors, traitors…
“Mercy, Your Grace,” she had pleaded but his eyes were not on her.
“Kill him,” Joffrey commanded.
That terrible man, Ilyn Payne, she remembered now, stormed towards the pale, shivering Northman. He was the youngest of her father’s guards, young and brave and terrified. She still knew little of what had happened on that terrible day, but she had heard the whispers. Ser Barristan and Jory had rode through the streets of King’s Landing, cutting their way out of the city. Her heart had soared when she heard that, but her joy turned to ash again, wishing they had taken them with her.
Ice pierced through young Wyl’s chest, and he died with a gasp of pain. “Watch,” Joffrey demanded, as the King’s Justice took Wyl’s head.
“Winter is coming,” spat Donnis before they took his head as well.
“This is what comes for traitors,” Joffrey glared at her. “Your father and that brute he has. I will cut their hearts out and show you their heads.”
All she could do was bow and curtsy before the Iron Throne.
Sometimes her sleep was leaden and dreamless, and she woke from it more tired than when she had closed her eyes. Yet those were the best times, for when she dreamed, she dreamed of her father. She dreamt that he rode into King’s Landing atop a grey stallion with a direwolf at his side and an army of men behind them. She dreamt that she was back in Winterfell, in her mother’s warm embrace.
Will Joffrey kill me too? she wondered. No, he cannot, she realised. She did not want to die, not before she saw Winterfell again.
The serving girls tried to talk to her when they brought her meals, but she never answered them. Once Grand Maester Pycelle came with a box of flasks and bottles, to ask if she was ill. He felt her brow, made her undress, and touched her all over while her bedmaid held her down. That made her feel ill. When he left he gave her a potion of honeywater and herbs and told her to drink a swallow every night. She drank it all right then and vomited in her chamber pot, pale and flushed.
Father, she thought deliriously, Father would not have allowed that. Andrei too. No, brave, strong Andrei would have stopped the old man, as he had done to Sandor Clegane, whom men still spoke of in hushed tones. He was languishing in the maester’s chambers, they said, burnt near to death and haunting.
The thought of them filled her with bravery she did not truly feel. I must be brave, she kept telling herself. As brave as Father and Andrei. As brave as Robb and Mother.
Jeyne’s presence had made her strong as well, for someone needed to care for the poor girl. Her tears had dried, Sansa thought sadly, but Jeyne seemed broken, with an emptiness in her eyes. She had refused to eat for days, and sat gaunt and pale silently. Her father has died, Sansa realized one day, and mine is still alive.
“Jeyne,” she called out then, “you have to eat. A bite, at least. A spoonful of porridge?” Something is better than nothing.
She did not respond. Before, Sansa would have been frustrated but now her hand reached out to stroke Jeyne’s pale cheek with a soft tenderness. “Jeyne,” she tried again, “we will return to Winterfell. My…”
Father will come, she would have said but she stopped herself.
“My family will bring us home to Winterfell, and you will be there with me. I need you to eat, Jeyne.” She said gently, wiping away a soft tear, her heart aching.
Jeyne’s nod was almost imperceptible, a mere whisper of motion, but it felt like victory. She fed Jeyne then, and herself, and they curled into each other’s embrace each suffocating night, escaping the nightmare of the Red Keep together.
There was a third thing that kept her strong, the dove.
She dreamt of footsteps on the tower stairs one night, an ominous scraping of leather on stone as a man climbed slowly toward her bedchamber, step by step. All she could do was huddle behind her door and listen, trembling, as he came closer and closer. It was Ser Ilyn Payne, she knew, coming for her with Ice in his hand.
It was not right, Sansa thought, that is Father’s sword.
There was no place to run, no place to hide, no way to bar the door. Finally, the footsteps stopped and she knew he was just outside, standing there silent with his dead eyes and his long pocked face. That was when she realized she was naked. She crouched down, trying to cover herself with her trembling hands, as her door began to swing open, creaking, the point of the greatsword poking through. Another slash and the wooden door fell apart, and the King’s Justice with his cold eyes.
Then, a dove flew in through the window and perched itself on her shoulder. It felt right, like Mother’s embrace. The dove cooed gently in her ear, whispering songs of mercy and kindness and light, all that was good and fair and right in the world.
I can be strong, Sansa thought, steeling herself. And when she opened her eyes, Ilyn Payne was not there.
When they finally came for her in earnest, Sansa never heard their approach. No whispered footsteps, no telltale clank of armor—only the violent slam of the door, shattering the silence like a blade against glass.
It was not Ser Ilyn who stood in the doorway, but Joffrey. The boy who had once been her prince.
She was curled in her bed, small as she could make herself, the heavy curtains drawn against the world. She did not know if it was noon or midnight, only that time had ceased to matter. Then came the wrenching tear of fabric as the bed hangings were yanked back, spilling harsh light into the darkness. She flinched, throwing up a hand to shield her eyes, and when her vision cleared, she saw them standing over her—gilded specters, cold and gleaming, like ghosts spun from gold.
“You will attend me in court this afternoon,” Joffrey said. “See that you bathe and dress as befits my betrothed.” Behind him were two knights of the Kingsguard in long white satin cloaks. Jeyne huddled in a corner of the room, whimpering in terror.
Sansa drew her blanket up to her chin to cover herself. “No,” she whimpered, “please ... leave me be.”
“If you won’t rise and dress yourself, my knights will do it for you,” Joffrey said.
“I beg of you, my prince ... ”
“I’m king now. Trant, get her out of bed.”
Meryn Trant scooped her up around the waist and lifted her off the featherbed as she struggled feebly. Her blanket fell to the floor. Underneath she had only a thin bedgown to cover her nakedness. His eyes lingered on her flesh and Sansa felt a wave of uncomfortable nausea roll through her.
“Dress,” the knight demanded coldly, pushing her towards the wardrobe.
Sansa backed away from them, standing between Joffrey and Jeyne. “I did as the queen asked, I wrote the letters, I wrote what she told me. You promised you’d be merciful. Please, let me go home. I won’t do any treason, I’ll be good, I swear it, I don’t have traitor’s blood, I don’t. I only want to go home.” Remembering her courtesies, she lowered her head. “As it please you,” she finished weakly.
“It does not please me,” Joffrey said. “Mother says I’m still to marry you, so you’ll stay here, and you’ll obey.”
“I don’t want to marry you,” Sansa whispered. “You…”
“They were traitors,” Joffrey sneered. “Your father is a traitor. Should he return, I will have his head as well. That is mercy. If he weren’t your father, I would have him flayed or torn in half.”
Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. He is a monster. The wicked dragon from the songs.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
King Joffrey’s face hardened. “My mother tells me that it isn’t fitting that a king should strike his wife. Ser Meryn.”
The knight was upon her before she could react, his grip iron-tight as he wrenched her hand away. The gloved fist came hard and fast, striking her across the ear with brutal force. Sansa never recalled falling, yet the next she knew, she was sprawled on one knee amid the rushes, the world tilting around her. A dull, merciless ringing filled her head.
Above her, Ser Meryn Trant loomed, the knuckles of his silk glove stained red.
From the corner of her blurred vision, a trembling hand reached for her—Jeyne. Fragile, shaking Jeyne, who had cowered from shadows and flinched at whispers. And in that moment, Sansa thought, Jeyne Poole was braver than all the knights in the world.
“Will you obey now, or shall I have him chastise you again?”
Sansa’s ear felt numb. She touched it, and her fingertips came away wet and red.
“He can chastise me as many times as you see fit, my lord,” Sansa whispered.
“Your Grace,” Joffrey corrected her. “Strike her again.”
Meryn Trant’s fist came soaring for her other ear. This time, she did not fall. She stumbled back into Jeyne’s arms. Her head was pounding viciously in pain and she could feel the blood dripping and seeping from her ears.
“I shall look for you in court.” He turned and left, Meryn Trant and Preston Greenfield behind him. Like mongrels, Sansa thought to herself. They are no knights.
“Sansa,” Jeyne cried out softly, touching her bleeding ears.
“You are talking again,” murmured Sansa weakly. “Your voice… It is good to hear your voice again, Jeyne.” She took her hand.
Jeyne did not reply, but she held her tightly. They sat there on the floor until two of her bedmaids crept timidly into the chamber. “I will need hot water for my bath, please,” she told them, as calmly as she could. Both sides of her face were swollen and beginning to ache, and she knew Joffrey would want her to be beautiful.
No, Sansa decided. Let them see me. Bruised and unbroken.
A part of her longed for her father’s return—for him to ride into the city at the head of a thousand Northmen, with Andrei and Robb and even Jon at his side. She imagined them storming the Red Keep, sweeping aside its gilded monsters, and taking her home to Winterfell.
Then the memory struck like a knife to the heart, and terror’s cold hand closed around her throat.
No.
Don’t, she prayed, her silent plea sent to the gods, to the winds, to whatever would listen. Don’t come back, Father. Joffrey’s mercy is no mercy. Leave… leave me.
She sank into the bath, and the heat of the water stirred memories of Winterfell—of steaming stone pools and the scent of pine, of simpler days when her greatest worries had been stitches and songs. She held onto that, drawing strength from it.
She had not bathed since the day Wyl and Donnis died, and the sight of the water darkening with filth and dried blood startled her. Her maids worked in silence, sluicing the grime from her face, scrubbing the dirt from her back, washing her hair and brushing it until it tumbled in thick auburn curls. Sansa did not speak to them, save to give commands. They were Lannister servants, not her own, and she trusted them no more than she did the lions they served.
When the time came to dress, she chose grey. A simple gown, but one that reminded her of the direwolf that once flew over Winterfell’s walls.
And when they left, she sat alone with Jeyne, two lost girls in a golden cage.
“Stay here,” Sansa told her, resting her hand on Jeyne’s. “Joffrey wants me there, you do not have to be there. It will be terrible.”
Jeyne nodded softly and silently.
She drank a glass of buttermilk and nibbled at some sweet biscuits as she waited, to settle her stomach. It was midday when Ser Meryn returned. He had donned his white armor; a shirt of enameled scales chased with gold, a tall helm with a golden sunburst crest, greaves and gorget and gauntlet and boots of gleaming plate, a heavy wool cloak clasped with a golden lion.
He is a knight, Sansa thought to herself, but his gods are the Lannisters.
His visor had been removed from his helm, to better show his dour face; pouchy bags under his eyes, a wide sour mouth, rusty hair spotted with grey. “My lady,” he said, bowing, as if he had not beaten her bloody only three hours past. “His Grace has instructed me to escort you to the throne room.”
“Did he instruct you to hit me if I refused to come?”
“Are you refusing to come, my lady?” The look he gave her was without expression. He did not so much as glance at the bruise he had left her.
He did not hate her, Sansa realized; neither did he love her. He felt nothing for her at all. She was only a ... a thing to him. “No,” she said, rising. She wanted to rage, to hurt him as he’d hurt her, to warn him that when she was queen she would have him exiled if he ever dared strike her again. “I shall do whatever His Grace commands.”
“As I do,” he replied.
“Yes ... but you are no true knight, Ser Meryn.”
Other men might have cursed her, warned her to keep silent, even begged for her forgiveness. Ser Meryn Trant did none of these. Ser Meryn Trant simply did not care.
The balcony was deserted save for Sansa. She stood with her head bowed, fighting to hold back her tears, while below Joffrey sat on his Iron Throne and dispensed what it pleased him to call justice. Nine cases out of ten seemed to bore him; those he allowed his council to handle, squirming restlessly while Grand Maester Pycelle or Queen Cersei resolved the matter. When he did choose to make a ruling, though, not even his queen mother could sway him.
A thief was brought before him and he had Ser Ilyn chop his hand off, right there in court, and the hands remained there on the floor, pooling blood. Two knights came to him with a dispute about some land, and he decreed that they should duel for it on the morrow. “To the death,” he added. A woman fell to her knees to plead for the head of a man executed as a traitor. She had loved him, she said, and she wanted to see him decently buried. “If you loved a traitor, you must be a traitor too,” Joffrey said. Two gold cloaks dragged her off to the dungeons.
Frog-faced Lord Slynt sat at the end of the council table wearing a black velvet doublet and a shiny cloth-of-gold cape, nodding with approval every time the king pronounced a sentence. Sansa stared hard at his ugly face. She had heard the stories, of how he had led the betrayal of the Gold Cloaks against her father, how he had slashed open Quent’s throat. She felt a queer rage in her. A part of her wished that some hero would throw him that and cut off his head.
The last case was a tavern singer, accused of making a song that ridiculed late King Robert. Joff commanded them to fetch his woodharp and ordered him to perform the song for the court. The singer wept and swore he would never sing that song again, but the king insisted. It was sort of a funny song, all about Robert fighting with a pig. The pig was the boar who’d killed him, Sansa knew, but in some verses it almost sounded as if he were singing about the queen. When the song was done, Joffrey announced that he’d decided to be merciful. The singer could keep either his fingers or his tongue. He would have a day to make his choice. Janos Slynt nodded.
That was the final business of the afternoon, Sansa saw with relief, but her ordeal was not yet done. When the herald’s voice dismissed the court, she fled the balcony, only to find Joffrey waiting for her at the base of the curving stairs. Cold Ser Mandon was with him, and Ser Meryn as well. The young king examined her critically, top to bottom. “You look much better than you did.”
What?
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Sansa said slowly.
“Walk with me,” Joffrey commanded, offering her his arm. She had no choice but to take it. The touch of his hand would have thrilled her once; now it made her flesh crawl like a hundred roaches were on her skin. “My name day will be here soon,” Joffrey said as they slipped out the rear of the throne room. “There will be a great feast, and gifts. What are you going to give me?”
“I ... I had not thought, my lord.”
“Your Grace,” he said sharply. “You truly are a stupid girl, aren’t you? My mother says so.”
“She does?” After all that had happened, his words should have lost their power to hurt her, yet somehow they had not. The queen had always been so kind to her. It was false, Sansa realised sadly, it was all false.
“Oh, yes. She worries about our children, whether they’ll be stupid like you, but I told her not to trouble herself.” The king gestured, and Ser Meryn opened a door for them.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she murmured. The sun had fallen below the western wall, and the stones of the Red Keep glowed dark as blood.
“I’ll get you with child as soon as you’re able,” Joffrey said as he escorted her across the practice yard. “If the first one is stupid, I’ll chop off your head and find a smarter wife. When do you think you’ll be able to have children?”
Sansa could not look at him, he shamed her so. “Septa Mordane says most ... most highborn girls have their flowering at twelve or thirteen.”
Joffrey nodded. “This way.” He led her into the gatehouse, to the base of the steps that led up to the battlements.
Sansa jerked back away from him, trembling. Suddenly she knew where they were going. “ No ,” she said, her voice a frightened gasp. “Please, no, don’t make me, I beg you ... ”
Joffrey pressed his lips together. “I want to show you what happens to traitors.”
Sansa shook her head wildly. “I won’t. I won’t.”
“I can have Ser Meryn drag you up,” he said. “You won’t like that. You had better do what I say.” Joffrey reached for her, and Sansa cringed away from him. His eyes narrowed in cold anger.
She forced herself to take King Joffrey’s hand. The climb was something out of a nightmare; every step was a struggle, as if she were pulling her feet out of ankle-deep mud, and there were more steps than she would have believed, a thousand thousand steps, and horror waiting on the ramparts.
From the high battlements of the gatehouse, the whole world spread out below them. Sansa could see the Great Sept of Baelor on Visenya’s hill. At the other end of the Street of the Sisters stood the fire-blackened ruins of the Dragonpit. To the west, the swollen red sun was half-hidden behind the Gate of the Gods. The salt sea was at her back, and to the south was the fish market and the docks and the swirling torrent of the Blackwater Rush. And to the north…
She turned that way, and saw only the city, streets and alleys and hills and bottoms and more streets and more alleys and the stone of distant walls. Yet she knew that beyond them was open country, farms and fields and forests, and beyond that, north and north and north again, stood Winterfell.
“What are you looking at?” Joffrey said. “This is what I wanted you to see, right here.”
A thick stone parapet protected the outer edge of the rampart, with crenellations cut into it every five feet for archers. The heads were mounted between the crenels, along the top of the wall, impaled on iron spikes so they faced out over the city. Sansa had noted them the moment she’d stepped out onto the wallwalk, but the river and the bustling streets and the setting sun were ever so much prettier.
He can make me look at them in death, she told herself, but I will remember them as they were in life.
“These ones are your father’s guards,” he said. “Those traitors who spilled blood in my throne room.”
“How long do I have to look?”
Joffrey seemed disappointed. “Do you want to see the rest?”
There was a long row of them. “If it pleases Your Grace.”
Joffrey marched her down the wallwalk, past a dozen more heads and four empty spikes. “I’m saving those for your father and his guard, and my uncle Stannis and my uncle Renly,” he explained. The other heads had been dead and mounted much longer. Despite the tar, most were long past being recognizable. The king pointed to one and said, “That’s your septa there,” but Sansa could not even have told that it was a woman. The jaw had rotted off her face, and birds had eaten one ear and most of a cheek. Empty sockets watched her.
Sansa had wondered what had happened to Septa Mordane, although she supposed she had known all along. “Why did you kill her?” she asked. “She was godsworn ... harmless…”
“She was a traitor.” Joffrey looked pouty; somehow she was upsetting him. She wondered why. “You haven’t said what you mean to give me for my name day. Maybe I should give you something instead, would you like that?”
“If it please you, my lord,” Sansa said.
When he smiled, she knew he was mocking her. “Your brother is a traitor too, you know.” He turned Septa Mordane’s head back around. “I remember your brother from Winterfell. My dog called him the lord of the wooden sword.”
Joffrey gave a petulant shrug. “Your brother defeated my uncle Jaime. My mother says it was treachery and deceit. She wept when she heard. Women are all weak, even her, though she pretends she isn’t. She says we need to stay in King’s Landing in case my other uncles attack, but I don’t care. After my name day feast, I’m going to raise a host and kill your brother myself. That’s what I’ll give you, Lady Sansa. Your brother’s head.”
A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, “Maybe my brother will give me your head.”
Joffrey scowled. “You must never mock me like that. A true wife does not mock her lord. Ser Meryn, teach her.”
This time, the knight seized her beneath the jaw, his grip unyielding as iron, forcing her head still.
The first blow came sharp and sudden, snapping her face to the side. The second was worse—harder, heavier—crashing against her cheek and whipping her head back the other way. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Her lip split, and warm blood trickled down her chin, mingling with the salt of her tears.
It hurts, she wanted to cry to her mother, to her father, to her brothers. It hurts.
“You shouldn’t be crying all the time,” Joffrey declared. “You’re more pretty when you smile and laugh.”
Sansa made herself smile, thinking of Winterfell, but it was no good, the king still shook his head. “Wipe off the blood, you’re all messy.”
The outer parapet came up to her chin, but along the inner edge of the walk was nothing, nothing but a long plunge to the bailey seventy or eighty feet below. All it would take was a shove, she told herself. He was standing right there, right there, smirking at her with those fat wormlips. You could do it, she told herself. You could. Do it right now.
Then she saw it—a white dove, perched upon the stone wall, its small head tilting as it regarded her with quiet curiosity.
A hush settled over her, a stillness that dulled the pain and slowed her breath. She thought of Winterfell—of crisp northern air and the scent of pine, of Mother’s gentle smile and the warmth of her embrace. She longed to watch her brothers spar with wooden swords in the yard, to quarrel with Arya over foolish, fleeting things, to sit at her father’s feet and listen to his steady, measured voice weave stories of honor and old kings.
She wanted to live.
The moment was gone. Sansa lowered her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.
Joffrey scowled, storming away with his new hounds, leaving her with the heads of her household to watch her with empty eyes. When she turned around, the dove was gone but the heads remained. There were so many of them, each and every with their heads turned to watch her accusingly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, looking at Septa Mordane. “I-”
I ran to tell the Queen.
Father had been preparing to send her and Arya back to Winterfell. I told the Queen.
Gods, Sansa felt her knees tremble and shake, and her palms grow cold and clammy. I killed them. The Septa. Wyl and Donnis. Vayon.
Her stomach reeled, like the sea in a storm, and Sansa could not hold it any longer. She hurled a stream of vomit on the walkway, feeling her tears mingle with her blood. She fell to her knees there and then, hardly registering the puddle of vomit she was kneeling in. My penance. I- I …
“Child,” a soft, soothing voice called to her. Sansa did not lift her gaze.
“Child,” the voice repeated, this time firmer, but no less kind. With a tremor in her chest, Sansa dared to glance up.
Standing before her was a lady in white, her face serene and graceful, as if carved from the finest marble. Her skin was pale, untouched by the harshness of the world, and her eyes held a tenderness that seemed to echo through the very air. The maiden wore a gown as white as fresh snow, and perched delicately upon her shoulder was the white dove.
“Who… who are you?” Sansa whispered, her voice trembling with the weight of uncertainty.
The lady in white only smiled, her lips curving gently, and reached out with a hand as smooth and pale as moonlight. As her fingers hovered near, Sansa felt a wave of calm wash over her—warm, comforting, as though she had sunk into the deep, soothing waters of Winterfell’s hot springs. A gentle reassurance, like home itself.
And then, as if the world had slipped away from her in a dream, she knew no more.
“Sansa,” she heard her name called. “Sansa.”
Her eyelids fluttered slightly, and she faintly felt a hand against her cheek. It was Jeyne’s voice, Sansa realised, and she was on the bed in her chambers. Jeyne’s face was still pale but there was some life there, a flush of the cheeks, and her eyes were creased with worry. “Sansa,” she whispered to her. “Are you alright?”
Sansa blinked. Was it all a dream?
“I’m alright,” she said softly. “What happened?”
“The servants,” Jeyne explained. “They found you unconscious in the hall. They…”
“Tell me, Jeyne,” Sansa urged gently.
“They brought you back here. When they left, they were whispering of… of Joffrey’s cruelty. That you fainted because…”
“I see,” Sansa brushed her hand against Jeyne’s pale cheek. “They are not horribly wrong. You need to eat more.”
Jeyne glanced at the empty plate on the table, where honey cakes had sat in the morning. Jeyne Poole’s smile was as sweet as honey, Sansa thought.
“We will call for more,” Sansa told her.
The servant who came was a mouse of a girl, perhaps two or three years older than them, with long, dark hair. In her hands was a platter of sweet cakes and a jug of milk. “Leave them there, please,” Sansa said with all courtesy.
The girl bowed, placing the platter on the table. Yet, her face was conflicted and she lingered at the doorway. “Yes?” Sansa asked.
“M’lady,” she wrung her hands, glancing about the room, before stepping close.
“Your sister, m’lady,” she whispered into Sansa’s ears. “She’s in the city.”
Sansa felt her heart freeze. Arya? She should be in Winterfell, or the North. Could this be another of Joffrey’s cruel tricks?
Sansa looked at her. “How…”
Jeyne sat by the table, slowly sipping from a cup of milk. Sansa glanced at her. Jeyne looked away, looking out of the window and at King’s Landing.
“I was out buying crabs for the kitchens, m’lady,” the serving girl muttered. “At Fishmonger’s Square. Some urchin took the coin pouch on my way back. I chased them into an alleyway, and they had a knife. Only, they didn’t care about the coin. It weren’t a boy, like I thought, but a short girl. And…” She leaned in to whisper into Sansa’s ear once more. “She asked about you, and your lord father.”
Sansa felt her throat dry. “... And?”
“Two men came, ne’er-do-wells. One of them tried to grab me but your sister slashed at him with a little knife.”
Sansa looked at her, trying to keep her calm. If this is true…
“Then, they died. ‘Twas a young man, m’lady, looked like a companion to your sister. He killed both of them with a crossbow. I went on my knees to beg mercy. He raised a dagger and I thought I would die, and it all went black. When I woke, m’lady, it was near sunset. I hurried back to the kitchens. They took the coin and the crabs, but they did not take my life.” She scowled slightly, but gave a strained smile.
“What is your name?” Sansa asked.
“Anna, m’lady.”
“Anna,” Sansa said softly, “I presume you have told the King and Queen about this?”
Anna shook her head violently. “I told no one, m’lady. Not even when the cook scolded me for losing the crabs and the coin.”
“Why?” Sansa asked, suspicion edging her voice.
“Your sister could have killed me, m’lady,” Anna said with wide eyes. “She tried to protect me from those men, though she was as young as my brother. The Queen… Her servants have… disappeared when she was displeased with them. And King Joffrey is…” Cruel. A monster.
A part of her whispered coldly that this was a trick, yet another of Joffrey’s cruel mercies. She had been sent by Joffrey, that part of her whispered, to give her false hope. Hope that would be cruelly shattered.
No, Sansa realised. Joffrey would not stoop to talk to servants. The tale was too elaborate, too detailed. And…
“My job. I not alone. Had friend.” Andrei had told her, when she had gone with Arya to visit him as he recovered.
That young man, Sansa thought, could be Andrei’s friend. Just as Andrei had guarded her father, his companion must have found Arya and protected her valiantly. There are still knights, Sansa told herself.
“Thank you, Anna,” Sansa whispered, taking her hand. Anna bowed awkwardly and lowly but Sansa stopped her. “You have brought hope where we had none.”
When Anna left, Jeyne looked at her, a ring of white milk around her lips.
“Is…” Jeyne trailed off.
“I believe so,” Sansa nodded, wiping the milk from Jeyne’s lips with her fingers.
“I am glad for you, Sansa.”
She smiled at Jeyne and sat with her. It almost felt like Winterfell again, with the two of them glancing out of the window, drinking milk and eating honey cakes. Almost.
The silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken words. Sansa’s thoughts drifted, wondering where her father was, how her mother fared, and praying for Robb’s safety. Her gaze lingered on the city stretching out before her, on the walls that now hid her sister.
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 67
Two more chapters before the epilogue of Arc 1! Bonus points if you can guess who those two chapter povs will be from!
Chapter 43: Tyrion I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“They have my son,” Tywin Lannister said.
“They do, my lord.” The messenger’s voice was dulled by exhaustion. On the breast of his torn surcoat, the brindled boar of Crakehall was half-obscured by dried blood.
So much blood, Tyrion noted dully, the poor boar is drowning.
One of your sons anyways, he thought bitterly. He took a sip of wine and said not a word, thinking of Jaime. When he lifted his arm, pain shot through his elbow, reminding him of his own brief taste of battle. He loved his brother, but he would not have wanted to be with him in the Whispering Wood for all the gold in Casterly Rock.
His lord father’s assembled captains and bannermen had fallen very quiet as the courier sang his sorry song. The only sound was the crackle and hiss of the log burning in the hearth at the end of the long, drafty common room.
After the hardships of the long relentless drive south, the prospect of even a single night in an inn had cheered Tyrion mightily ... though he rather wished it had not been this inn again, with all its memories. His father had set a grueling pace, and it had taken its toll. Men wounded in the battle kept up as best they could or were abandoned to fend for themselves. Every morning they left a few more by the roadside, men who went to sleep never to wake. Every afternoon a few more collapsed along the way. And every evening a few more deserted, stealing off into the dusk. Tyrion had been half-tempted to go with them.
He had been upstairs, enjoying the comfort of a featherbed and the warmth of Shae’s body beside him, when his squire had woken him to say that a rider had arrived with dire news of Riverrun.
All for nothing. The rush south, the endless forced marches, the bodies left beside the road ... all for naught. Robb Stark had reached Riverrun days and days ago.
“How could this happen?” Ser Harys Swyft moaned like an old, fat whore. “How? Even after the Whispering Wood, you had Riverrun ringed in iron, surrounded by a great host ... what madness made Ser Jaime decide to split his men into three separate camps? Surely he knew how vulnerable that would leave them?”
Better than you, you chinless craven, Tyrion thought. Jaime might have lost Riverrun, but it angered him to hear his brother slandered by the likes of Swyft, a shameless lickspittle whose greatest accomplishment was marrying his equally chinless daughter to Ser Kevan, and thereby attaching himself to the Lannisters.
“I would have done the same,” his uncle responded, a good deal more calmly than Tyrion might have. He envied Ser Kevan his patience.
“You have never seen Riverrun, Ser, or you would know that Jaime had little choice in the matter. The castle is situated at the end of the land where the Tumblestone flows into the Red Fork of the Trident. The rivers form two sides of a triangle, and when danger threatens, the Tullys open their sluice gates upstream to create a wide moat on the third side, turning Riverrun into an island. The walls rise sheer from the water, and from their towers the defenders have a commanding view of the opposite shores for many leagues around. To cut off all the approaches, a besieger must place one camp north of the Tumblestone, one south of the Red Fork, and a third between the rivers, west of the moat. There is no other way, none.”
“Ser Kevan speaks truly, my lords,” the courier said. “We’d built palisades of sharpened stakes around the camps, yet it was not enough, not with no warning and the rivers cutting us off from each other. They came down on the north camp first. No one was expecting an attack. Marq Piper had been raiding our supply trains, but he had no more than fifty men, we thought. Ser Jaime had gone out to deal with them the night before... well, with what we thought was them. He wanted to fight, he insisted. We were told the Stark host was east of the Green Fork, marching south... ”
“And your outriders?” Ser Gregor Clegane’s face might have been hewn from rock. The fire in the hearth gave a somber orange cast to his skin and put deep shadows in the red hollows of his eyes. “They saw nothing? They gave you no warning?”
The bloodstained messenger shook his head. “Our outriders had been vanishing. Marq Piper’s work, we thought. The ones who did come back had seen nothing.”
“A man who sees nothing has no use for his eyes,” the Mountain declared. “Cut them out and give them to your next outrider. Tell him you hope that four eyes might see better than two ... and if not, the man after him will have six.”
Lord Tywin Lannister turned his face to study Ser Gregor. Tyrion saw a glimmer of gold as the light shone off his father’s pupils, but he could not have said whether the look was one of approval or disgust. Lord Tywin was oft quiet in council, preferring to listen before he spoke, a habit Tyrion himself tried to emulate. Yet this silence was uncharacteristic even for him, and his wine was untouched.
“You said they came at night,” Ser Kevan prompted.
The man gave a weary nod. “The Blackfish led the van, cutting down our sentries and clearing away the palisades for the main assault. By the time our men knew what was happening, riders were pouring over the ditch banks and galloping through the camp with swords and torches in hand. I was sleeping in the west camp, between the rivers. When we heard the fighting and saw the tents being fired, Lord Brax led us to the rafts and we tried to pole across, but the current was strong, my lords. It pushed us downstream and the Tullys started flinging rocks at us with the catapults on their walls. I saw one raft smashed to kindling and three others overturned, men swept into the river and drowned ... and those who did make it across found the Starks waiting for them on the riverbanks.”
Ser Flement Brax wore a silver-and-purple tabard and the look of a man who cannot comprehend what he has just heard. “My lord father—”
“Sorry, my lord,” the messenger said. “Lord Brax was clad in plate-and-mail when his raft overturned. He was very gallant.”
He was a fool, Tyrion thought, swirling his cup and staring down into the winy depths. Crossing a river at night on a crude raft, wearing armor, with an enemy waiting on the other side—if that was gallantry, he would take cowardice every time. He wondered if Lord Brax had felt especially gallant as the weight of his steel pulled him under the black water. Folly and gallantry are the bread and butter of knights.
“The camp between the rivers was overrun as well,” the messenger was saying. “While we were trying to cross, more Starks swept in from the west, two columns of armored horse. I saw Lord Umber’s giant-in-chains and the Mallister eagle, but it was the boy who led them, with two monstrous wolves running at his side.”
Tyrion turned to truly listen, as did his lord father.
“I wasn’t there to see, but it’s said those beasts killed a score of men and ripped apart a dozen horses. Robb Stark himself fought fiercely, killing many with axe and sword. His wolves and guards were unstoppable. All died before their way. Our spearmen formed up a shieldwall and held against their first charge barely, but when the Tullys saw them engaged, they opened the gates of Riverrun and Tytos Blackwood led a sortie across the drawbridge and took them in the rear.”
“Gods save us,” Lord Lefford swore.
“Greatjon Umber fired the siege towers we were building, and Lord Blackwood found Ser Edmure Tully in chains among the other captives, and made off with them all. Our south camp was under the command of Ser Forley Prester. He retreated in good order when he saw that the other camps were lost, with two thousand spears and as many bowmen, but the Tyroshi sellsword who led his freeriders struck his banners and went over to the foe.” How surprising, Tyrion wondered.
“Curse the man.” His uncle Kevan sounded more angry than surprised. “I warned Jaime not to trust that one. A man who fights for coin is loyal only to his purse.”
“Ser Forley’s men are marching for the Golden Tooth, but the Blackfish has bled them every step of the way. We lost perhaps six hundred men from arrows, disease and desertion. Six of us were commanded to ride here, and I am the last alive.”
Lord Tywin wove his fingers together under his chin. Only his eyes moved as he listened. His bristling golden side-whiskers framed a face so still it might have been a mask, but Tyrion could see tiny beads of sweat dappling his father’s shaven head.
“How could it happen?” Ser Harys Swyft wailed again. “Ser Jaime taken, the siege broken ... this is a catastrophe!”
Ser Addam Marbrand said, “I am sure we are all grateful to you for pointing out the obvious, Ser Harys. The question is, what shall we do about it?”
“What can we do? Jaime’s host is all slaughtered or taken or put to flight, and the Starks and the Tullys sit squarely across our line of supply. We are cut off from the west! They can march on Casterly Rock if they so choose, and what’s to stop them? My lords, we are beaten. We must sue for peace.”
“Peace?” Tyrion swirled his wine thoughtfully, took a deep draft, and hurled his empty cup to the floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. “There’s your peace, Ser Harys. My sweet nephew broke it for good and all when he decided to ornament the Red Keep with Northern heads. You’ll have an easier time drinking wine from that cup than you will convincing Robb Stark to make peace now. He hates us so, nor that I blame him truly. And he’s winning... or hadn’t you noticed?”
“Unless they trade three-for-one, we still come out light on those scales,” Tyrion said acidly. “And what are we to offer for my brother? Lord Eddard Stark’s sword?”
“I had heard that Queen Cersei has the Hand’s daughters,” Lefford said hopefully. “If we give the lad his sisters back ... ”
Ser Addam snorted disdainfully. “He would have to be an utter ass to trade Jaime Lannister’s life for two girls.”
“Then we must ransom Ser Jaime, whatever it costs,” Lord Lefford said.
Tyrion rolled his eyes. “If the Starks feel the need for gold, they can melt down Jaime’s armor.” Though it seems they have little care for gold. The Starks of Winterfell preferred steel, it seemed, and cold, hard iron. He remembered young Robb Stark from Winterfell, though picturing him now was harder.
“If we ask for a truce, they will think us weak,” Ser Addam argued. “We should march on them at once.”
“Surely our friends at court could be prevailed upon to join us with fresh troops,” said Ser Harys. “And someone might return to Casterly Rock to raise a new host.”
Lord Tywin Lannister rose to his feet. “They have my son,” he said once more, in a voice that cut through the babble like a sword through suet. “Leave me. All of you.”
Ever the soul of obedience, Tyrion rose to depart with the rest, but his father gave him a look. “Not you, Tyrion. Remain. And you as well, Kevan. The rest of you, out.”
Tyrion eased himself back onto the bench, startled into speechlessness. Things must be truly dire. Ser Kevan crossed the room to the wine casks. “Uncle,” Tyrion called, “if you would be so kind—”
“Here.” His father offered him his cup, the wine untouched.
Now Tyrion truly was nonplussed. He drank.
Lord Tywin seated himself. “You have the right of it about Stark. If we had him, we might have used Lord Eddard to forge a peace with Winterfell and Riverrun, a peace that would have given us the time we need to deal with Robert’s brothers. Those two are trouble. Vanished … A crippled man and his swornsword, and the whole of the Red Keep could not find them. I blame your sister for that, and the fools she had kept at court.” His hand curled into a fist. “Madness. Rank madness.”
Lord Tywin’s anger was terrible to behold. For once, it is not directed at me.
“Our position is worse than you know,” his father went on. “It would seem we have a new king.” Tyrion struggled to keep the cup in his hand. Has Robert come back to life? He wondered, with a certain black amusement.
Ser Kevan looked poleaxed. “A new—who? What have they done to Joffrey?”
The faintest flicker of distaste played across Lord Tywin’s thin lips. “Nothing ... yet. My grandson still sits the Iron Throne, but the eunuch has heard whispers from the south. Renly Baratheon wed Margaery Tyrell at Highgarden this fortnight past, and now he has claimed the crown. The bride’s father and brothers have bent the knee and sworn him their swords.”
Renly Baratheon as king? Tyrion mused, remembering the young man with the easy smile that had done little for the laws of the realm and king.
“Those are grave tidings.” When Ser Kevan frowned, the furrows in his brow grew deep as canyons.
“My daughter commands us to ride for King’s Landing at once, to defend the Red Keep against King Renly and the Knight of Flowers.” His mouth tightened.
“Commands us, mind you. In the name of the king and council.”
“How is King Joffrey taking the news?” Tyrion asked with a certain black amusement.
“Cersei has not seen fit to tell him yet,” Lord Tywin said. “She fears he might insist on marching against Renly himself.” He resisted the urge to laugh.
“With what army?” Tyrion asked. “You don’t plan to give him this one, I hope?”
“He talks of leading the City Watch,” Lord Tywin said.
“If he takes the Watch, he’ll leave the city undefended,” Ser Kevan said. “And with Lord Stannis on Dragonstone ...”
“He will have to lead an army of thieves and smiths, then.” Tyrion said.
“Yes.” Lord Tywin looked down at his son. “I had thought you were the one made for motley, Tyrion, but it would appear that I was wrong.”
“Why, Father,” said Tyrion, “that almost sounds like praise.” He leaned forward intently. “What of Stannis? He’s the elder, not Renly. How does he feel about his brother’s claim?” Renly is a fool with an army, Stannis is no fool, with no army.
His father frowned. “I have felt from the beginning that Stannis was a greater danger than all the others combined. Yet he does nothing. Oh, Varys hears his whispers. Stannis is building ships, Stannis is hiring sellswords, Stannis has a shadowbinder from Asshai. What does it mean? Is any of it true?” He gave an irritated shrug. “Kevan, bring us the map.”
Ser Kevan did as he was bid. Lord Tywin unrolled the leather, smoothing it flat. “Jaime has left us in a bad way. Roose Bolton and the remnants of his host are north of us. Our enemies hold the Twins and Moat Cailin. Robb Stark sits to the west, so we cannot retreat to Lannisport and the Rock unless we choose to give battle. Jaime is taken, and his army for all purposes has ceased to exist. Marq Piper raids our scouts and outriders west of Pinkmaiden. Thoros of Myr and Beric Dondarrion continue to plague our foraging parties. At High Heart, a dread song is being sung. We shall not speak of it. To our east, we have the Arryns, Stannis on Dragonstone, and in the south Highgarden and Storm’s End are calling their banners.”
Tyrion smiled crookedly. “Take heart, Father. At least Rhaegar Targaryen is still dead. And Aerys too.” Though his children yet live.
“I had hoped you might have more to offer us than japes, Tyrion,” Lord Tywin Lannister said coldly.
Ser Kevan frowned over the map, forehead creasing. “Robb Stark will have Edmure Tully and the lords of the Trident with him now. Their combined power may exceed our own. And with Roose Bolton behind us... Tywin, if we remain here, I fear we might be caught between three armies.”
“I have no intention of remaining here. We must finish our business with young Lord Stark before Renly Baratheon can march from Highgarden. Bolton does not concern me. He is a wary man, and we made him warier on the Green Fork. He will be slow to give pursuit. So ... on the morrow, we make for Harrenhal. Kevan, I want Ser Addam’s outriders to screen our movements. Give him as many men as he requires, and send them out in groups of four. I will have no vanishings.”
“As you say, my lord, but... why Harrenhal? That is a grim, unlucky place. Some call it cursed.”
“Let them,” Lord Tywin said. “Unleash Ser Gregor and send him before us with his reavers. Send forth Vargo Hoat and his freeriders as well, and Ser Amory Lorch. Each is to have three hundred horse. Tell them I want to see the riverlands afire from the Gods Eye to the Red Fork.”
“They will burn, my lord,” Ser Kevan said, rising. “I shall give the commands.” He bowed and made for the door.
When they were alone, Lord Tywin glanced at Tyrion. “Your savages might relish a bit of rapine. Tell them they may ride with Vargo Hoat and plunder as they like—goods, stock, women, they may take what they want and burn the rest.”
“Telling Shagga and Timett how to pillage is like telling a rooster how to crow,” Tyrion commented, “but I should prefer to keep them with me.” Uncouth and unruly they might be, yet the wildlings were his.
“Then you had best learn to control them. I will not have the city plundered.”
“The city?” Tyrion was lost. “What city would that be?”
“King’s Landing. I am sending you to court.”
It was the last thing Tyrion Lannister would ever have anticipated. He reached for his wine, and considered for a moment as he sipped. “And what am I to do there?”
“Rule,” his father said curtly.
Tyrion hooted with laughter. “My sweet sister might have a word or two to say about that!”
“Let her say what she likes. Her son needs to be taken in hand before he ruins us all. I blame those fools on the council—the venerable Grand Maester, and that cockless wonder Lord Varys. What sort of counsel are they giving Joffrey when he lurches from one folly to the next? At least Baelish has died, or so the words on the wind tell us. Shame. And whose notion was it to make this Janos Slynt a lord? The man’s father was a butcher, and they grant him Harrenhal. Harrenhal, that was the seat of kings! Not that he will ever set foot inside it, if I have a say. I am told he took a bloody spear for his sigil. A constant reminder of his bloodied treason. A bloody cleaver would have been my choice.”
His father had not raised his voice, yet Tyrion could see the anger in the gold of his eyes. “And dismissing Selmy, where was the sense in that? Yes, the man was old, but the name of Barristan the Bold still has meaning in the realm. He lent honor to any man he served. Tales have reached me of his flight from the city, cutting down Watchmen as he fled, with that Northman. Cassel. Another folly. Those who fought with Stark in the throne room should have been dealt with cleanly, or kept as hostages. Executing them with the Starks’ own Valyrian steel sword…”
He pointed a finger at Tyrion’s face. “If Cersei cannot curb the boy, you must. And if these councillors are playing us false ... ”
Tyrion knew. “Spikes,” he sighed. “Heads. Walls.”
“I see you have taken a few lessons from me.”
“More than you know, Father,” Tyrion answered quietly. He finished his wine and set the cup aside, thoughtful. A part of him was more pleased than he cared to admit. Another part was remembering the battle upriver, and wondering if he was being sent to hold the left again. “Why me?” he asked, cocking his head to one side. “Why not my uncle? Why not Ser Addam or Ser Flement? Why not a ... bigger man?”
Lord Tywin rose abruptly. “You are my son.”
That was when he knew. You have given him up for lost, he thought. You bloody bastard, you think Jaime’s good as dead, so I’m all you have left. Tyrion wanted to slap him, to spit in his face, to cut the heart out of him and see if it was made of old hard gold, the way the smallfolks said. Yet he sat there, silent and still.
The shards of the broken cup crunched beneath his father’s heels as Lord Tywin crossed the room. “One last thing,” he said. “You will not take the whore to court.”
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 69
Just a shorter chapter while I work on a longer one for the next (that pov might be a slight surprise). Working on the epilogue for this arc as well and I am placing six POVs within it. Can anyone guess who those six might be?
Chapter 44: Robb I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
He sat in the bow with Grey Wind, his hand resting on his direwolf's head as the rowers pulled at their oars. Theon Greyjoy was with him. His mother sat across, her eyes forlorn and far away. South and east, her eyes were fixed upon. Ser Brynden would come behind in the second boat, with the Greatjon and Lord Karstark.
They shot down the Tumblestone, letting the strong current push them past the looming Wheel Tower. The splash and rumble of the great waterwheel brought a sad smile to his mother’s face. From the sandstone walls of the castle, soldiers and servants shouted down her name, and Robb’s, and “Winterfell!”
From every rampart waved the banner of House Tully: a leaping trout, silver, against a rippling blue-and-red field. It was a stirring sight, Robb thought to himself.
Below the Wheel Tower, they made a wide turn and knifed through the churning water. The men put their backs into it. The wide arch of the Water Gate came into view, and they heard the creak of heavy chains as the great iron portcullis was winched upward. It rose slowly as they approached, and he saw that the lower half of it was red with rust. The bottom foot dripped brown mud on them as they passed underneath, the barbed spikes mere inches above their heads. He gazed up at the bars, and wondered how deep the rust went, and how well the portcullis would stand up to a ram, and whether it ought to be replaced.
His mother did the same, her gaze fixed upon the iron gate. Their thoughts never lingered far from matters of war these days, Robb reflected. Preparations always had to be made, supplies tended to; swords and arrowtips and spears and shields, mail and steel gauntlets and leather boots, food and medicine and freshwater. Outriders needed to be sent out or received, reports needed to be attended to, his lords’ council had to be listened to, taken into account or gently rebuked as needed.
They passed beneath the arch and under the walls, moving from sunlight to shadow and back into sunlight. Boats large and small were tied up all around them, secured to iron rings set in the stone. Guards waited on the water stair with Ser Edmure Tully, a stocky young man with a shaggy head of auburn hair and a fiery beard. His uncle’s breastplate was scratched and dented from battle, his blue-and-red cloak stained by blood and smoke, and his eyes were tired.
At his side stood Lord Tytos Blackwood, a hard pike of a man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper whiskers and a hook nose. His bright yellow armor was inlaid with jet in elaborate vine-and-leaf patterns, and a cloak sewn from raven feathers draped his thin shoulders. It had been Lord Tytos who led the sortie that plucked Ser Edmure from the Lannister camp. A good man, thought Robb.
“Bring them in,” Ser Edmure commanded. Three men scrambled down the stairs kneedeep in the water and pulled the boat close with long hooks. When Grey Wind bounded out, one of them dropped his pole and lurched back, stumbling and sitting down abruptly in the river. The others laughed, and the man got a sheepish look on his face. Theon Greyjoy vaulted over the side of the boat and lifted his mother by the waist, setting her on a dry step above him as water lapped around his boots. Robb accepted his hand as well, smiling, stepping upon Riverrun’s stone.
His mother was embraced by Ser Edmure, and Robb turned towards Lord Tytos.
“The sally was a sight to behold, my lord,” he said and Lord Tytos laughed.
“My men and I saw the battle from the battlements, young lord, and we would have been most ashamed to not be a part of that.”
Edmure spoke quietly to his mother before leading her away, and he returned her fleeting look with a solemn nod. The second boat docked, and the three men disembarked. Ser Brynden shook hands fiercely with the captain of the guards, while the northern lords approached him eagerly.
“Young Wolf,” Lord Umber rumbled, while Rickard Karstark nodded.
“Greatjon, Lord Karstark,” Robb smiled. “We shall await the arrival of the other northern lords. Then, the godswood awaits.”
“Aye,” Rickard Karstark grunted while the Greatjon slapped him on the shoulder.
“When shall we give Old Tywin a lashing, Young Wolf?”
Robb looked at the sun, blazing above them. “Last we hear, Lord Tywin sits at the Crossroads but word of his son’s defeat and capture will have reached him by now.”
“Harrenhal,” Karstark muttered, “he will march for Harrenhal.”
“I believe so too,” Robb nodded, “and that accursed place cannot be taken by a hundred thousand men, let alone twenty. This war will not be a fast one, my lords.”
“Nay,” the Greatjon chuckled, “All the better. Why I remember the ride your lord father put us through when we were racing for the Trident. Never before was my arse so sore. That was a good war, killing the dragons. This one might be better, me thinks, slaying the lions. A shame Ned is far and away.”
“Not so far, my lord,” Robb assured.
“A mystery that,” the Blackfish muttered as he approached. “King’s Landing and Dragonstone are close but not so close that a man can strip of his armor and dip into the waters for a quick swim over.”
“Maybe the Blackfish can do that, eh?” The Greatjon jested.
“Mayhaps I can.”
“That letter did not say much,” Karstark grunted.
“There is only so much a raven can carry,” Robb pointed out. “And it had to fly over land held by the Lannisters. My father could not say much.”
Though the words he had written said enough. Stannis Baratheon is the rightful heir to the throne, his father wrote. Joffrey cannot be king. That had sent the tent of lords muttering and whispering when he showed them the letter.
The Greatjon wondered at the mention of Andrei, pondering where his father had found the warrior. Rickard Karstark demanded to know just how much of an ‘honored guest’ his father was, and whether that meant a hostage. Maege Mormont placed a hand over his mother’s quietly, at the mention of his sisters. Galbart Glover dwelled over how his father had found his way to Dragonstone. The Blackfish peered at a map and realised that there were no waterways by which Lord Stark could return to them as of now. Some of the Freys muttered in disgruntled tones over how the letter had been sent to Seaguard, instead of the Twins. None bothered to listen to them.
Though, they had found a common consensus. He could see it plain on the faces of each lord and lady of the North. Relief that his father was alive and well.
The Greatjon placed it succinctly. “If Old Stoneface has your father well, then so be it. We will bugger Tywin Lannister bloody with good northern steel, then swim to Dragonstone, if need be, to bring your father back to Winterfell. Have no fear, my lord, my lady,” he told them then. “I shall be the first.”
That sent another wave of arguing in the tent that night.
Theon was quiet, leaning against a stone post and watching them. He had fought well at the Whispering Wood, and for Riverrun, Robb thought.
“What do you think, Theon?” He asked. The Blackfish had reluctantly given praise for Theon’s mind for scouting, and skill with the bow. “How shall we take this war?”
Theon blinked. “Me?”
Robb nodded. Theon looked thoughtful. His eyes seemed to trace over a map made of air before him, flickering this way and that way.
“West,” Theon grinned. “Rich and ripe.”
“Ah, the squid has the right of it,” the Greatjon boomed. “The Ironborn blood in you, eh, lad?”
Theon’s face flushed red but he did not speak. Robb frowned.
The third boat was here now, unloading Maege Mormont and Galbart Glover.
“Maege!” Lord Umber laughed, “Thought you drowned!”
“Drowned?” The Lady of Bear Island scowled. “In that river? You should come swimming, Jon, in the cold waters around my island. It’ll be good for you, some time away from this piss warm hearth of yours.”
The Greatjon chuckled, as did Lords Glover and Karstark. The Blackfish smiled silently, and Lord Tytos as well.
“My lords,” he said, “the Great Hall awaits us. I need a horn. The other lords shall flow in, with that river, and we shall meet in the godswood.”
A horn of ale, he downed in the Great Hall, with Theon sitting by him. Grey Wind was curled by his feet, crunching away at a haunch of meat. The mother wolf had turned away after the Battle of the Camps, following the Blackfish’s riders in harassing the remnants of Jaime Lannister’s army. Afterwards, the Blackfish told him, the mother wolf howled into the night and darted into the forest. Strange, Robb thought. The smell of blood and raw meat was strangely strong.
“That plan of yours,” Robb mused to a brooding Theon, “how would you go about it?”
“To raid the Westerlands?”
“Aye.”
Theon drained the last of his ale. “The Golden Tooth is a wall in that path. We will need paths to cross it. Ask around the smallfolk of the western Riverlands. Perhaps some of them, the ancients mayhaps, know of old goat paths.”
Robb nodded. “To bypass the Golden Tooth…”
Before Theon could speak, he saw a tired, sweating man stomping towards them.
“Word from Maester Vyman,” the messenger breathed, urgency in his eyes, “Renly Baratheon has declared himself king. He has married Lady Margaery Tyrell at Highgarden, and is calling on the stormlords as well.”
“Renly?” Theon nearly dropped his horn.
Robb felt ice pooling in his belly. Renly was the younger brother, and his father was with the older. “What of Lord Stannis?”
“No word as of yet, my lord.”
He nodded his thanks, and the messenger turned and left, no doubt rushing for the other lords to deliver the news to.
“Three men vying for a crown,” Theon muttered.
“It will be war,” Robb said grimly, hearing the warhorns in his mind. “My father is with Lord Stannis. If Renly declares himself a king, over his brother’s right, over Joffrey and Tommen, what would Stannis Baratheon think of it?”
Theon eyed the horn in his hand, judging it empty. “What sort of folly would make him declare himself king?”
“The folly of ambition, I would think,” Robb muttered. “The Reach and the Stormlands… Those are tens of thousands of men. Imagine the banners fluttering in the wind. That can blind a man, even the best of them.”
Theon’s eyes were far away. Robb left him to his imagination, finding the need for silent solace, for prayer, for the godswood. He found his lords in the silent godswood, beneath the green canopy of leaves, surrounded by tall redwoods and great old elms. The heart tree was a slender weirwood with a face more sad than fierce.
How many more are there in the south? Robb thought to himself.
How many have been burnt or cut down?
He drew his longsword, and placed it before him, thrusting the point into the soft ground. He clasped his gloved hands around the hilt, and knelt. Around him, the other lords knelt as well. Greatjon Umber, Rickard Karstark, Maege Mormont, Galbart Glover, and more. Even Tytos Blackwood was among them, the great raven cloak fanned out behind him. They all knelt in silence, amidst red leaves.
Old Gods, he prayed, watch over my father.
He thought of his lord father, and the turmoil he must have faced in King’s Landing, that accursed pit of lies and vipers, and almost cursed the Lannisters once more. Many nights he had spent ruminating and brooding on what had happened in the south. The word that had come trickling north was all confusing, terribly so. Why had Robert Baratheon died so suddenly? What made his father flee to Dragonstone? How did he make it there? What was he to do now?
Watch over my mother.
His mother was near drowning in her worries, he could tell. When none but him were watching, she wrangled her fingers. Her gaze was fixed south and east, and he could tell that her mind was flooded with thoughts and questions and fear.
Watch over my sisters.
He thought of Sansa, alone in King’s Landing and trapped in the Red Keep so far from Winterfell. Arya, his mother fretted, must be there as well, but the letters had not mentioned her name. A wolf is not a beast to be caged, Robb thought angrily, and that business with Lady and Nymeria was most foul. Another crime that the lions had to answer for, Robb told himself, adding it to a lost list of grudges.
Watch over my brothers, all of them.
He thought of Bran and Rickon back in Winterfell, both young and confused and terribly afraid. Both of them had been brave when he had to leave, but he could sense their worry and fear. If the gods were good, they would all return to Winterfell together soon, before winter came. He thought of Jon, far away to the north on the Wall. The next time they met, Robb thought sadly, he would be in black.
Old Gods, give peace to all of the good men and women who were slain. Those who fell to treachery and betrayal in that foul city, those who gave their lives in the battles that have come, and to those who will perish in the battles to come. I, Robb of House Stark, ask for your watch and your guidance in the war to come.
Faintly and far away, he heard the sound of wolves howling.
He thought of that white wolf that had spoken to him in his dreams, amidst that howling blizzard of snow and frost. Was that one of the Old Gods? Robb wondered.
During the battles, in the Whispering Wood and for Riverrun, he had felt cold and not the cold grip of fear and terror either. No, he was not afraid, though he knew he should have been. He felt the cold chill of winter snow, and found himself in the heart of a blizzard. It was his first, real, battle. His first time leading thousands of men in war. And war it was, the sounds of the fighting still stuck to him. The clashing of blades, the shouts and the screaming, the thunder of the hooves. The smell was fierce in his mind too, the blood, the filth, and the stench of dying men.
Yet, the steel sound of battle had been as sweet as any bard’s summer song, and the smell of carnage had been as pleasant as the aroma of the harvest feast. It was war, Robb thought, and winter upon their foes, and yet he felt alive and glorious each time he swung his blade, each time his mount crushed an enemy before them, each time the wolves savaged and slain a man.
Is this your blessing? Robb wondered.
Only the wind replied, a river wind shivering through the high branches. He could still hear the faint howling of wolves, however, and they seemed to grow closer.
War would spread across the land, he knew, like a vicious plague. Fighting would be fiercest in the Riverlands, as ever, but now that Highgarden and Storm’s End were stirred, war would bloom its red flowers in the south as well. East and west too, as far as King’s Landing and Casterly Rock.
Robb opened his eyes and saw the sad eyes of the heart tree weeping with red sap. How many more would weep? How many more daughters and wives and mothers?
What of it? Another voice within wondered. It is war, and the Lannisters have writ their fate in blood. The snows will come for them, and they will die, by steel or fang or winter. We need merely concern ourselves with victory.
He got to his feet slowly and sheathed his sword. Around him, his lords rose as well, like a pack of great slumbering wolves. He blinked at the sight of his mother, standing at the edge of the godswood, morose and quiet.
“Mother,” Robb said. “We must call a council. There are things to be decided.”
“Your grandfather would like to see you,” she said. “Robb, he’s very sick.”
“I am sorry, Mother ... for Lord Hoster and for you. Yet first we must meet. We’ve had word from the south. Renly Baratheon has claimed his brother’s crown.”
“Renly?” she said, shocked. “I had thought, surely it would be Lord Stannis ... ”
“So did we all, my lady,” Galbart Glover said.
The lords walked away in pairs and threes, bickering and talking amongst each other. He spied Tytos Blackwood in conversation with Maege Mormont, and the Greatjon chortled at something that Galbart Glover said.
“Mother,” Robb whispered to her. Before he could speak, a guardsman, in the colors of Riverrun, came running for them.
“Wolves, my lady, my lord,” the young guard gasped. “Wolves at the gate.”
His mother’s face was pale. “What… How many?”
“Two dozen,” the guard replied, “led by… the direwolf. There is another as well.”
He exchanged a glance with his mother. They rushed through the halls of Riverrun, descending down the stone stairs in a flurry, and found the drawbridge lowered. There, across the bridge, they saw over a score of grey-furred wolves. These ones were fierce, he could tell at once, and blooded on human blood. Scars were left across their fur, scars left by steel, and he spied the mother wolf at their head.
And…
“Nymeria?” His mother breathed.
He walked the length of the wooden drawbridge with his mother by his side. As their boots touched the soil, the wolves gathered into a loose circle around them, moving as one. He could almost feel the tense fear of the guards, watching from the walls with bows half-drawn, and he raised a hand for them to hold. The mother wolf and Nymeria, who was nearly as large as Grey Wind now, were before them.
Nymeria’s dark golden eyes were a shade or two darker than her mother’s, like a shadowed sun, and they seemed to almost glimmer. The wolf leapt at Catelyn, and Robb smiled as Nymeria slobbered her tongue over his mother who only lightly protested. The mother wolf trotted to him and licked his hand.
“Nymeria…” He murmured. “Where were you?”
“Arya had to send her away,” his mother said softly, petting the mother wolf. “After what happened at the kingsroad, and Sansa’s own…”
“Another debt the Lannisters owe us,” he said gravely. “Shall we?”
“We should not leave the lords waiting for long,” she agreed.
The war council convened in the Great Hall, at four long trestle tables arranged in a broken square. Lord Hoster was too weak to attend. Ser Edmure sat in the high seat of the Tullys, with Brynden Blackfish at his side, and his father’s bannermen arrayed to right and left and along the side tables.
Word of the victory at Riverrun had spread to the fugitive lords of the Trident, drawing them back. Karyl Vance came in, a lord now, his father dead beneath the Golden Tooth. Ser Marq Piper was with him, and they brought a Darry, Ser Raymun’s son, a lad no older than Bran. Lord Jonos Bracken arrived from the ruins of Stone Hedge, glowering and blustering, and took a seat as far from Tytos Blackwood as the tables would permit. That will be trouble.
The northern lords sat opposite, with Robb and Catelyn facing the riverlords across the tables. They were fewer. The Greatjon sat at Robb’s left hand, and then Theon Greyjoy; his mother sat at his right, Galbart Glover and Lady Mormont were to her right. Lord Rickard Karstark took his seat like a man in a nightmare, dark rings around his eyes. There was no word of his eldest son, who had led the Karstark spears against Tywin Lannister on the Green Fork.
The arguing raged on late into the night. Each lord had a right to speak, and speak they did ... and shout, and curse, and reason, and cajole, and jest, and bargain, and slam tankards on the table, and threaten, and walk out, and return sullen or smiling. He sat, listening to it all, as his father had taught him.
Roose Bolton had re-formed the battered remnants of their other host at the mouth of the causeway. Ser Helman Tallhart and Walder Frey still held the Twins. Lord Tywin’s army had crossed the Trident, and was making for Harrenhal. And there were two kings in the realm. Two kings, and no agreement. Three soon, Robb thought, remembering the letter that his father had sent. Stannis Baratheon was not a man to watch idly whilst the realm raged with war.
And this letter, Robb thought. Father says Joffrey is unworthy to sit on the throne, and that I can see why. Vain, weak, cruel. Why Lord Stannis then? Robert bore two sons, and a daughter. Why not Tommen?
Many of the lords bannermen wanted to march on Harrenhal at once, to meet Lord Tywin and end Lannister power for all time. Young, hot-tempered Marq Piper urged a strike west at Casterly Rock instead. Still others counseled patience. Riverrun sat athwart the Lannister supply lines, Jason Mallister pointed out; let them bide their time, denying Lord Tywin fresh levies and provisions while they strengthened their defenses and rested their weary troops.
There is sense in that, thought Robb, weary. But do we have the time?
Lord Blackwood would have none of it. They should finish the work they began in the Whispering Wood. March to Harrenhal and bring Roose Bolton’s army down as well. Between two armies, Lord Tywin would surely be crushed. What Blackwood urged, Bracken opposed, as ever; Lord Jonos Bracken rose to insist they ought pledge their fealty to King Renly, and move south to join their might to his.
“Renly is not the king,” Robb said plainly, his father’s words echoing in him. Robert had won the throne with armies. Renly has the largest.
“You cannot mean to hold to Joffrey, my lord,” Galbart Glover said. “Not after…”
“What Joffrey, at the whispers of his mother, no doubt, did… That makes him evil,” Robb replied. “I do not know that it makes Renly king. He has an older brother, Lord Stannis, who has taken in my father, your lord, at Dragonstone. My father has written to me, as you all have heard, and it is his words that proclaim Joffrey to be unworthy of the throne.” He did not care to mention Tommen, the soft, pudgy boy that had clashed wooden sticks with Bran in the yard of Winterfell.
Lady Mormont agreed. “Lord Stannis has the better claim. A man grown, a seasoned commander. Iron and fair.”
“Renly is crowned,” said Marq Piper. “Highgarden and Storm’s End support his claim, and the Dornishmen will not be laggardly. If Winterfell and Riverrun add their strength to his, he will have five of the seven great houses behind him. Six, if the Arryns bestir themselves! Six against the Rock! My lords, within the year, we will have all their heads on pikes, the queen and the boy king, Lord Tywin, the Imp, the Kingslayer, Ser Kevan, all of them! That is what we shall win if we join with King Renly. What does Lord Stannis have against that, that we should cast it all aside?”
“The right,” said Robb stubbornly. “My father wrote to me from Dragonstone. I do not know how he arrived on that island from King’s Landing, but he did. He must have risked the Blackwater Bay for that. I do not know what went on in that city that day but I know that my father risked his life for Lord Stannis’ claim. He has the worthy claim. Joffrey, Renly, they are summer knights and boys.” Renly was older than himself by four years, he believed, but he chose not to mention it.
“Winter is coming,” he reminded them.
“So you mean us to declare for Stannis?” asked Edmure.
“I prayed to know what to do, but the gods did not answer,” said Robb, “So I must look to the words and actions of men. My father, even now, sits at Dragonstone, no doubt advising Lord Stannis. Joffrey is cruel, the Unworthy come again. His own brother is a child. What has Renly done to earn that crown?”
“My lord father would urge caution,” aged Ser Stevron said, with the weaselly smile of a Frey. “Wait, let these kings play their game of thrones. When they are done fighting, we can bend our knees to the victor, or oppose him, as we choose. With Renly arming, Lord Tywin would welcome a truce ... and the safe return of his son. And… we must wonder on the legitimacy of this letter from Dragonstone… It may yet prove to be false… Noble lords, let me go to him at Harrenhal and arrange good terms and ransoms ... ”
A roar of outrage drowned out his voice. “Craven!” the Greatjon thundered. “Begging for a truce will make us seem weak,” declared Lady Mormont. Even his mother frowned at that, her eyes burning with disapproval at the Frey. Robb kept his silence.
“Truce,” spat Lord Bracken. “Gregor Clegane laid waste to my fields, slaughtered my smallfolk, and left Stone Hedge a smoking ruin. Am I now to bend the knee to the ones who sent him?”
Lord Blackwood agreed, to Robb’s dull surprise. “And if we do make peace with King Joffrey, are we not then traitors to the Baratheon Kings? What if the stag should prevail against the lion, where would that leave us? And let us face the facts, my lords, the Baratheon brothers are the dangerous foes.”
“Whatever you may decide for yourselves, I shall never call a Lannister my king,” declared Marq Piper, his eyes alit with hate.
“Nor I!” yelled the little Darry boy. “I never will!”
Amidst the shouting, Robb sat frowning. He was thinking of his father, when the Greatjon lurched to his feet.
“MY LORDS!” he shouted, his voice booming off the rafters. “Here is what I say to these two kings!” He spat. “Renly Baratheon is nothing to me. Why should he rule over me and mine, from some flowery seat in Highgarden? What does he know of the Wall or the wolfswood or the barrows of the First Men? Even his gods are wrong. The Others take the Lannisters too, I’ve had a bellyful of them.” He reached back over his shoulder and drew his immense two-handed greatsword.
“Their gold is an eyesore,” spat the Greatjon, to the laughter of the assembled lords. “Their lions are naught but vain cats. The Kingslayer’s smirk has long irked me. Well, until I saw him keel over in the mud! The Imp, the Old Lion, the Queen, this Boy King… I spit on their gold, and their pride, and their lions!”
Firelight flashed across the flat steel as he raised it high. “Stannis is as hard as this slab of steel, my lords! Many of you were at the Trident, some of you were raised upon tales from that day. And when we fought amidst the waters of the Ruby Ford, ‘twas Stannis that held Storm’s End against a hundred thousand flowers. The same one that his little brother is in bed with.” The Greatjon spat. "‘Twas he who took that same island that Lord Stark now awaits us from. I fought with them in the Iron Islands, when Balon bloody Greyjoy tried to put that pisswood crown on his head. Stannis is good iron, my lords, a man of war, a man who can stand against winter. And if the tales are true, then he has done Lord Stark a great honor, holding him safe against the claws of the lion. That is a man I can call king!”
“I can have peace on those terms,” Lord Karstark rose in agreement. “Let Stannis show old Tywin and his children iron justice, hard Northern justice. Me and mine would fight for that, to put him on that iron chair. Then, we will have peace,” Rickard Karstark drew his steel. “Then, we march home to prepare for winter.”
Maege Mormont stood. “The Storm King!” she declared, brandishing her spiked mace. “Like the days of yore!” And the river lords were rising too, Blackwood and Bracken and Mallister and more, each shouting and roaring.
All eyes were upon him now. His mother watched him carefully, Nymeria and the mother wolf by her feet. The riverlords and his northmen kept their gaze on him. Robb could feel the pressure heavily upon him, like the weight of the world upon his shoulders. Within the smoky hall of Riverrun, it felt like the world was gazing at him in scrutiny, waiting and watching for the words that would come from his mouth.
Robb rose, slowly drawing his longsword.
“We have fought together, my lords,” said Robb, softly yet capturing the ear of every man in the great hall, “And we shall do so much in the battles to come, without a shadow of doubt. The Lannisters have done you all a great wrong, burning their way across the Riverlands, killing good Northmen. They have done my house a great wrong as well, holding my sisters and wounding my lord father.”
Many men grimaced and scowled at that, whispering words of fury and vengeance. His mother clutched her hands together tightly, watching him.
“Lord Stannis has kept my father safe and Lady Mormont has the right of it. He is a hard man but true and fair, a proven commander and administrator. Joffrey is no better than Aerys, and Renly is a fool and an usurper. My lords of the Trident and the North, I would call Lord Stannis my king! What say you?”
“Stannis, it is!” Ser Edmure shouted, drawing his blade and his riverlords roared with him; Bracken and Blackwood adding their steel together, Vance and Darry shouting with hoarse voices, and even Marq Piper nodded grimly.
There were eyes watching his mother as well. As Lord Hoster’s daughter and Lord Eddard’s wife, her word carried weight. And her whispered word was ‘Stannis.’
And on that night, the name that rang from the timbers of Riverrun’s halls, from the hoarse roars of Northmen and Riverlords alike was Stannis, King Stannis!
Notes:
Credits: AGOT Chapter 71
Surprise Robb POV!
Arc 1 (Arrival and Change) will be concluded with the epilogue that is coming soon. I am working hard on it and am very excited to share. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Writing from Robb's POV, subtly influenced and changed by Ulric's presence, was not easy at all but I enjoyed the process.
Arc 2 will be coming soon. And its title is The War of Four Kings.
Fittingly, with Robb not being a king here, you can expect him to be a recurring POV in the arcs to come. See you all again soon!
Chapter 45: Arc 1: Epilogue
Notes:
There's a longer note at the end, but I just wanted to thank everyone that has been following along with this story! Our adventure has only just begun...
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Daenerys
The first star was a comet, burning red. Bloodred; fire red; the dragon’s tail, trailing fire across the sky. She could not have asked for a stronger sign.
Dany seized the torch from Aggo’s hand and plunged it into the logs. The oil ignited instantly, a blaze leaping to life with a hungry hiss, followed by the brush and dried grass, flames licking eagerly across them. Tiny sparks flitted up the wood like red rats, darting over the oil, jumping from bark to branch to leaf. A wave of heat surged toward her, soft and sudden, like a lover’s breath, but within moments it became unbearable, a furnace that threatened to scorch her.
Dany stepped backward. The wood crackled and popped, louder and sharper. Mirri Maz Duur’s voice rose, thin and shrill, cutting through the flames. The fire twisted and danced, climbing the platform with wild, hungry energy. The dusk trembled as the air itself seemed to liquefy under the rising heat. Logs hissed and cracked, adding their voice to the roaring fire.
The flames crept over Mirri Maz Duur, her song warping into a frenzied wail, full of pain and terror. With each gasp, her voice became higher, thinner, until it shattered into a sound like a bird in its death throes.
And now the flames reached her Drogo, and now they were all around him. His clothing took fire, and for an instant, the khal was clad in wisps of floating orange silk and tendrils of curling smoke, grey and greasy. Dany’s lips parted and she found herself holding her breath. Part of her wanted to go to him as Ser Jorah had feared, to rush into the flames to beg for his forgiveness and take him inside her one last time, the fire melting the flesh from their bones until they were as one, forever
She could smell the odor of burning flesh, no different than horseflesh roasting in a firepit. The pyre roared in the deepening dusk like some great beast, drowning out the fainter sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s screaming and sending up long tongues of flame to lick at the belly of the night.
As the smoke grew thicker, the Dothraki backed away, coughing. Huge orange gouts of fire unfurled their banners in that hellish wind, the logs hissing and cracking, glowing cinders rising on the smoke to float away into the dark like so many newborn fireflies. The heat beat at the air with great red wings, driving the Dothraki back, driving off even Mormont, but Dany stood her ground. She was the blood of the dragon, and the fire was in her.
The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. This is a wedding, too, she thought. Mirri Maz Duur had fallen silent. The godswife thought her a child, but children grow, and children learn.
Another step, and Dany could feel the heat of the sand on the soles of her feet, even through her sandals. Sweat ran down her thighs and between her breasts and in rivulets over her cheeks, where tears had once run. Ser Jorah was shouting behind her, but he did not matter anymore, only the fire mattered. The fire consumed everything, the world folding in on itself in a sea of heat and flame.
The flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen, each one a sorcerer robed in yellow and orange and scarlet, swirling long smoky cloaks. She saw crimson firelions and great yellow serpents and unicorns made of pale blue flame; she saw fish and foxes and monsters, wolves and bright birds and flowering trees, each more beautiful than the last. She saw a red bird made entirely of fire, soaring high above its own ashes, and its shadow stretched across the land. She saw a horse, a great grey stallion limned in smoke, its flowing mane a nimbus of blue flame. Yes, my love, my sun-and-stars, yes, mount now, ride now.
Her vest had begun to smolder, so Dany shrugged it off and let it fall to the ground. The painted leather burst into sudden flame as she skipped closer to the fire, her breasts bare to the blaze, streams of milk flowing from her red and swollen nipples.
Now, she thought, now, and for an instant she glimpsed Khal Drogo before her, mounted on his smoky stallion, a flaming lash in his hand. He smiled, and the whip snaked down at the pyre, hissing.
She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder.
Only death can pay for life.
And there came a second crack, loud and sharp as thunder, and the smoke stirred and whirled around her and the pyre shifted, the logs exploding as the fire touched their secret hearts. She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing.
No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don’t you see? Don’t you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her.
Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children.
The third crack was as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world.
The world must have broken, she thought. In that fleeting moment, something pulsed within her, a warmth that spread like the glow of a campfire in a tired heart, or the heat of a hearth in the depths of winter. Her vision burned with shades of red, yellow, and orange. All that existed were the fire’s dancers; swaying, writhing, coiling, like the tendrils of a beast of flame. It was beautiful, she thought. So beautiful. And in the flames, she saw the world. And at the end of the world, she saw its shadow.
When the fire finally died, and the ground cooled enough to walk upon, Ser Jorah Mormont found her amid the ashes, surrounded by the blackened remnants of the pyre; broken logs, glowing embers, and the charred bones of those who had burned with it. She stood there, naked, soot-blackened, her clothes turned to ash, her once-beautiful hair crisped away to nothing—but unscathed, untouched by the inferno that had consumed everything around her.
The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin. When it saw Jorah, it raised its head and looked at him with eyes as red as coals.
Wordless, the knight fell to his knees. The men of her khas came up behind him. Jhogo was the first to lay his arakh at her feet. “Blood of my blood,” he murmured, pushing his face to the smoking earth. “Blood of my blood,” she heard Aggo echo. “Blood of my blood,” Rakharo shouted.
And after them came her handmaids, and then the others, all the Dothraki, men and women and children, and Dany had only to look at their eyes to know that they were hers now, today and tomorrow and forever, hers as they had never been Drogo’s.
Yet, amid the devotion and awe, something else stirred within her.
She looked up to the sky. The red comet, which had once burned with the promise of blood and destruction, had changed with the birth of her children.
A bleeding star, she had once thought. But now, it bled gold.
In the night sky above her, the now golden comet blazed across the heavens with twin tails of white gold fire. The red had blinked away, burned away and now, gold gleamed around it. Its halo hue glimmered in the night sky, shimmering brightly as it tore its way across the black of night. Her gaze was drawn to the comet as it soared.
One day, she thought, my children will soar like that.
Daenerys Targaryen rose to her feet, her black dragon hissing, pale smoke curling from its nostrils. The other two dragons pulled away from her, their translucent wings unfolding with a soft rustle. Together, they added their voices to the night, a call that had not been heard in hundreds of years. The night itself came alive, filled with the haunting music of dragons; an ancient song that echoed beneath the blazing, golden comet with twin tails of fire.
Lucia
An army on the march was a sight to behold.
A long serpent made entirely of men and steel and horses and wagons, coiling and twisting and turning across distances so long that it made her head hurt and her eyes strain just from trying to spy the end of the long line.
Drums and songs kept the men marching, and bards there were a plenty. It was as if Highgarden had stolen all the singers from the realm and sprinkled them along the iron serpent to make it slither faster. It was a messy cacophony of sound, each singer trying to sing louder and better than the others around him.
Only the bard next to her was silent.
That is rare, Lucia thought.
“Not singing along?” She muttered in quiet Estalian, her voice a low hum drowned by the messy symphony around them.
Lorenzo blinked, giving her a distracted smile. “Shall I sing them all a warchant of Myrmidia then? In Tilean or Estalian, perhaps.”
Lucia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “You’ve been thinking,” she grunted. “That saves me the trouble of thinking. What have you realised?”
Lorenzo’s lips curled into a smile. “Of dreams, I have many of late. Interpretations of those dreams, even more. Musings on this… realm, an infinite quantity.”
“Tell me something useful then.”
“War is coming,” Lorenzo said softly, but with an unshakable certainty.
Lucia almost laughed. “A child can tell me that. We’re riding with an army.”
He shook his head. “What do you think will happen with this army?”
Lucia looked into his troubled green eyes. The sun was setting now, and the dusklight washed the army with hues of gold and red and yellow. Sunlight covered Lorenzo’s face, basking his emerald eyes with a near divine glow.
“They march, they fight. Whoever wins, we find the others and… do whatever we have to. We’ll sail to that city of shadow and magic if we have to.”
“Perhaps we have to,” Lorenzo nodded. “But you have not answered.”
“This army?” Lucia wondered. “The bards are already singing of an army a hundred thousand strong. Might be I won’t even have to fight in their battles.”
“Often,” Lorenzo smiled, “the content of a bard’s song is, just slightly, away from reality, no matter how illustrious it sounds.”
“Plenty of experience with that?”
“Of course,” Lorenzo said softly, “Of course.”
“They don’t have a hundred thousand,” Lucia said flatly. “I’ve counted as much as I can. Maybe half of that number.”
Lorenzo nodded. “More will join this host at Bitterbridge. And then the Stormlords. I have read much of them. The lords along the Dornish Marches seldom rally their full might to join any host. So, perhaps, another thirty thousand. Eighty thousand in full.”
“A hundred thousand, eighty thousand,” Lucia shrugged. “Close enough. It will be hell to feed all those mouths too. Your Tyrell lords will have to start making bread themselves if they don’t win the war fast enough.”
“My lords?” Lorenzo raised an eyebrow. “For the travelling bard, in his wandering, there must be a hundred different souls who hand him a coin for a song. A thousand if he is good. Would you call all of those souls his lords?”
Lucia waved her armored hand. Lorenzo shook his head.
“It is as you say,” the singer bowed his head slightly, his gold locks falling. “They have to win the war fast, and yet…”
“That king prances more than a unicorn,” Lucia said. “Any comandante worth his salt and spice would have reached that place, what is it called again?”
“Bitterbridge.”
“Aye,” Lucia said, “Any half decent comandante would have reached there a week ago. Ten days, for the Magrittan ones.”
“And these men are not Magrittan comandantes,” Lorenzo shrugged. “Nor are they the cani de guerra of my land. If Andrei were here, no doubt, he would hear the shades of his past marching faster than them.”
“I am loath to call it marching,” Lucia spat on the dirt road, ignoring the glare from the mercenary behind. “Prancing more like.”
“And yet we must prance all the same,” Lorenzo sighed.
“For how long?”
“I am … unsure.” Lorenzo admitted. “This war will not be swift, nor our battles. Yet, in my dreams, I see fire more than I see flowers.”
Lucia raised an eyebrow. They rode in silence then. They rode at the head of the mercenaries, or rather, she did. As the Tyrell host prepared for the night’s encampment, Lorenzo looked at her with a green-eyed smile.
“My… temporary patrons await,” Lorenzo said.
“For your words of wisdom, aye,” Lucia grunted.
“For my songs of summer, more like,” Lorenzo shook his head. “Lord Willas was a good companion, with a sharp mind. With him in Highgarden, I fear the collective intelligence gathered has plummeted quite drastically.”
“I… feel the same,” Lucia agreed. “With that knight gone, the rest of the fighters here are terrible. Basura.” Not that she bothered sparring with them.
Lorenzo looked at her with those damned eyes again, tilting his head. “I dreamt of shadows, Lucia. A shadow falling over a floral crown. Perhaps, you should stand slightly closer to the young king then?”
“I’m not a guard,” she protested. “Let his rainbow knights do the job.”
“You are not,” Lorenzo agreed. “But should you protect the king from whatever fell blade would come onto him, it would make our lives a lot easier.”
Lucia looked at him, ready to curse at him, when she froze.
“Lorenzo…” She trailed off, looking at the sky behind him. The bard blinked, turning swiftly and freezing as well. Far in the sky, the twin-tailed comet burnt gold.
“Ah,” Lorenzo said eventually. “This changes much, but little as well.”
“Don’t tell me flagellants and templars will come here too,” she despaired.
“I doubt so, friend,” Lorenzo smiled grimly before turning his horse and riding away.
Lucia kept her gaze on the comet. It meant something, she knew, though not what exactly. She shook her head, muttering a quick, quiet prayer to Myrmidia.
Andrei
Dragonstone always reeked, no matter where you went on the island.
The stench of sulphur and smoke was only bearable near the coast, where the sea breeze provided a brief respite. And it was there that Andrei sat, alone on an island of stone and ash, without a drop of kvas. The thought made him chuckle bitterly. What now?
He had lost track of how many days or weeks had passed since that cold morning when he had woken in the snow. He wondered idly how that merchant's daughter he had saved was faring. Jeyne, her name was, if he recalled correctly.
Before him, the black sea crashed relentlessly against the shore. The sound was oddly soothing.
In truth, the sea had never brought refuge. The Bay of Claws spewed Northmen on their longships every now and then, and with them came death and fire. No, water or snow or soil, it was just another battlefield. He had spent months on deck with Kislev’s ships, fighting men and monsters alike, and the sea had never been kind.
He sat on a cold stone, large enough to be flung from a trebuchet. He took another swig from the wineskin he had taken from the kitchens, the last sip. With a frown, he tossed the skin behind him. He could not help but to sigh.
By Ursun, Andrei lamented. What now?
When the Red Woman fell into her strange slumber, he had sat in the corner of his room silently, axe in one hand and ale in the other. She had woken an hour later, like a corpse coming to life. Her red eyes blazed to life and she rose silently, like a red ghost. Melisandre of Asshai stood there, staring at him like he was a Troll before stumbling away, muttering something about ice and fire.
That was two days ago. Since then, he had spent most of his time in his room, or eating with Ned, or standing behind him as the lord argued and discussed with Stannis Baratheon. All the while, the red woman only stared at him in silence.
At least here, Andrei thought, she won’t find me.
He reached for a small pebble, and hurled it onto the surface of the black water. It skipped once, twice and a third time before piercing through the black and sinking. Behind him, he heard the sound of slow footsteps on the sand. He would have reached for his axe if not for the familiar sound of a clacking cane.
He rose, bowing slightly. “Lord Eddard.”
Eddard Stark shook his head. “Call me Ned. I would not have a man who saved my life more than once bow and call me lord, even in private.”
Andrei nodded stiffly. “Ned.”
The lord held his cane in one hand, and in the other was another leather skin, that he tossed at Andrei. “Thought you might be thirsty.”
Andrei caught it with a slight smile, opening the cork with his teeth. “Spasibo,” Andrei said quietly, “Thank you.” He took a sip, gesturing for the lord to sit on the stone.
“The red woman has been quiet in your presence,” Ned noted.
“Fire… she is.” Andrei grunted. “Ice and fire.”
Eddard chuckled. “See to it that she does not make you melt. How have you been?”
“Bored,” he admitted. Andrei gestured at the empty beach. “Only place on island that does not smell.”
“It could be worse,” Ned pointed out. “It could be King’s Landing.”
Andrei almost shuddered. He is right. It could be worse.
“Mayhaps you will not be bored for long,” Eddard Stark said softly. “A proper coronation will be held soon. And once Stannis is crowned…”
“War.”
“War,” Eddard agreed with a frown. “Word from the mainland has been little and few.”
Andrei turned his gaze to the sea. He knew not the words to say to the man. For a long moment, only the crashing of the black waves could be heard. It was getting dark now, the sun having set an hour ago. The sky was darkening, and the stars would shine their meagre light soon enough.
“Come,” Lord Stark eventually said. “There will be another council held in the morning tomorrow. Best to rest early tonight.”
Andrei grunted, helping the lord to stand. They turned, making their way back to the path that would lead to the Drum Tower. And then, he saw it.
The twin-tailed comet blazed across the night sky, a gold scar across a black field.
“By Ursun,” Andrei muttered, his eyes fixed upon the star. Its twin tails of glimmering fire were so long that it seemed to cover half the night, and its golden glow nearly outshone the pale glow of the white moon.
“How long has it been?” Eddard mused softly. “Since one of these stars burnt across our skies.”
Never, thought Andrei. This one is not yours.
He knew well and clear what the twin-tailed comet meant. He had spent enough time travelling across the roads of the Empire, seen it fluttering on golden banners and carved upon stone and engraved upon armor. This was Sigmar’s doing, he thought, just as the bear’s head on the oak tree in the Red Keep was Ursun’s.
And if that one is here, Andrei thought. Then, there will be more…
He thought of the many gods that the south seemed to worship. The warrior goddess, Myrmidia, that Lucia held fervently. The master of luck and freedom, Ranald, that Gunther occasionally muttered a prayer to. The whole of the pantheon that Lorenzo sang about; the god of death, the lady in white, the owl of wisdom, the lord of forests, the mother of earth, the king of the sea, and so many more.
And if they are here…
A cold hand of terror, colder than all of the Motherland’s snow, gripped his heart.
Then, those Four…
Not for the first time, and far from the last, he wondered why he was here. Here, on this island of sulphur and smoke and dark stone. Here, in this world. The gods are involved, Andrei thought, not just a failed spell from those Imperial wizards. Why?
He was silent throughout the walk to the Drum Tower. “Lord- Ned,” he eventually broke the silence. Eddard Stark gave him a curious look.
“War coming,” he said, “My axe will protect you.”
Eddard gave him a confused smile. “I have no doubts about that.”
It was with a cold, heavy heart that Andrei stepped into his room. His warm, bright room, with Melisandre of Asshai sitting on the bed with blazing red eyes. By Ursun, Andrei groaned to himself, what does she want?
Gunther
The night was cold when he stepped onto the roof.
It smelled horrible of course. There was no place in King’s Landing, other than the Red Keep perhaps, where it did not smell. And they were in the filthy black heart of Flea Bottom. No, the air smelled foul. Foul and horrid.
He had gotten used to it. Two months ago, he would have been horrified at the idea but he was too exhausted to even think of it now. At least the night is cool, Gunther thought, perching himself on the edge of the roof. Out of habit, he drew a gold dragon from his pouch and glanced at himself in the blurry, gilded reflection.
The city was crawling into certain chaos, he thought. With the gates all but closed, food would soon start to dwindle. And prices will keep rising.
The proclamations had been made two weeks ago and, already, the price of bread had gone up by a few coppers. Word had slowly come too, of a king in the south. King Renly, some whispered in the taverns of Flea Bottom. Just what happened that day? Gunther wondered to himself. Clearly, the coup that Andrei had somehow gotten himself into had failed. Joffrey still sat the Iron Throne, and tales of his cruelty had started to spread. He remembered the fingerless bard he saw in the South Boar the other day, weeping silently in the quiet corner.
“His crime was singing about King Robert,” the innkeeper told him. “And the Queen.”
He thought of Lorenzo. If Lorenzo had been in that mess, he would have said some charming words and the queen would have clapped and given him a pouch of coin for the trouble. That bard was no Lorenzo, Gunther thought. Not as blessed.
Still, he felt for the man and for the woman weeping for her slain husband.
“Apparently, the gold cloaks said he was a traitor,” Alton said as he wiped at a mug. “Word on the street is that one of the captains, Allar Deem by name, wanted his wife. Poor lass. Deem took her husband, and then… more. All I’ll say.”
“What a mess,” Gunther grumbled. He had stolen more in the past week than they had the previous three. Merchants mainly; rich, fat ones with more greed than goodwill. Ranald knows they have more than enough to spare. The coin was spent mainly on one thing, food. Even now, the price of bread and meat and cheese and ale had risen. And he knew that it would only rise more with the coming days.
In a month, he thought, things will start to get ugly. Two, and people will start to stir. Three, and it’ll be chaos.
“I know you’re there,” he called out.
“What?” Arya Stark exclaimed behind him. “How?”
“Your breathing,” he turned, shaking his head. “And your footsteps are not as light as you think they are. Even cats can make noise.”
Arya scowled. “How do you do it then?”
Gunther shrugged. “Keep learning.”
The girl huffed in annoyance as she sat on the ledge next to him. “What are you doing here?”
“Len’s snoring too loud.”
“He doesn’t snore.”
Gunther shrugged once more. “Just couldn’t sleep. Thinking of… home.”
“Aye,” Arya turned away, looking at the dark street before them. “Me too.”
“What’s your place like?” Gunther asked. “Heard about it. Winterfall?”
“Winterfell,” she snapped. “It’s the best. It’s got hot springs under it, and it’s huge. There’s dozens of courtyards, a Great Hall and a Great Keep and … and …”
Her face fell. “And it’s there.” She pointed north.
“It is not so far,” he assured her.
“It’s in the North,” Arya replied, frowning. “It’s far.”
Not as far as Nuln, thought Gunther.
“By horse or by ship, you can get there, right?” He asked. “Once this is all over, your father will take you, you and your sister, and bring you back to Winterfell.”
“When will that be?” Arya demanded, clenching her fists.
“I don’t know,” he admitted softly. “Chances are they aren’t in the city anymore. If they’ve escaped, then they must be heading north, right? For your brother’s army. He just won some great battle right?”
“He did,” Arya said quietly, looking at her hands. “Robb… Robb will beat them. Father too. And Andrei.”
“Aye,” Gunther nodded. “They will.” And Lorenzo better come by and start singing some answers about what the hell we are doing here.
“You can come to Winterfell, you know,” Arya said brashly. “Andrei fought for my father, and you are my friend. My father will reward you for helping me. You can stay at Winterfell and teach me how to sneak and how to throw a knife.”
Once again, he found himself having to disappoint a child. “That does not sound terrible,” Gunther tried to smile at Arya’s hopeful grey eyes. “We’ll…”
Then, he was not seeing the grey eyes of Arya Stark. Behind her, and in the night sky, soared a burning comet with twin tails of golden fire.
Gunther gaped wordlessly at the sight. Arya turned around confused, and he heard her let out a loud gasp. What…
That could only mean one thing. Even he, a city boy from Nuln, could feel it. His whole body shivered, and his hands shook ever so slightly. His eyes must have been playing tricks with him since the comet seemed to burn even brighter, in a brilliant golden light. His heart was pounding furiously now and he could hear it drumming.
Sigmar, Gunther thought reverently. Oh, gods…
He dropped the gold coin he was holding. Arya flinched at that.
Gunther blinked. “Does that frighten you?”
“No,” she said with a scowl. “I… I keep hearing that in my sleep. Coins and dice.”
Gunther blinked again. “Do you… hear the rattling of dice in a cup?”
“That!” Arya nodded furiously. “Wait, do you hear it too?”
His throat was dry now, he suddenly realised. “And a black cat?”
“Oh, that too. It’s funny. Sometimes, I dream of wolves. Sometimes, I dream that I am a wolf. Sometimes, I see a black cat but it doesn’t seem to be afraid at all. It usually just smiles at me. Other things too. Last night, I dreamt of a bunch of men with antlers.” Arya shook her head.
Gunther gave her a strained smile. “Let me tell you about Ranald…”
Lorenzo
“The beautiful Royal Princess was resting in her garden. With a comb made out of fine gold, she was combing her hair.”
He strummed his lute gently. His voice was light and sweet and fair, and he saw Lady Margaery closing her eyes and giving a soft, content sigh.
“She cast her glance upon the sea, she saw a great fleet! The captain who commanded it, was watching over it very closely.”
Lord Mace was nodding his head to the song while King Renly’s smile was soft, though his eyes were far, far away.
“Do tell me, oh captain, of that most beautiful fleet, whether you have seen my husband in the land where gods walked?”
His voice grew even softer and lighter, as if summer had turned to spring instead. This part of the song called for a woman, a maiden’s soft voice. A lesser bard would have needed a partner to sing the song. Lorenzo was no such bard.
“There are so many knights travelling across that sacred land! But do tell me, my lady, what banner he carried?”
His voice deepened then, just the right octaves, taking on the scratchy growl that he had heard so often from the sailors of Luccini’s docks. Now, those songs he had sung then were worthy songs. Nowadays, he could not even muster the effort to compose new songs for Lord Mace. Bela Infanta was a song he heard in Estalia, and now its words were translated to the Common Tongue of Westeros in a heartbeat.
He saw the slight crease of King Renly’s brow, and the glance he gave the Knight of Flowers. Lorenzo caught his words before they left his mouth. Instead of singing, he strummed his lute instead, washing the dinner tent with a gentle, closing sound.
“A brilliant song,” Renly praised. “What is its name?”
“The Beautiful Princess, Your Grace,” Lorenzo bowed his head. “A song I have heard in the east.”
“The east!” King Renly exclaimed. “A bard well-travelled.”
“The best bards always are, King Renly.”
“Indeed,” Renly Baratheon smiled. “Indeed.”
The king of flowers turned to Lord Mace. “House Tyrell has found itself a most wonderful singer, I must say. A hummingbird for your gardens.”
Lorenzo’s smile grew strained as Mace Tyrell spoke loudly. “Yes, yes, your grace! Young Lorenzo here has a most wonderful voice. And a sharp mind too!”
Renly turned to him. “Mayhaps I will have need of your service soon, when I take King’s Landing from the Lannisters.”
“The Lion’s Fall perhaps,” Lorenzo bowed again. “Or King of the Forest.”
King Renly smiled cheerfully. “King of the Forest! I like that name much.”
“I shall start composing it this night.”
The King smiled at him before rising from his seat. “Come, good father, Ser Loras, I have much I need to discuss with you two.”
In a blur of steel and flowers and silk, the three men swept out of the tent. Lady Margaery watched him with a sly smile, stealing a ripe grape from the table.
“We are far from the Mander,” she said softly.
“Not so far,” Lorenzo smiled. “I can still smell its waters if I try hard enough.”
“Then I name you hummingbird and hawk,” Margaery laughed.
“The Queen can name me however she likes,” Lorenzo nodded his head.
Margaery hid her smile behind her goblet of gold and green. “Eat, hummingbird. Feast from the harvest of the Reach. You have not eaten anything this night.”
“Oh,” Lorenzo shook his head. “I would not presume to dine from a king’s table.”
“It was a king’s table,” Margaery countered. “Now, it’s just a table with food that will go to waste. And I am just a fair maiden with little appetite these days.”
Lorenzo bowed his head, reaching for a slice of peach, pink and ripe. He popped it in his mouth and chewed slowly, savouring the sweetness. “Truly, the sweetness of the Reach’s harvest must be unparalleled. And yet for my Queen to have little appetite… How horrible this war must be.”
This war , Lorenzo thought, has been jousts and melees and feasts. We have marched as far from Highgarden as a stone’s throw.
“Horrible,” Margaery sighed. “Oh, woe. The blood and the steel.”
“Horrible,” Lorenzo agreed. “When poor Alla cut her finger on the fruit knife.”
Margaery Tyrell giggled. Her large, brown eyes gazed at him. “King of the Forest? A grand title. I fear you must be creative with the details then.”
“That I can do,” Lorenzo smiled. “Have no fear, Queen Margaery.”
“See to it then, hummingbird,” Margaery Tyrell rose. “Perhaps, your songs will win us the war faster than a hundred thousand swords can.”
“I have been known to achieve miracles,” said Lorenzo, his green eyes twinkling with amusement. “Here, I fear you must rely on the chivalry of the Reach.”
“Between our harvests and the chivalry of our knights,” Margaery mused, “Which do you think will win us the war?”
Lorenzo only smiled. “I think you will, my Queen.”
The Queen laughed, a gentle and beautiful sound. “Oh, you are good, Lorenzo Voceleste. You are very good. Would that you had not been born as a lost son of Braavos but rather…”
He gave her a wistful smile. “Dreams are always a delight, but they can grow into a sweet pit we drown in. Destiny, fate… Nebulous strings. Yet, here we are nonetheless. Queen and bard.”
“Here we are,” Margaery agreed. “Will you compose a song for me as well? Queen of the Forest perhaps?”
“I would give you the sound of gold, Queen Margaery,” Lorenzo smiled. “Not silver.”
“The sound of gold,” Margaery sighed in delight. She leaned in, enough that he could look down the cut in her bodice. “I would like to hear that, Lorenzo Voceleste.”
“So, you shall,” he whispered as she left the tent. It was dark and quiet by the time he stepped out. He gave the comet in the sky a brief look. Sigmar Heldenhammer, Lorenzo thought, smiling like a golden cat. Now, the song begins.
As sleep embraced him, Lorenzo dreamt. He dreamt of owls and eagles and doves, of bears and wolves and cats. He dreamt of the twin-tailed comet, now blazing gold. He dreamt of dragonfire, saw dragonskulls, and heard the music of dragons. He dreamt of cold snow, and of blue eyes in the frost. Lorenzo dreamt of ice and fire.
Jon
When day broke, Jon walked to the kitchens as he did every dawn. Three-Finger Hobb said nothing as he gave him the Old Bear’s breakfast. Today it was three brown eggs boiled hard, with fried bread and ham steak and a bowl of wrinkled plums. Jon carried the food back to the King’s Tower.
He found Mormont at the window seat, writing. His raven was walking back and forth across his shoulders, muttering, “Corn, corn, corn.” The bird shrieked when Jon entered. “Put the food on the table,” the Old Bear said, glancing up. He did not know how Mormont could tolerate the bird. “I’ll have some beer.”
Jon opened a shuttered window, took the flagon of beer off the outside ledge, and filled a horn. Hobb had given him a lemon, still cold from the Wall. Jon crushed it in his fist. The juice trickled through his fingers. Mormont drank lemon in his beer every day, and claimed that was why he still had his own teeth.
“Doubtless you love your father,” Mormont said when Jon brought him his horn. “The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember when I told you that?”
“I remember,” Jon said sullenly. He did not care to talk of his family’s war or his father’s vanishing, not even to Mormont.
“See that you never forget it. The hard truths are the ones to hold tight. Fetch me my plate. Is it ham again? So be it. You look weary. Was your moonlight ride so tiring?”
Jon’s throat was dry. “You know?”
“Know,” the raven echoed from Mormont’s shoulder. “Know. No. No.”
The Old Bear snorted. “Do you think they chose me Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch because I’m dumb as a stump, Snow? Aemon told me you’d go. I told him you’d be back. I know my men ... and my boys too. Honor set you on the kingsroad ... and honor brought you back.”
“My friends brought me back,” Jon said.
“Did I say it was your honor?” Mormont inspected his plate.
“My brother is fighting a war. My sisters are prisoners. My father may be dead. Did you expect me to do nothing?”
“If truth be told, we expected you to do just as you did.” Mormont tried a plum, spit out the pit. “I ordered a watch kept over you., You were seen leaving. If your brothers had not fetched you back, you would have been taken along the way, and not by friends. Unless you have a horse with wings like a raven. Do you?”
“No.” He had dreamt of horses like that as of late. Horses with white wings. And great horses with the head of eagles and powerful, striped bodies.
“Pity, we could use a horse like that.” Jon stood tall. He told himself that he would die well; that much he could do, at the least.
“I know the penalty for desertion, my lord. I’m not afraid to die.”
“Die!” the raven cried. “Die, Die!”
“Nor live, I hope,” Mormont said, cutting his ham with a dagger and feeding a bite to the bird. “You have not deserted—yet. Here you stand. If we beheaded every boy who rode to Mole’s Town in the night, only ghosts would guard the Wall. That would be a sight. Yet maybe you mean to flee again on the morrow, or a fortnight from now. Is that it? Is that your hope, boy?”
Jon kept silent.
“I thought so.” Mormont peeled the shell off a boiled egg. “Your brother is fighting in a war, aye. With all the swords of the North behind him. Do you fancy yourself a hero of legend? Wielding a sword of light to slay the Lannisters? Your brother will have to take your head. That will do him more harm than a thousand golden swords can.”
Jon had no answer for him. The raven was pecking at an egg, breaking the shell. Pushing his beak through the hole, he pulled out morsels of white and yoke.
The Old Bear sighed. “You are not the only one touched by this war. Like as not, my sister is marching in your brother’s host, her and those daughters of hers, dressed in men’s mail. Maege is a hoary old snark, stubborn, short-tempered, and willful. Truth be told, I can hardly stand to be around the wretched woman, but that does not mean my love for her is any less than the love you bear your half sisters.”
Frowning, Mormont took his last egg and squeezed it in his fist until the shell crunched. “Or perhaps it does. Be that as it may, I’d still grieve if she were slain, yet you don’t see me running off. I have no love for the Lannisters, no more than you, and a part of me wishes to fight alongside my sister. Yet, I said the words, just as you did. My place is here ... where is yours, boy?”
I have no place, Jon wanted to say, I’m a bastard, I have no rights, no name, no mother. The words would not come. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” said Lord Commander Mormont. “The cold winds are rising, Snow. Beyond the Wall, the shadows lengthen. Cotter Pyke writes of vast herds of elk, streaming south and east toward the sea, and mammoths as well. He says one of his men discovered huge, misshapen footprints not three leagues from Eastwatch. Rangers from the Shadow Tower have found whole villages abandoned, and at night Ser Denys says they see fires in the mountains, huge blazes that burn from dusk till dawn. I hear tales of a camp of wild men led by some giant, eating across the land and moving east for the sea. Qhorin Halfhand took a captive in the depths of the Gorge, and the man swears that Mance Rayder is massing all his people in some new, secret stronghold he’s found, to what end the gods only know. Do you think your uncle Benjen was the only ranger we’ve lost this past year?”
“Ben Jen,” the raven squawked, bobbing its head, bits of egg dribbling from its beak. “Ben Jen. Ben Jen.”
“No,” Jon said. There had been others. Too many.
“Do you think your brother’s war is more important than ours?” the old man barked.
Jon chewed his lip. The raven flapped its wings at him. “War, war, war, war,” it sang.
“It’s not,” Mormont told him. “Gods save us, boy, you’re not blind and you’re not stupid. When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?”
“No.” Jon had not thought of it that way.
“Your lord father sent you to us, Jon. Why, who can say?”
“Why? Why? Why?” the raven called.
“All I know is that the blood of the First Men flows in the veins of the Starks. The First Men built the Wall, and it’s said they remember things otherwise forgotten. And that beast of yours ... he led us to the wights, warned you of the dead man on the steps. Ser Jaremy would doubtless call that happenstance, yet Ser Jaremy is dead and I’m not.” Lord Mormont stabbed a chunk of ham with the point of his dagger. “I think you were meant to be here, and I want you and that wolf of yours with us when we go beyond the Wall.”
His words sent a chill of excitement down Jon’s back. “Beyond the Wall?”
“You heard me. I mean to find Ben Stark, alive or dead.” He chewed and swallowed. “I will not sit here meekly and wait for the snows and the ice winds. We must know what is happening. This time the Night’s Watch will ride in force, against the King-beyond-the-Wall, the Others, and anything else that may be out there. I mean to command them myself.”
He pointed his dagger at Jon’s chest. “By custom, the Lord Commander’s steward is his squire as well ... but I do not care to wake every dawn wondering if you’ve run off again. So I will have an answer from you, Lord Snow, and I will have it now. Are you a brother of the Night’s Watch ... or only a bastard boy who wants to play at war?”
Jon Snow straightened himself and took a long deep breath. Forgive me, Father. Robb, Arya, Bran ... forgive me, I cannot help you. He has the truth of it. This is my place. “I am ... yours, my lord. Your man. I swear it. I will not run again.”
The Old Bear snorted. “Good. Now go put on your sword.”
He could not sleep that night, boiling with excitement as he was. Midnight found him on the Wall, looking north at the dark expanse beyond. His mind told him that he needed to rest, that it would be an early start the next day, and his mind was right.
Yet, he had to be up here. Alone, atop the wall. A puff of steam left his mouth as Jon kept his gaze to the north. “Night gathers, and now my watch begins.”
“It shall not end until my death,” Jon reminded himself. Though, with dead men rising, perhaps it would not end even with death. That was a thought he did not care to continue, one that sent a shiver of cold down his spine.
“I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children.” His jaw clenched. He thought of his father, disappeared in the south, and the faceless woman that was his mother.
“I shall wear no crowns and win no glory.” A part of him thought of Robb so far south, covering himself in glory, winning battles and freeing castles. Jon smiled.
“I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness.” He clutched at Longclaw’s hilt, muttering softly to himself, his thumb on the wolf’s head.
“I am the watcher on the walls.” And watch he did, on that dark horizon north.
“I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.” He felt a slight shiver run through his bones as he whispered. It was just the cold, he told himself.
“I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.” Jon tore his gaze away from the Haunted Forest. When he looked to the south, he saw the comet, blazing and soaring with twin tails of gold fire, the same one he had seen in his dreams since he came to the Wall.
Notes:
Chapter References: AGOT 70, 72
Long author note for this one!
First, I wanted to thank everyone again for the amazing reception I have received. This is the first proper, long story I have ever written and I honestly started this project with the intention of just having fun. Along the way, it grew and grew, and now I am having so much fun writing, posting, reading the comments etc
I have big plans for this story and I have already started some preliminary writing for the next arc. Arc 2 (The War of Four Kings) will take canon in ways that you might not expect!
I wanted to give some sneak peeks into some of the things that are coming up, just short little glimpses.
From the prologue: Melisandre of Asshai gave Andrei a sly smile. “Change,” she said softly, “You have brought much change, you and yours. Death where there should be life. Life where there should be death. Still, I would urge caution, Kossar. You are far from home, and your bear god, and the night is dark and full of terrors.”
From Chapter 1: “Talent, discretion,” Varys gestured at the fire. “See now, Adrack of Riverrow is dead. Never to be seen again. Now there is a good thief.”
From Chapter 2: “In your embrace, the pain subsides, and hope in hearts once lost abides,” was all she could remember from her dream last night. She wished she could remember more, but each time she woke, the words melted away like snow.
From Chapter 3: “Beware the man with the lean and hungry look,” he muttered to himself. “It is not the well-fed, long-haired men to fear but the pale and hungry-looking.”
Very excited to write those in full and share them!
A note I wanted to make as well was that, in particular, for the characters that have been touched by the gods of Warhammer Fantasy, their characterisation will slowly and subtly start to deviate from canon. That is a change I am putting serious thought into. So, moving forward, you can expect characters like Robb/Sansa/Arya/Bran to start to be influenced and shaped. I will strive to handle that change realistically, of course.
Expect to see Sansa grapple with the idea of mercy and compassion in such a merciless den - what does it mean to be merciful? can she find it in her to feel compassion for cruel men?
Expect to see Arya take a wildly different path from canon; shifting away from treading a road of murder and death, and finding a lighter shade instead, as the god of thieves and luck continue to smile upon her
For their brothers, imagine how much Robb's mentality may be changed as he fights more and more, killing more men in battle, as a primal god of war continues to howl in his mind. Bran as well, what does it mean for mere mortals to be blessed with so much? To be touched by magic and a god of death... (maybe Lorenzo can share a thing or two)
Expect more POV characters to show up in Arc 2 as well. Some, you all are familiar with and can predict such as Jon and Dany whose stories are going to be a bit different, of course. Others may be more unexpected... There are still more divine champions to be revealed after all!
To sum up my long rambling, I just wanted to thank everyone who has been reading! As I always say, more to come!
Chapter 46: Omake: The Imperial Invasion
Summary:
What if the worlds of Warhammer Fantasy and A Song of Ice and Fire are actually in the same world?
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
By the Hand of His Majesty, Karl Franz; Prince of Altdorf, Emperor of Man, Defier of the Dark
Encamped at Duskendale, Second Moon of the Campaign Season. Year 2520 IC | 299 AC Westerosi Reckoning
To the Elector Counts, Council of State, and all faithful servants of the Empire,
Hear my words, men of the Empire.
The gods test us not with ease, but with necessity, and Sigmar has not brought across the seas for peace. By the grace of Sigmar and the might of the Empire, we now make camp in a foreign and fractured land. The soil here is red with the blood of squabbling lords, the farms and fields made into deserts of death.
We are now situated in what the Westerosi call the Crownlands. The First Army, led by myself, has taken Duskendale and it serves as a base of operations. We are situated five days from the capital of Westeros, the city called King’s Landing. Kings wage war across the realm, but I came here not to wear a crown. We have come to preserve mankind wherever it draws breath. And here, mankind teeters on the precipice of ruin and chaos.
Our initial landfall on the eastern coast was unopposed, save for confused peasants and fleeing patrols of the local nobility. They speak a strange dialect that several of the Battle Wizards theorise to be a tongue of Albion, twisted by isolation and time. We met with no organised resistance, though the scouts report various petty lords assembling hosts.
I have dispatched Kurt Helborg to take the castle of Rosby, which sits between King’s Landing and Duskendale. I have the upmost faith in my Grand Marshal. Meanwhile, the Huntsmarshal, Markus Wulfhart, has been dispatched with his scouts to the war-torn land that the Westerosi call the Riverlands. Two armies wage war there, we are told. Wulfhart will provide reconnaissance and provide further information for us.
I have brought with me the Sons of Sigmar; the finest regiments from Reikland, Talabecland, Averland, Wissenland, and Hochland. The engineers of Nuln accompany us, with Great Cannons and Mortars in our forward batteries, their barrels trained toward land and sea alike. Knightly Orders have been deployed in support. The Knights Panthers, the Reiksguard, and even two regiments of the Knights of the Blazing Sun have sworn to uphold discipline in this foreign land. Reports suggest that the native cavalry are untested. If need be, our charge shall scatter them like dust in the wind.
The Colleges of Magic have dispatched Battle Wizards to accompany our regiments. Grey Wizards are moving to infiltrate King’s Landing, and a dozen other great seats in the realm. Celestial Wizards have established themselves in the tallest towers of Duskendale, though it pales to Altdorf’s heights. I have given leave for the Amber Wizards to accompany the Huntsmarshal in his scouting in the Riverlands. The Light Order has requested to patrol the lands in their crusade against Chaos, and I have authorised that. The Jade College maintains their presence here, tending to the wounded and sick, what few there are. The Supreme Patriarch has taken many Gold Wizards with him on his quest, as has the Lady Elspeth von Draken with her Amethyst Wizards, and I have dispatched the Bright Order to accompany the Grand Theogonist in his campaign further north.
For we have all sensed this matter of magic and faith, the moment we crossed the seas. The Winds of Magic are different here; less predictable and more primal. All the Orders agree that they are not drawn from the Aethyr in the manner of the Colleges, but rooted in blood, prophecy and forgotten pacts. Their gods are no less ancient and primal.
To that end, I have dispatched Balthasar Gelt, Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, across the Narrow Sea. He sails with a strong escort of soldiers, knights, and wizards to locate the woman known as Daenerys Stormborn, said to command dragons, of all things. If such tales bear truth, she must be found. And there are old magics to the east, my mages tell me. Magic so old and uncontrollable must be understood, or contained.
To that end as well, Lady Elspeth has flown to the ghostly seat of Harrenhal. She has requested permission to investigate the matter of its curse. I understand that it is filled with a long, cursed history. A perfect locus of death magic, she told me, rumors of ghosts and weeping stones. She has flown to Harrenhal to investigate. We are informed that an army, belonging to one Tywin Lannister holds the castle. That shall be of little concern. After, the Lady Elspeth shall fly to this city of Oldtown, said to be the most ancient of the five cities in Westeros, with a Citadel of learning within.
Northwards, beyond the great icy barrier they call ‘the Wall’, I have dispatched Volkmar the Grim, Grand Theogonist of Sigmar and hammer of heretics. The Celestial College warns of the dead walking, a foe akin to the vampires of Sylvania. Volkmar’s wrath shall be as the cleansing light of Sigmar himself. The might of the Church rides with him, as do the Bright Order, and the Knights of the White Wolf. They shall not falter, nor flag in their duty.
Meanwhile, our Imperial Navy has begun operations off the western and the eastern coast. On the west, by what the Westerosi call the Sunset Sea, the First Fleet has sailed for the Iron Islands. No different to the savages of Norsca, it is a stronghold of sea raiders, whose leaders call themselves kings of salt. We name them brigands with boats. The First Sea Lord Adalmann shall take those isles, with orders to subdue their ports, shatter their longships, and establish Imperial outposts. The Second Sea Lord Kohler and the Second Fleet has taken the islands of Claw Isle, Driftmark, and Dragonstone though it appears recently barren. This King Stannis has sailed for the Stormlands, we are told.
It is fitting that the Empire brings order by sea, as it has done by land. Let them see our banners from the cliffs and the isles, and know that a new order has come.
King’s Landing smolders beneath its crown of walls and towers. We are far enough to avoid provocation, but close enough to remind them of our presence. An envoy has been sent to the city, though it has not returned. Other dispatches have been sent to each faction; the King in the North, King Stannis, House Tyrell. To each, I offered the same message: Unite, or perish. The Empire has not crossed the sea to meddle in wars of men and petty thrones. I will not allow the enemies of man to multiply while men bicker over broken crowns.
Still, a race has begun. Though the race for Lustria and Albion has ended in the Old and New World, with many colonies established, a third race has begun.
The Empire is not alone in this realm. Other powers, great and grim, have across the seas and mountains to stake their claim or take as they wish. I record the present alignment of foreign forces as thus:
The might of Bretonnia has descended upon the Reach. King Louen Leoucouer is riding for Highgarden with a strong host of knights; Grail Knights and Pegasus Knights alike. They treat the locals with a mutual rivalry, and speak of blessed quests and holy lineages. Still, Duke Alberic of Bordeleaux has taken the Arbor while the mystical Fay Enchantress has established a presence at the Three Towers.
The Wood Elves of Athel Loren have arrived to the Isle of Faces, a secluded island within the large lake named the God’s Eye. All attempts to communicate with the Fay Folk have been disregarded, but no hostilities have emerged between us, yet.
Kislev has arrived at White Harbor, with the Ice Queen taking this Merman’s Court for her own. The Tzarina’s purpose appears peaceful for now; they see these snows as kin to their own, and seek alliance with the Stark forces and the Night’s Watch. Kossars and Ice Witches have also encamped at the narrow causeway called the Neck, and ice walls and towers have been raised at the ruins of Moat Cailin. Graf Boris Todbringer has been dispatched as emissary. Kislev and the Empire have been allies, we see no reason to depart from that.
The Mountain Lords of the Karaz Ankor have tunneled deep beneath the Westerlands, drawn by veins of gold. The High King Thorgrim has taken the golden throne of Casterly Rock for his own; and many millions of gold crowns as well. The Dwarfs have taken the mountain pass of the Golden Tooth, and reports have come of dozens of outposts established all across the west. Envoys have been sent to the High King.
The Kingdoms of Estalia, ever mercantile, have set their ships into Dorne, binding trade and honor to the Martells of the desert. Their intent seems peaceful for now; though the vigilants of Solkan and several mercenary companies now roam the desert. To keep the peace, they are saying, but they are armed and armored for war.
The Tilean city-states have anchored their presence across the Narrow Sea, forming a complex network of trade, mercenary companies, and coin. Their contracts are many; their loyalties, fluid. I am told that the Dogs of War roam the Disputed Lands, that Miragliano has made contact with the city of Myr, just as Luccini has sent ships to Braavos.
There are more troubling accounts across the sea; as the Supreme Patriarch has written, and the Celestial Wizards portent. The High Elves of Ulthuan have made contact in Asshai by the Shadow, a haunted place of twilight and magic. Whether they came for knowledge, prophecy, or deeper purposes, I cannot say. Let us pray that Ulthuan remains aloof.
The spit of islands named the Stepstones are contested by the corsairs of Sartosa and undead pirates of the coast. Gunpowder and necromantic energies darken the tides there. The Imperial Navy shall descend upon them swiftly.
Old forces now roam the jungles of Sothoryos, a dark and terrible continent I am told. Not dissimilar to the green hell of Lustria, the Lizardmen have stirred from their homelands. By ways and route unknown to us, for no ships of Lustria have been seen, they have arrived in Sothoryos, cold-blooded and alien. All ships must know to avoid those waters.
Off the coast of Sothoryos, the dread ships of the Dark Elves have been sighted amidst the Basilisk Isles. Jagged, black towers have already been seen, displacing local slavers and beasts with their own.
The undead monarchs of the Land of the Dead have claimed the Red Waste for themselves. A barren and unforgiving desert, dead men walk again, brandishing weapons of bronze.
The dragonships of distant Cathay have been spotted in Yi Ti. Strange and ordered, reports suggest that magical harmony is their concern. A force to respect and treat with.
The Greenskins have brought their fire and jagged steel to the massive stretch of land named the Dothraki Sea. The nomadic horselords of that green sea now contend with the greenskins with their crude chariots. A wake of destruction carves across the land.
Friends and foes have come. Mannfred von Carstein has risen once more, and sighted beyond the Wall. The Grand Theogonist now hunts him. Reports of horned men with tails and furs and hooves have come from the land named the Vale. Darker industries have risen in the city of Qohor in the east, under the cursed Chaos Dwarfs. The comet, these tales of dragons, magics, the dead coming to life. These are not isolated signs.
The End Times come, and we stand ready to confront it.
The Empire has never succumbed to any threat, external or internal. Through centuries of strife and countless foes, Sigmar’s legacy lives on. My predecessor, the great Emperor Magnus the Pious, declared that three things make the Empire great: faith, steel and gunpowder. We come with that and more. Faith is strong in the heart of every Imperial citizen. Sigmar’s light shines on us, for even here, the twin-tailed comet shines true. The Cult of Sigmar shall confront the darkness to the north, and all faiths have joined for the wars to come; knights of Ulric and Myrmidia, hunters of Taal, priests of Morr, healers of Shallya.
Steel, we come with. The steel of our armors, and our swords, and spears, and pikes, and arrows. The steel of the lances from our knights, and the halberd of our state troops. From all across the Empire, we come with steel in our hands and in our hearts. Gunpowder stands ready to drown all foes in their own blood. Handgunners and cannons and mortars, rocket batteries and steam tanks and war wagons, gunpowder we have in abundance.
We are not alone in the dark either. As ever, the Empire shall reach a hand across lines of war and blood. The gallant knights of Bretonnia and the hardy warriors of Kislev, the kings of Estalia and the merchant princes of Tilea, for what are we but men against the horrors of the world? The dwarfs have long been allies of the Empire since its birth, and Ulthuan’s aid in the Great War Against Chaos has not been forgotten. The Empire has no reason for war with Athel Loren as well, nor the Lizardmen of Lustria, nor the dragons of Grand Cathay.
New and old foes come to face us.
We shall face them.
Greenskins and northmen and daemons of Chaos, we have fought them before. And for more than two thousand years, we have defeated them. Mere mortal men, armed with pike and shot, clad in mail and leathers, have stood against the dark for centuries. For centuries, the hearts of men have stood united against a world that despises them for no reason save that they had the audacity to not lay down and die.
Since Sigmar forged the Empire at Blackfire Pass with Ghal Maraz, side by side with the Dwarfs, mankind has fought the horrors of the world, and we have won.
Let this message reach the Colleges, the Counts, and the Cults. Let these words reach the heart of every man and woman in the Empire, and to all souls across the Old World and the New. Let this declaration be made known to all our friends and foes.
We come not as conquerors. The dark has come for this land, as it has always lingered hungrily for ours. If this land’s people cannot defend themselves, then we shall. We shall do so; with faith and fire, with steel and magic, with gunpowder and allies. The hour is at hand when all men must stand firm against the vile darkness that befalls us. If we wall, our passing will usher in a new age of terror and shadow. An age of darkness that has not beset the world for two and a half thousand years, a darkness that Sigmar himself shattered.
Let all hear my name.
I am Karl Franz. Many call me Emperor. I have many titles, but I am just a man. I was born to a loving mother and a noble father, and my own wife has borne me a brave son and a beautiful daughter. I fight for them. I was born into this world, just like you. A world of unceasing war and endless terrors. But with a nation of men at its heart, a bastion of hope and courage, a tower of light against the shadow: the Empire.
Led by the craven, torn apart by the greedy, weakened and exposed, forever on the defence, but no longer.
For now, we unite. To purge the evil that dare confront us.
The truth will prevail. The light will prevail. Order will prevail.
I stand ready to confront the dark with Ghal Maraz in hand, with the blessing of Ulric and Sigmar. I stand with fearless knights and soldiers, with faithful men and great wizards; fathers, brothers, and sons. The time has come. The twin-tailed comet soars in the sky. The human heart will beat strong still, and the Empire endures.
Sigmar protects.
So long as we act in His name.
Emperor Karl Franz I Holswig-Schliestein,
Emperor of Man, Elector Count of Reikland, Grand Prince of Altdorf, Count of the West March, Wielder of Ghal Maraz, Son of Emperors, Defier of the Dark.
Notes:
What an utterly unfair and incredibly awesome matchup!
As someone who is a massive fan of both settings, this was very fun to write. I did want to use this to say that the story will NOT involve the Empire coming to Westeros or any more characters. While I would love to read such a fic, that is not the direction I am planning to take this story. All the travellers from the Warhammer world have already arrived. That said, perhaps in the future, I would like to write something like that.
Anyways, the prologue for the next arc will be coming soon!
Chapter 47: Arc 2, The War of Four Kings: Prologue
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The comet’s tails spread across the dawn. First, it was a red slash that bled above the crags of Dragonstone like a bleeding wound in the pink and purple sky. But all men saw how the scarlet turned gold with a blinding pulse, how the weeping crimson tail split into twin tails of glimmering fire that shone proudly in the dark.
The Red Woman proclaimed it to be a sign from Lord of Light, that the dawn has come from fire. It was divine light, she named it, the cleansing flame was coming. “The Lord of Light has sent fire to burn away the lies of the world. The darkness flees before him,” she announced. Shireen was frightened and fascinated, for the world was full of shadow and stories, and such a comet was beauty and omen all at once. Her mother was different, fervently holding that the comet marked the king for victory. He wanted to think it was folly, for the sky was not a page for zealots to write in.
The maester stood on the windswept balcony outside his chambers, where the ravens returned after their long flights across the realm. Their droppings flecked the stone gargoyles towering twelve feet high on either side of him; a hellhound and a wyvern, two among the thousand that loomed over the walls of the ancient fortress.
He did not believe in omens. And yet ... old as he was, Cressen had never seen a comet half so bright, nor yet one of such glimmer, and one of two tails. And none could deny their own eyes, deny the sight of the red star turning gold. He wondered if his gargoyles had ever seen such a sight. They had been here so much longer than he had, and would still be here long after he was gone.
If stone tongues could speak ...
Such folly. He leaned against the battlement, the sea crashing beneath him, the black stone rough beneath his fingers. Talking gargoyles and divine prophecies in the sky. I am an old done man, grown giddy as a child again. Had a lifetime’s hard-won wisdom fled him along with his health and strength? He was a maester, trained and chained in the great Citadel of Oldtown. What had he come to, when superstition filled his head as if he were an ignorant field hand?
And yet ... and yet ... the comet burned even by day now, while pale grey steam rose from the hot vents of Dragonmont behind the castle, and yestermorn a white raven had brought word from the Citadel itself, word long-expected but no less fearful for all that, word of summer’s end. Omens, all. Too many to deny. What does it all mean? he wanted to cry.
“Age has not taken your wits,” Lord Eddard Stark had been kind enough to say.
It has, thought the Maester sadly. Age was like a fog of snow, clouding his mind. It comes for all, always, he thought, old age and winter. The Stark always have it right at the end, winter always comes. It comes for us all.
“Maester Cressen, we have visitors,” Pylos spoke softly, as if loath to disturb Cressen’s solemn meditations. Had he known what drivel filled his head, he would have shouted. “The princess would see the white raven.” Ever correct, Pylos called her princess now, as her lord father was a king. King of a smoking rock in the great salt sea, yet a king nonetheless. “Her fool is with her. And Lord Stark’s man.”
The old man turned away from the dawn, keeping a hand on his stone wyvern to steady himself. “Help me to my chair and show them in.”
Pylos took his arm and gently led him inside. In his youth, Cressen had walked with brisk purpose, but now, nearing his eightieth name day, his legs were frail and uncertain beneath him. Two years ago, a fall had shattered his hip like glass, and it had never healed true. When illness struck last year, the Citadel sent young Pylos from Oldtown, just days before Lord Stannis sealed the isle. Officially, he was to assist in Cressen’s labors, but the old man knew better. Pylos had come to take his place when death at last claimed him. He did not resent it. Someone must take up the burden—and likely sooner than he would wish.
When Pylos returned, the girl came with him, shy as ever. Behind her, shuffling and hopping in that queer sideways walk of his, came her fool. On his head was a mock helm fashioned from an old tin bucket, with a rack of deer antlers strapped to the crown and hung with cowbells. With his every lurching step, the bells rang. By his side was Eddard Stark’s fearsome, solemn protector, Andrei Yeltska.
“Who comes to see us so early, Pylos?” Cressen said.
“It’s me and Patches and Ser Yeltska, Maester.” Guileless blue eyes blinked at him. Hers was not a pretty face, alas. The child had her lord father’s square jaw and her mother’s unfortunate ears, along with a disfigurement all her own, the legacy of the greyscale that had almost claimed her in the crib. Across half one cheek and well down her neck, her flesh was stiff and dead, the skin cracked and flaking, mottled black and grey and stony to the touch. “Pylos said we might see the white raven. Andrei wanted to see it too. Winter bird, he called it.”
The stoic Northerner nodded. “Yes.”
“Indeed you may,” Cressen answered. He would ever deny her. She had been denied too often in her time. Her name was Shireen. She would be ten on her next name day, and she was the saddest child that Maester Cressen had ever known. Her sadness is my shame, the old man thought, another mark of my failure. Her only friends; an old maester, a smuggler, and a mad fool. “Maester Pylos, do me a kindness and bring the bird down from the rookery for the Lady Shireen.”
“It would be my pleasure.” Pylos was a courteous young man, no more than five-and-twenty, yet he bore the solemnity of someone thrice his age. If only he had more levity, more spark; that was what this place needed. Grim halls called for lightness, not more gravity, and Dragonstone was grim beyond all doubt, steeped in shadow and smoke.
A maester must go where he is commanded, and so Cressen had come with his lord some twelve years ago. He had served faithfully, and well. Yet he had never loved Dragonstone, nor had he ever truly called it home. Lately, when he woke from uneasy dreams—dreams in which the red woman always loomed—he often could not tell where he was. Dragonstone, Storm’s End, the Citadel… or one of the seven hells.
The fool turned his patched and piebald head to watch Pylos climb the steep iron steps to the rookery. His bells rang with the motion. “Under the sea, the birds have scales for feathers,” he said, clang-a-langing. “I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
Even for a fool, Patchface was a pitiful sight. Perhaps once he had stirred laughter with a clever jest, but the sea had stolen that from him—along with half his wits and all his memories. Now he was soft and bloated, prone to twitches and tremors, babbling nonsense more often than not. Only the girl still laughed at his antics, the only one who seemed to care whether he lived or died.
An ugly little girl and a sad fool and a warrior far from home, and an old maester makes four ... now there is a tale to make men weep and laugh. “Sit with me, child.” Cressen beckoned her closer. “This is early to come calling, scarce past dawn. You should be snug in your bed.”
“I had bad dreams,” Shireen told him, frowning. “About the dragons. They were coming to eat me.”
The child had been plagued by nightmares as far back as Maester Cressen could recall. “We have talked of this before,” he said gently. “The dragons cannot come to life. They are carved of stone, child. In olden days, our island was the westernmost outpost of the great Freehold of Valyria. It was the Valyrians who raised-”
“I know,” Shireen said gently, placing a hand on his own. “The dreams were not all bad. The fire from its maw froze, as did its scales. Then, the dragon froze in full and fell from the sky and shattered into a million shards.”
He did not know what to say. “What else, sweet child?”
Shireen looked thoughtful. “I dreamt of the comet as well. The gold one in the sky. I overheard Dalla and Matrice, and they said that it is an omen. Is it, Maester?”
He shook his head. “A star with twin tails, lost in the heavens. It will be gone soon enough, never to be seen again in our lifetimes. Watch and see.”
Shireen gave a brave little nod, but she seemed sad. “Mother said the white raven means it’s not summer anymore.”
“That is so, my lady. The white ravens fly only from the Citadel.” Cressen’s fingers went to the chain about his neck, each link forged from a different metal, each symbolizing his mastery of another branch of learning; the maester’s collar, mark of his order. In the pride of his youth, he had worn it easily, but now it seemed heavy to him, the metal cold against his skin. “They are larger than other ravens, and more clever, bred to carry only the most important messages. This one came to tell us that the Conclave has met, considered the reports and measurements made by maesters all over the realm, and declared this great summer done at last. Ten years, two turns, and sixteen days it lasted, the longest summer in living memory.”
“Will it get cold now?” Shireen was a summer child, and had never known true cold.
“In time,” Cressen replied. “If the gods are good, they will grant us a warm autumn and bountiful harvests, so we might prepare for the winter to come.” The smallfolk said that a long summer meant an even longer winter, but the maester saw no reason to frighten the child with such dread tales.
Patchface rang his bells. “It is always summer under the sea,” he intoned. “The merwives wear nennymoans in their hair and weave gowns of silver seaweed. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
Shireen giggled. “I should like a gown of silver seaweed. Ser Yeltska,” she turned towards the towering Northman who had been silent, “How cold can the North become again?”
The man stirred uncomfortably against the wall. “Cold,” he intoned, his eyes far away. “Snow high to knee. Then, waist. Then, chest. Wind like ice steel.”
He could not help but to shudder at that. Gods be good…
“Under the sea, it snows up,” said the fool, “and the rain is dry as bone. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
“It will,” Cressen said. But not for years yet, I pray, and then not for long. “Ah, here is Pylos with the bird.”
Shireen gave a cry of delight. Even Cressen had to admit the bird made an impressive sight, white as snow and larger than any hawk, with the bright black eyes that meant it was no mere albino, but a truebred white raven of the Citadel. Andrei blinked and nodded gravely. “Snow bird,” he proclaimed.
“Here,” he called. The raven spread its wings, leapt into the air, and flapped noisily across the room to land on the table beside him.
“I’ll see to your breakfast now,” Pylos announced. Cressen nodded. “This is the Lady Shireen,” he told the raven. The bird bobbed its pale head up and down, as if it were bowing. “Lady,” it croaked. “Lady.”
The child’s mouth gaped open. “It talks!”
“A few words. As I said, they are clever, these birds.”
“Clever bird, clever man, clever clever fool,” said Patchface, jangling. “Oh, clever clever clever fool.” He began to sing. “ The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord, ” he sang, hopping from one foot to the other and back again. “The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay my lord, stay my lord.” He jerked his head with each word, the bells in his antlers sending up a clangor. Spittle flew from his mouth and his eyes seemed to roll back in his head.
“A thousand eyes to watch, my lord, watch, my lord, watch, my lord,” his voice grew to a whisper and the fool scratched at his cheek. “A million eyes to change, my lord, change, my lord, change, my lord. Under the sea, we all change, oh, oh, oh.”
The white raven screamed and went flapping away to perch on the iron railing of the rookery stairs. Shireen seemed to grow smaller. “He sings that all the time. I told him to stop but he won’t. It makes me scared. Make him stop.”
And how do I do that? the old man wondered. Once I might have silenced him forever, but now …
“Change,” the white raven shrieked. “Change, change, change.”
“A fool sings what he will,” the maester told his anxious princess. “You must not take his words to heart. On the morrow he may remember another song, and this one will never be heard again.”
Pylos strode through the door. “Maester, pardons.”
“You have forgotten the porridge,” Cressen said, amused. That was most unlike Pylos.
“Maester, Ser Davos returned last night. They were talking of it in the kitchen. I thought you would want to know at once.”
“Davos ... last night, you say? Where is he?”
“With the king and Lord Stark. They have been together most of the night.”
There was a time when Lord Stannis would have woken him, no matter the hour, to have him there to give his counsel. “I should have been told,” Cressen complained. “I should have been woken.”
He turned to the Kossar. “And you are not with your lord?”
Andrei grunted. “Lord meeting. Why I go?”
He disentangled his fingers from Shireen’s. “Pardons, my lady, but I must speak with your lord father. Pylos, give me your arm. There are too many steps in this castle, and it seems to me they add a few every night, just to vex me.”
Shireen and Patchface followed them out, but the child soon grew restless with the old man’s creeping pace and dashed ahead, the fool lurching after her with his cowbells clanging madly. Andrei kept a steady pace by him, and reached out with a steady hand to support him as well.
Castles are unkind to the frail, Cressen was reminded as he descended the winding stairs of Sea Dragon Tower. Lord Stannis would be in the Chamber of the Painted Table, high within the Stone Drum. Dragonstone’s central keep, named for the way its ancient walls groaned and thundered in storm. To reach him, they would need to cross the gallery, pass through the middle and inner walls with their grim-faced gargoyles and black iron gates, and climb more steps than Cressen cared to count. Young men took them two at a time—three, if they were impatient. For an old man with a shattered hip, each step was an ordeal.
But Lord Stannis would not think to come to him, so the maester accepted the trial in silence. At least he had help, and for that, he was quietly grateful.
“How old are you?” Andrei asked, curious.
Cressen favoured him with a tired smile. “Seventy-nine, my good man.”
Andrei’s eyes widened and he nodded. “We have saying. Old steel better.”
He almost laughed. “So I have heard. The old and the gold.”
Andrei’s smile was one of satisfaction.
Shuffling along the gallery, they passed before a row of tall arched windows with commanding views of the outer bailey, the curtain wall, and the fishing village beyond. In the yard, archers were firing at practice butts to the call of “Notch, draw, loose.” Their arrows made a sound like a flock of birds taking wing.
“You are unimpressed,” he noted.
“Can be better,” was Andrei’s response, his brow furrowed. “They shoot… slow, too slow, like children. Arrows fly all place, but not foe.”
Guardsmen strode the wallwalks, peering between the gargoyles on the host camped without. The morning air was hazy with the smoke of cookfires, as three thousand men sat down to break their fasts beneath the banners of their lords. Past the sprawl of the camp, the anchorage was crowded with ships. No craft that had come within sight of Dragonstone this past half year had been allowed to leave again. Lord Stannis’s Fury, a triple-decked war galley of three hundred oars, looked almost small beside some of the big-bellied carracks and cogs that surrounded her.
The guardsmen outside the Stone Drum knew the maesters by sight, and passed them through. “Wait here,” Cressen told Pylos, within. “It’s best I see him alone.”
“It is a long climb, Maester.”
Cressen smiled. “You think I have forgotten? I have climbed these steps so often I know each one by name. Andrei’s arm shall suffice.”
Halfway up, he had stopped to catch his breath and ease the pain in his hip when he heard the scuff of boots on stone, and came face-to-face with Ser Davos Seaworth, descending.
Davos was a slight man, his low birth plain to see in a weathered, unremarkable face. A sun-faded green cloak, salt-stained and wind-worn, hung from his narrow shoulders, draped over a brown doublet and breeches that matched the shade of his eyes and hair. Around his neck, a pouch of worn leather dangled from a simple thong. His short beard was streaked with grey, and a leather glove covered the fingers he no longer had on his maimed left hand. When he saw Cressen, he checked his descent.
“Ser Davos,” the maester said. “When did you return?”
Davos nodded to them both. “In the black of morning. My favorite time.” It was said that no one had ever handled a ship by night half so well as Davos Shorthand. Before Lord Stannis had knighted him, he had been the most notorious and elusive smuggler in all the Seven Kingdoms.
“And?”
The man shook his head. “It is as you warned him. They will not rise, Maester. Not for him. They do not love him.”
No, Cressen thought. Nor will they ever. He is strong, able, just ... aye, just past the point of wisdom ... yet it is not enough. It has never been enough. “You spoke to them all?”
“All? No. Only those that would see me. They do not love me either, these highborns. To them I’ll always be the Onion Knight.” His left hand closed, stubby fingers locking into a fist; Stannis had hacked the ends off at the last joint, all but the thumb. “I broke bread with Gulian Swann and old Penrose, and the Tarths consented to a midnight meeting in a grove. The others—well, Beric Dondarrion is gone missing, some say dead, and Lord Caron is with Renly. Bryce the Orange, of the Rainbow Guard.”
“The Rainbow Guard?”
“Renly’s made his own Kingsguard,” the onetime smuggler explained, “but these seven don’t wear white. Each one has his own color. Loras Tyrell’s their Lord Commander, the Knight of Flowers.”
Faintly, he heard the sound of a snort coming from the third man. Davos only gave a weary smile.
It was just the sort of notion that would appeal to Renly Baratheon; a splendid new order of knighthood, with gorgeous new raiment to proclaim it. Even as a boy, Renly had loved bright colors and rich fabrics, and he had loved his games as well. “Look at me!” he would shout as he ran laughing through the halls of Storm’s End. “Look at me, I’m a dragon,” or “Look at me, I’m a wizard,” or “Look at me, look at me, I’m the rain god.”
The bold little boy with wild black hair and laughing eyes was a man grown now, one-and-twenty, and still he played his games. Look at me, I’m a king, Cressen thought sadly. Oh, Renly, Renly, dear sweet child, do you know what you are doing? And would you care if you did? Is there anyone who cares for him but me?
“What reasons did the lords give for their refusals?” he asked Ser Davos.
“Well, as to that, some gave me soft words and some blunt, some made excuses, some promises, some only lied.” He shrugged. “In the end, words are just wind.”
“You could bring him no hope?”
“Only the false sort, and I’d not do that,” Davos said. “He had the truth from me.”
No, Cressen thought, a man like that would give no false hope, nor soften a hard truth. “Ser Davos, truth can be a bitter draught, even for a man like Lord Stannis. He thinks only of returning to King’s Landing in the fullness of his power, to tear down his enemies and claim what is rightfully his. Yet now ...”
“If he takes this meager host to King’s Landing, it will be only to die. He does not have the numbers. I have told him, as did Lord Stark, and he knows as well.”
The old man sighed. “And duty calls. I must add my voice to his council as well.”
Wearily, he resumed his climb.
Lord Stannis Baratheon’s refuge was a great round room with walls of bare black stone and four tall narrow windows that looked out to the four points of the compass. In the center of the chamber was the great table from which it took its name, a massive slab of carved wood fashioned at the command of Aegon Targaryen in the days before the Conquest.
The Painted Table was more than fifty feet long, perhaps half that wide at its widest point, but less than four feet across at its narrowest. Aegon’s carpenters had shaped it after the land of Westeros, sawing out each bay and peninsula until the table nowhere ran straight. On its surface, darkened by near three hundred years of varnish, were painted the Seven Kingdoms as they had been in Aegon’s day; rivers and mountains, castles and cities, lakes and forests.
There were two chairs in the room. The first was carefully positioned in the precise place that Dragonstone occupied off the coast of Westeros, and raised up to give a good view of the tabletop. Seated in the chair was a man in a tight-laced leather jerkin and breeches of roughspun brown wool. The other was opposite, near Fair Isle, and Lord Stark sat wearily upon it.
When Maester Cressen entered, Stannis glanced up. “I knew you would come, old man, whether I summoned you or no.” There was no hint of warmth in his voice; there seldom was. Stannis’ eyes flickered to Andrei before giving him a choppy nod, and the warrior moved to stand beside his lord.
Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and rightful heir to the Iron Throne, was broad of shoulder and sinewy of limb, with a face drawn tight and flesh like cured leather. Hard was the word men used for him, and hard he was. Though not yet five-and-thirty, only a sparse fringe of black hair clung behind his ears, circling his head like the shadow of a crown.
His brother, the late King Robert, had grown a wild beard in his final years; thick and fierce, or so they said. Maester Cressen had never seen it himself. In contrast, Stannis kept his own whiskers trimmed short, more shadow than beard, lying close along his jaw and sunken cheeks. His eyes were wounds left open beneath heavy brows, a blue as deep and dark as midnight seas. His mouth could drain the mirth from the drollest fool; thin, pale lips pulled tight with tension, clenched as if in perpetual judgment. It was a mouth made for commands, for scowls and silence, a mouth that had long forgotten how to smile—if ever it had known laughter at all.
Sometimes, in the stillness of the castle’s deepest night, Maester Cressen fancied he could hear Lord Stannis grinding his teeth, half a keep away.
“Once you would have woken me,” the old man said sadly.
“Once you were young. Now you are old and sick, and need your sleep.” Stannis had never learned to soften his speech, to dissemble or flatter; he said what he thought, and those that did not like it could be damned. “I knew you’d learn what Davos had to say soon enough. You always do, don’t you?”
“I would be of no help to you if I did not,” Cressen said. “I met Davos on the stair.”
“And he told all, I suppose? I should have had the man’s tongue shortened along with his fingers.”
“He would have made you a poor envoy then.”
“He made me a poor envoy in any case. The storm lords will not rise for me. It seems they do not like me, and the justice of my cause means nothing to them. The cravenly ones will sit behind their walls waiting to see how the wind rises and who is likely to triumph. The bold ones have already declared for Renly. For Renly!” He spat out the name like poison on his tongue.
“Your brother has been the Lord of Storm’s End these past thirteen years. These lords are his sworn bannermen—”
“His,” Stannis broke in, “when by rights they should be mine. I never asked for Dragonstone. I never wanted it. I took it because Robert’s enemies were here and he commanded me to root them out. I built his fleet and did his work, dutiful as a younger brother should be to an elder, as Renly should be to me. And what was Robert’s thanks? He names me Lord of Dragonstone, and gives Storm’s End and its incomes to Renly. Storm’s End belonged to House Baratheon for three hundred years; by rights it should have passed to me when Robert took the Iron Throne.”
Lord Stark stirred slightly from his seat, his face stiff and uncomfortable.
It was an old grievance, deeply felt, and never more so than now. Here was the gnashing heart of his lord’s weakness; for Dragonstone, old and strong though it was, commanded the allegiance of only a handful of lesser lords, whose stony island holdings were too thinly peopled to yield up the men that Stannis needed. Even with the sellswords he had brought across the narrow sea from the Free Cities of Myr and Lys, the host camped outside his walls was far too small to bring down the power of House Lannister. Stannis had never any love for the dark heart of Dragonstone. It was Storm’s End where he was raised, and where he was sieged.
“Robert did you an injustice,” Maester Cressen replied carefully, “yet he had sound reasons. Dragonstone had long been the seat of House Targaryen. He needed a man’s strength to rule here, and Renly was but a child.”
“He is a child still,” Stannis declared, his anger ringing loud in the empty hall, “a thieving child who thinks to snatch the crown off my brow. What has Renly ever done to earn a throne? He sits in council and jests, and at tourneys he dons his splendid suit of armor and allows himself to be knocked off his horse by a better man. That is the sum of my brother Renly, who thinks he ought to be a king. I ask you, why did the gods inflict me with brothers?
“I cannot answer for the gods.”
“You seldom answer at all these days, it seems to me. Who maesters for Renly? Perchance I should send for him, I might like his counsel better. What do you think this maester said when my brother decided to steal my crown? What counsel did your colleague offer to this traitor blood of mine?”
“It would surprise me if Lord Renly sought counsel, Your Grace.” The youngest of Lord Steffon’s three sons had grown into a man bold but heedless, who acted from impulse rather than calculation. In that, as in so much else, Renly was like his brother Robert, and utterly unlike Stannis.
“Renly is not a worthy king,” Lord Eddard spoke for the first time since he entered. “I was there, in the last months of… Robert’s reign.”
“Pray tell, Lord Stark,” Stannis muttered, glancing at the sea. “What accomplishments did my brother establish?”
“Little,” Eddard Stark responded grimly. “When I left Robert’s chambers, after he returned wounded, Renly came to me. Offered me a hundred swords. To strike at the Keep in the dark of night and secure the Royal Family.”
Stannis’ eyes were upon Eddard Stark. They were not pleased. “You should have taken the offer, Lord Stark. If you had…”
“Your Grace,” Lord Stark argued, “If I had, blood would be split across the Keep. Now I know the City Watch feeds on Lannister gold. If Renly and I had placed our swords together, what would have happened then? Would the Kingsguard and Red Cloaks have stood by idly? And the City Watch numbers three thousand…”
The Lord of Winterfell was not afraid to argue with his king, in polite tones but with firm words. That was good, he thought. Too many of the lords of the Narrow Sea could only speak in meaningless flattery or mindless belligerence.
Stannis Baratheon nodded stiffly, reluctantly. “You speak sense, Lord Stark.”
He descended the steps of his chair to stand before the table, his shadow falling across the mouth of the Blackwater Rush and the painted forest where King’s Landing now stood. There he stood, brooding over the realm he sought to claim, so near at hand and yet so far away. His lord’s brows were furrowed, and his eyes dark and gloomy, and heavy in thought.
“Tonight I am to sup with my lords bannermen, such as they are. Celtigar, Velaryon, Bar Emmon, the whole paltry lot of them. A poor crop, if truth be told, but they are what my brothers have left me. That Lysene pirate Salladhor Saan will be there with the latest tally of what I owe him, and Morosh the Myrman will caution me with talk of tides and autumn gales, while Lord Sunglass mutters piously of the will of the Seven. Celtigar will want to know which storm lords are joining us. Velaryon will threaten to take his levies home unless we strike at once. What am I to tell them? What must I do now? What do you say?”
“Your true enemies are the Lannisters, my lord,” Maester Cressen answered. “If you and your brother were to make common cause against them—”
“I will not treat with Renly,” Stannis answered in a tone that brooked no argument. “Not while he calls himself a king.”
“The North and the Riverlands have proclaimed you king,” Eddard Stark noted with a slight smile. “Declared it in the halls of Riverrun.”
“And their loyalties have been acknowledged,” Stannis nodded stiffly.
“Communication with Robb has been difficult,” Lord Eddard pointed out. “The Northmen and Riverlords have secured a strong position in the Riverlands, with Riverrun, but Tywin Lannister haunts them from Harrenhal. Any ravens we send must be written with the fear that it may be shot down.”
“What do you suggest?” Stannis demanded.
Lord Eddard Stark frowned over the Painted Table. “It may be worth considering Duskendale, Your Grace. Send an envoy to them. If they refuse peace, then send steel and ships. Duskendale is days away from King’s Landing and will provide a stronghold in the Crownlands. From there, messengers can be sent to Riverrun with ease.”
Stannis frowned as well. “Lord Rykker has a thousand swords. Should he prove stubborn, taking Duskendale will be bloody. That is a price I am loath to pay. And what shall I do with the place? If Lord Tywin marches south from Harrenhal, I will have to abandon it. No, not Duskendale, Lord Stark.”
“Join forces with my son then,” Eddard suggested. “Sail past Crackclaw Point, dock at Maidenpoole. Send word to the riverlords and the northerners. Lay siege to Harrenhal from two directions.”
“A siege on Harrenhal will be costly,” Stannis leaned back against his chair, frowning. “Be it time or men. Should Lord Tywin remain in the damned castle, and I doubt he shall, a siege can take months and Renly will take King’s Landing. Should he march for King’s Landing to avoid battle, what shall we do then? Fight the Lannisters and the Tyrells at once?”
The Lord of Winterfell rubbed his face wearily. They have been arguing over this for days, Cressen realised. Lord Eddard Stark was one of the few men on Dragonstone who would argue with his king, when he thought it was right to do so.
“What of Lady Arryn?” Cressen dared to speak. “If the queen murdered her husband, surely she will want justice for him. She has a young son, Jon Arryn’s heir. If you were to betroth Shireen to him—”
“The boy is weak and sickly,” Lord Stannis objected. “Even his father saw how it was, when he asked me to foster him on Dragonstone. Service as a page might have done him good, but that damnable Lannister woman had Lord Arryn poisoned before it could be done, and now Lysa hides him in the Eyrie. She’ll never part with the boy, I promise you that.”
“Then you must send Shireen to the Eyrie,” the maester urged. “Dragonstone is a grim home for a child. Let her fool go with her, so she will have a familiar face about her.”
“Familiar and hideous.” Stannis furrowed his brow in thought. “Still ... perhaps it is worth the trying ...”
He saw Andrei shift slightly, his hand almost brushing by his axe, and his gaze suddenly fixed on something behind the maester.
“Must the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms beg for help from widow women and usurpers?” a woman’s voice asked sharply. “To sail from one town to another?”
Maester Cressen turned and bowed his head. “My lady,” he said, chagrined that he had not heard her enter.
Lord Stannis scowled. “I do not beg. Of anyone. Mind you remember that, woman.”
“I am pleased to hear it, my lord.” Lady Selyse was as tall as her husband, thin of body and thin of face, with prominent ears, a sharp nose, and the faintest hint of a mustache on her upper lip. She plucked it daily and cursed it regularly, yet it never failed to return. Her eyes were pale, her mouth stern, her voice a whip.
She cracked it now. “Lady Arryn owes you her allegiance, as do your brother Renly, and all the rest. You should not have to go to the northmen and the riverlords, they should come to you. You are their one true king. It would not be fitting to plead and bargain with them for what is rightfully yours by the grace of god.”
God, she said, not gods. The red woman had won her, heart and soul, turning her from the gods of the Seven Kingdoms, both old and new, to worship the one they called the Lord of Light.
“Your god can keep his grace,” said Lord Stannis, who did not share his wife’s fervent new faith. “It’s swords I need, not blessings. Men and mail, spears and ships. Do you have an army hidden somewhere that you’ve not told me of? In the hearthfire perhaps?” There was no affection in his tone. Stannis had always been uncomfortable around women, even his own wife. When he had gone to King’s Landing to sit on Robert’s council, he had left Selyse on Dragonstone with their daughter. His letters had been few, his visits fewer; he did his duty in the marriage bed once or twice a year, but took no joy in it, and the sons he had once hoped for had never come.
“My brothers and uncles and cousins have armies,” she told him. “House Florent will rally to your banner.”
“House Florent can field two thousand swords at best.” It was said that Stannis knew the strength of every house in the Seven Kingdoms. “And you have a deal more faith in your brothers and uncles than I do, my lady. The Florent lands lie too close to Highgarden for your lord uncle to risk Mace Tyrell’s wrath.”
“There is another way.” Lady Selyse moved closer. “Look out your windows, my lord. There is the sign you have waited for, blazoned on the sky. Red, it was, the red of flame, red for the fiery heart of the true god. Gold, it is now, for the gold of Baratheon. It is His banner—and yours! See how it unfurls across the heavens like a dragon’s hot breath and gold flame, and you the Lord of Dragonstone. It means your time has come, Your Grace. Nothing is more certain. You are meant to sail from this desolate rock as Aegon the Conqueror once sailed, to sweep all before you as he did. Only say the word, and embrace the power of the Lord of Light.”
Eddard Stark’s face was grim and uncomfortable, and the lord shared a brief glance with him. This is folly, the maester thought, this talk of fire and gods and omens.
“How many swords will the Lord of Light put into my hand?” Stannis demanded again. “Ten thousand? How many ships?”
“All you need,” his wife promised, “The swords of Storm’s End and Highgarden for a start, and all their lords bannermen.”
“Davos would tell you different,” Stannis said. “Those swords are sworn to Renly. They love my charming young brother, as they once loved Robert ... and as they have never loved me. Would you not say so, Lord Stark?” There was little love between Stannis and the man that Robert loved as a brother. Respect for a man of honor, but little love.
Eddard Stark looked pained. “Robert was well loved, aye, by his own men and those who fought against him. They loved him in war, and they loved him in peace, and he was blind to see the one who did not love him. That killed him. Renly has a similar disease; he is young and wants to be loved. His men are knights of summer, men who are chasing songs and glory and maidens’ favous.”
“And summer has ended,” Lady Selyse said coldly. “Should Renly die…”
Eddard Stark grimaced and kept his gaze on Stannis Baratheon, watching.
Stannis looked at his lady with narrowed eyes, until Cressen could not hold his tongue. “It is not to be thought. Your Grace, whatever follies Renly has committed—”
“Follies? I call them treasons.” Stannis looked at Eddard Stark. “You are an honorable man, Lord Stark. What would you call this then?”
The Lord of Winterfell bowed his head. “A man’s treason and a boy’s folly.”
Stannis turned back to his wife. “My brother is young and strong, and he has a vast host around him, and these rainbow knights of his...”
“Melisandre has gazed into the flames, and seen him dead.” Lady Selyse declared, a fire burning in her eyes as hot as hearthfire.
Cressen was horrorstruck. “Fratricide ... my lord, this is evil, unthinkable ... please, listen to me.” Look, I’m a king…
Lady Selyse gave him a measured look. “And what will you tell him, Maester? How he might win the kingdom if Renly were to steal the throne and we have to sell our daughter to Lysa Arryn? Shall you treat with Renly? ”
“I have heard your counsel, Cressen,” Lord Stannis said. “Now I will hear hers. You are dismissed.”
Maester Cressen bent a stiff knee. Eddard Stark and Andrei’s eyes were of pity. He could feel Lady Selyse’s eyes on his back as he shuffled slowly across the room. By the time he reached the bottom of the steps it was all he could do to stand erect. “Help me,” he said to Pylos.
When he was safe back in his own rooms, Cressen sent the younger man away and limped to his balcony once more, to stand between his gargoyles and stare out to sea. One of Salladhor Saan’s warships was sweeping past the castle, her gaily-striped hull slicing through the grey-green waters as her oars rose and fell. He watched until she vanished behind a headland. Would that my fears could vanish so easily. Had he lived so long for this?
When a maester donned his collar, he put aside the hope of children, yet Cressen had oft felt a father nonetheless. Robert, Stannis, Renly ... three sons he had raised after the angry sea claimed Lord Steffon. Had he done so ill that now he must watch one kill the other, after the eldest had died? He could not allow it, would not allow it.
The woman was the heart of it. Not the Lady Selyse, the other one. The red woman, the servants had named her, afraid to speak her name. “I will speak her name,” Cressen told his stone hellhound. “Melisandre. Her.” Melisandre of Asshai, sorceress, shadowbinder, and priestess to R’hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow. Melisandre, whose madness must not be allowed to spread beyond Dragonstone.
The chambers felt dim and cheerless after the morning’s brightness. With unsteady hands, the old maester lit a candle and carried it to the workroom beneath the rookery stair, where rows of ointments, potions, and tinctures sat neatly on their shelves. On the bottom shelf, behind squat clay jars of salves, he found what he sought. A tiny vial of indigo glass, no longer than his little finger. It rattled when shaken.
He blew away the thin layer of dust and brought it back to his table. Lowering himself into his chair with a weary sigh, he pulled the stopper free and tipped the contents onto the parchment he’d been reading. A dozen tiny crystals scattered across the page, no larger than seeds, glinting like gemstones in the candlelight. So deep was their hue that Cressen wondered if he had ever truly seen the color purple before.
The chain around his neck seemed to weigh more than it had a moment earlier. He touched one crystal with the tip of his little finger. Such a small thing, to hold the power of life and death. It came from a plant that grew only on islands in the Jade Sea, half a world away. The leaves had to be aged, soaked in a brew of lime, sugarwater, and rare Summer Isle spices. The leaves themselves were discarded, but the thickened potion—after being reduced with ash and left to crystallize—became what lay before him now. The alchemists of Lys knew its craft, as did the Faceless Men of Braavos... and the maesters, though such knowledge was never spoken of beyond the Citadel’s walls.
All the world knew a maester earned his silver link by mastering the healing arts. The world preferred to forget that those who learned to heal also learned to kill. Cressen no longer remembered what the Asshai’i called the leaf, nor the Lyseni name for the crystal. Within the Citadel, it was known simply as the strangler. Dissolved in wine, it would cause a man’s throat to seize, muscles locked tighter than any fist, until breath could no longer pass. They said a victim’s face turned the same shade as the crystal that delivered his death... but then, so might a man who choked on a piece of food.
And this very night Lord Stannis would feast his bannermen, his lady wife, Lord Eddard Stark ... and the red woman, Melisandre of Asshai.
I must rest, Maester Cressen told himself. I must have all my strength come dark. My hands must not shake, nor my courage flag. It is a dreadful thing I do, yet it must be done. If there are gods, surely they will forgive me. He had slept so poorly of late. A nap would refresh him for the ordeal ahead. Wearily, he tottered off to his bed. Yet when he closed his eyes, he could still see the light of the comet, red and gold and fiery and vividly alive amidst the darkness of his dreams. Perhaps it is my comet, he thought drowsily at the last, just before sleep took him. An omen of blood and victory, foretelling murder... yes ...
When he woke it was full dark, his bedchamber was black, and every joint in his body ached. Cressen pushed himself up, his head throbbing. Clutching for his cane, he rose unsteady to his feet. So late, he thought. They did not summon me. He was always summoned for feasts, seated near the salt, close to Lord Stannis. His lord’s face swam up before him, not the man he was but the boy he had been, standing cold in the shadows while the sun shone on his elder brother. Whatever he did, Robert had done first, and better. Poor boy ... he must hurry, for his sake.
The maester found the crystals where he had left them, and scooped them off the parchment. Cressen owned no hollow rings, such as the poisoners of Lys were said to favor, but a myriad of pockets great and small were sewn inside the loose sleeves of his robe. He secreted the strangler seeds in one of them, threw open his door, and called, “Pylos? Where are you?” When he heard no reply, he called again, louder. “Pylos, I need help.” Still there came no answer. That was queer; the young maester had his cell only a half turn down the stair, within easy earshot.
In the end, Cressen had to shout for the servants. “Make haste,” he told them. “I have slept too long. They will be feasting by now ... drinking ... I should have been woken.” What had happened to Maester Pylos? Truly, he did not understand.
Again he had to cross the long gallery. A night wind whispered through the great windows, sharp with the smell of the sea. Torches flickered along the walls of Dragonstone, and in the camp beyond, he could see hundreds of cookfires burning, as if a field of stars had fallen to the earth. Above, the comet blazed gold and glorious. I am too old and wise to heed such things, the maester told himself.
The doors to the Great Hall were set in the mouth of a stone dragon. He told the servants to leave him outside. It would be better to enter alone; he must not appear feeble. Leaning heavily on his cane, Cressen climbed the last few steps and hobbled beneath the gateway teeth. A pair of solemn guardsmen opened the heavy red doors before him, unleashing a sudden blast of noise and light. Cressen stepped down into the dragon’s maw, into the light within the dark.
Over the clatter of knife and plate and the low mutter of table talk, he heard Patchface singing, “... dance, my lord, dance my lord,” to the accompaniment of jangling cowbells. The same dreadful song he’d sung this morning. “The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay my lord, stay my lord. A thousand eyes to watch, my lord, watch, my lord, watch, my lord.” The lower tables were crowned with knights, archers, and sellsword captains, tearing apart loaves of black bread to soak in their fish stew. Here there was no loud laughter, no raucous shouting such as marred the dignity of other men’s feasts; Lord Stannis did not permit such. The air was solemn and stiff, as if the night before a battle.
Cressen made his way toward the raised platform where the lords sat with the king. He had to step wide around Patchface. Dancing, his bells ringing, the fool neither saw nor heard his approach. As he hopped from one leg to the other, Patchface lurched into Cressen, knocking his cane out from under him. He would have fallen crashing if not for a strong pair of arms that caught him.
Patchface sprawled on the ground. He had lost his tin helm with its antlers and bells. “Under the sea, you fall up,” he declared. “I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.” Giggling, the fool rolled off, bounded to his feet, and did a little dance. Then, his eyes narrowed slightly at the figure behind Cressen, before widening madly. “Under the sea, the fire is cold, I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
“Thank you, ser,” whispered Cressen, turning to see which knight had come to his aid. It was no knight. Eddard Stark’s swornsword stood behind him, stoic and cold.
“Take care, old man,” Andrei rumbled softly. Then, his eyes narrowed.
“Maester,” said Lady Melisandre as she approached, her deep voice flavored with the music of the Jade Sea. “You ought take more care.” As ever, she wore red head to heel, a long loose gown of flowing silk as bright as fire, with dagged sleeves and deep slashes in the bodice that showed glimpses of a darker blood-red fabric beneath. Around her throat was a red-gold choker tighter than any maester’s chain, ornamented with a single great ruby.
Her hair was not the orange or strawberry color of common red-haired men, but a deep burnished copper that shone in the light of the torches. Even her eyes were red ... but her skin was smooth and white, unblemished, pale as cream. Slender she was, graceful, taller than most knights, with full breasts and narrow waist and a heart-shaped face. Men’s eyes that once found her did not quickly look away, not even a maester’s eyes. Many called her beautiful. She was not beautiful. She was red, and terrible, and red.
“I ... thank you, my lady.”
“A man your age must look to where he steps,” Melisandre said courteously. “The night is dark and full of terrors.”
He knew the phrase, some prayer of her faith. It makes no matter, I have a faith of my own. “Only children fear the dark,” he told her. Yet even as he said the words, he heard Patchface take up his song again. “The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord.”
“Now here is a riddle,” Melisandre said. “A clever fool and a foolish wise man.” Bending, she picked up Patchface’s helm from where it had fallen and made to set it on Cressen’s head. The cowbells rang softly as the tin bucket was held suspended in the air, with Andrei’s iron grip on her pale white skin. The hall was silent.
“Where I from,” Andrei grunted, “old men are wise, as wise as witches.”
Melisandre’s eyes burnt coldly as she peered into the Northman’s soul. “I am no witch, Andrei Yeltska.” She declared fervently.
Cressen reached for the helm, seizing it gently. “I need no crown but truth and wisdom, and in that, I was crowned at Oldtown,” he said, handing the antlered tin bucket to a wide-eyed and silent Patchface. “Under the sea, the raven feasts on gods, my lord, gods, my lord, gods, my lord.” The fool whispered.“There are truths in this world that are not taught at Oldtown.” Melisandre turned from him in a swirl of red silk and made her way back to the high table, where King Stannis and his queen were seated. Eddard Stark sat to the King’s right, while Queen Selyse frowned from Stannis’ left.
Maester Pylos sat in his place. The old man could only stop and stare. “Maester Pylos,” he said at last. “You ... you did not wake me.”
“His Grace commanded me to let you rest.” Pylos had at least the grace to blush. “He told me you were not needed here.”
Cressen looked over the knights and captains and lords sitting silent. Lord Celtigar, aged and sour, wore a mantle patterned with red crabs picked out in garnets. Handsome Lord Velaryon chose sea-green silk, the white-gold seahorse at his throat matching his long fair hair. Lord Bar Emmon, that plump boy of fourteen, was swathed in purple velvet trimmed with white seal, Ser Axell Florent remained homely even in russet and fox fur, pious Lord Sunglass wore moonstones at throat and wrist and finger, and the Lysene captain Salladhor Saan was a sunburst of scarlet satin, gold, and jewels. Only Ser Davos dressed simply, in brown doublet and green wool mantle, and only Ser Davos met his gaze, with pity in his eyes.
No, not the only one, Cressen realised. He was faintly aware of the armored figure still standing behind him silently, a hand on his shoulder to steady him. He had never seen Andrei Yeltska without his armor, or the axe by his hip.
“You are too ill and too confused to be of use to me, old man.” It sounded so like Lord Stannis’s voice, but it could not be, it could not. “Pylos will counsel me henceforth. Already he works with the ravens, since you can no longer climb to the rookery. I will not have you kill yourself in my service.”
Maester Cressen blinked. Stannis, my lord, my sad sullen boy, son I never had, you must not do this, don’t you know how I have cared for you, lived for you, loved you despite all? Yes, loved you, better than Robert even, or Renly, for you were the one unloved, the one who needed me most. Yet all he said was, “As you command, my lord, but ... but I am hungry. Might not I have a place at your table?” At your side, I belong at your side ...
Ser Davos rose from the bench. “I should be honored if the maester would sit here beside me, Your Grace.”
“As you will.” Lord Stannis turned away to mutter something to Lord Stark. Lady Selyse was on his left, flashing a smile as bright and brittle as her jewels. Melisandre sat by the Queen’s left, a seat she did not seemed pleased with. It was the King’s right that she wanted to be in, the seat of high honor where Lord Stark sat. The thought gave Cressen comfort even as Andrei helped him to the bench. Lord Stark had braved the Blackwater Bay to arrive at Dragonstone, and his son had delivered the Kingslayer a great defeat before leading the Northmen and Riverlords to proclaim Stannis as their king. Thus, it was the Lord of Stark that had won the king’s trust, not the Red Woman with her prophecies of fire. Let it stay that way, Cressen prayed, Lord Stark is a good man. Stannis will, must, listen to him and not her…
Davos sat to his right, and Andrei sank down to his left, seizing a flagon of wine.
“Many thanks,” Cressen said softly, “I would have thought you would stand by your lord, good ser?”
“Not tonight,” Andrei grunted. “Too close to her.”
He could understand, yet… he was too far.
Half of the lords bannermen were between the smuggler and the high table. I must be closer to her if I am to get the strangler into her cup, yet how?
Patchface was capering about with wild eyes before them. “Here we eat fish,” the fool declared frantically, waving a cod about like a scepter. “Under the sea, the ravens eat fish. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
“We all should be in motley tonight,” Ser Davos said gloomily. “for this is fool’s business we’re about. The red woman has seen victory in her flames, so Stannis meant to press his claim, no matter what the numbers. Only Lord Stark’s council holds the ship steady now. If she keeps whispering in his ear, even ice will melt and we’re all like to see what Patchface saw, I fear—the bottom of the sea.”
Andrei was silent, only grunting as he tore at his chicken.
Cressen slid his hands up into his sleeves as if for warmth. His fingers found the hard lumps the crystals made in the wool. “Lord Stannis.”
Stannis turned from Eddard Stark, but it was Lady Selyse who replied. “King Stannis. You forget yourself, Maester.”
“He is old, his mind wanders,” the king told her gruffly. “What is it, Cressen? Speak your mind.”
“As you intend to sail, it is vital that you make common cause with Lady Arryn … And as for Renly…”
“I make common cause with no one,” Stannis Baratheon said.
“No more than light makes common cause with darkness.” Lady Selyse took his hand. His lord did not appear comfortable.
Stannis nodded. “Lysa Arryn refuses to stir herself, even as the Lannisters have stolen my throne and my own sweet brother the swords and service and strongholds that are mine by rights. They are all usurpers, and they are all my enemies.” He turned to Lord Stark. “Northmen and riverlords alike have proven honorable and loyal,” he declared. “That shall not be forgotten.”
He is not lost, Cressen thought, determined. If only he could somehow approach Melisandre unseen ... he needed but an instant’s access to her cup. “You are the rightful heir to your brother Robert, the true Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men,” he said desperately, “but even so, you cannot hope to triumph as a … as a kinslayer.”
“Renly is no kin to us,” Lady Selyse declared, “not anymore.”
He has never been your kin, thought Cressen, but he is a Baratheon. He is Stannis’ brother. The boy I raised.
“Still,” he insisted, “the Arryns will make for good allies. The knights of the Vale-”
“He has an ally,” Lady Selyse said. “R’hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow.”
“Gods make uncertain allies at best,” the old man insisted, “and that one has no power here.”
“You think not?” The ruby at Melisandre’s throat caught the light as she turned her head, and for an instant it seemed to glow bright as the comet. “If you will speak such folly, Maester, you ought to wear the fool’s crown.”
“Under the sea, no one wears hats,” Patchface said. “I know, I know, oh, oh, oh. Under the sea, no one is blind, aye, aye, aye.”
“Yes,” Lady Selyse agreed. “Patches’s helm. It suits you well, old man.”
“You go too far, woman,” Lord Stannis said. “He is an old man, and he’s served me well.” At that, Eddard Stark’s face grew less severe.
And I will serve you to the last, my sweet lord, my poor lonely son, Cressen thought, for suddenly he saw the way. Ser Davos’s cup was before him, still half-full of sour red. He found a hard flake of crystal in his sleeve, held it tight between thumb and forefinger as he reached for the cup. Smooth motions, deft, I must not fumble now, he prayed, and the gods were kind. In the blink of an eye, his fingers were empty. His hands had not been so steady for years, nor half so fluid. Davos and Andrei both saw, but no one else, he was certain. Cup in hand, he rose to his feet. “Mayhaps I have been a fool. Lady Melisandre, will you share a cup of wine with me? A cup in honor of your god, your Lord of Light? A cup to toast his power?”
The red woman studied him. “If you wish.”
He could feel them all watching him. Davos clutched at him as he left the bench, catching his sleeve with the fingers that Lord Stannis had shortened. “What are you doing?” he whispered. Andrei was silent, watching him.
“A thing that must be done,” Maester Cressen answered, “for the sake of the realm, and the soul of my lord.” And the boy that I would call my son. He shook off Davos’s hand, spilling a drop of wine on the rushes.
She met him beneath the high table with every man’s eyes upon them. But Cressen saw only her. Red silk, red eyes, the ruby red at her throat, red lips curled in a faint smile as she put her hand atop his own, around the cup. Her skin felt hot, feverish. “It is not too late to spill the wine, Maester.”
“No,” he whispered hoarsely. “No.”
“As you will.” Melisandre of Asshai took the cup from his hands and drank long and deep. There was only half a swallow of wine remaining when she offered it back to him. “And now you.”
His hands were shaking, but he made himself be strong. A maester of the Citadel must not be afraid, he told himself. He looked into the swirling red of the cup, and saw his own eyes. He took a breath to steady himself, looking past the red red eyes of the woman, and to King Stannis behind her.
His gaze was iron, Cressen thought, as it always had been. His king was grinding his teeth and staring at him with a heavy frown. All eyes were upon him now, and the hall was silent. Lord Stark’s eyes were tired and the Queen’s were cold. He thought of Shireen, the poor, sad child. Now, he thought miserably, only the fool is her friend. No, it is not so bad. Ser Davos will care for her, and she is a princess now.
The thought of Shireen made his hands tremble ever so slightly. He forced himself to be still. I must do this, he thought, I must. For her, for him.
He closed his eyes solemnly. Then, a firm hand took his own, as sure as steel. He opened his eyes in shock. Andrei took the goblet from him and sniffed it. His face was scrunched in disgust, and he shook his head, tossing it aside.
“Not good for toast,” the warrior declared. “Northern wine better.”
Cressen watched with wide eyes as Andrei raised his wineskin high, in salute to Lord Stark who gave him a brief nod, before he took a swig from it.
“For the North,” Andrei toasted, “For victory.”
“For victory,” he heard Davos’ voice respond behind him swiftly and surely as did Lord Eddard and the rest of the smoky, watching hall.
Andrei handed the wineskin to him. “This better taste,” he promised, “like ice.”
And not fire, he thought, watching Melisandre’s scarlet eyes as they watched Andrei.
“To victory,” Cressen called out, taking a deep drink from the cool Northern wine, “To King Stannis!”
His voice could still be strong, Cressen wondered, as the hall reverberated with the roar of a hundred men. “King Stannis!”
Melisandre smiled at him. “He does have power here, my lord,” the woman whispered amidst the roar. “And fire cleanses.” At her throat, the ruby shimmered redly. Candle flame danced in her red eyes and she watched him.“To the King,” she whispered. “To light and fire.”
Gods, Cressen thought, she is…
Melisandre of Asshai gave Andrei a sly smile. “Change,” she said softly, “You have brought much change, you and yours. Death where there should be life. Life where there should be death. Still, I would urge caution, Kossar. You are far from home, and your bear god, and the night is dark and full of terrors.”
“Not so far,” Andrei shook his head slowly, guiding Cressen back to the bench. “Not so dark.”
A bear god?
From his high seat, King Stannis did not smile. No, he was not want to do but his frown lightened ever so slightly in the way that Cressen had grown to know and notice. He gave a curt nod, and resumed speaking with Lord Stark.
Even with the wine, his throat was dry when he sat again, between Davos and Andrei. They were silent even while the feast continued around them.
“You old fool,” Davos said softly, “Wisdom and folly all at once. What were you thinking?”
“I…” Cressen glared at the long table, as sullen as a boy. “I had to.”
“No matter now,” Davos grumbled. “You might as well have given her a cup of molten metal and she would have walked away smiling too.”
“She is unnatural,” whispered Cressen. “Sorcery, magic…”
The thought frightened him, more than he could know.
Deep within the vaults of the Citadel were glass candles, one in green and three in black. The night before an acolyte of the Citadel swore his vows, he would have to stand in vigil in a vault with nothing but the three black candles and no other light permitted. He must spend the night in darkness unless he can light the candle. He could still remember the dark, and the jagged frozen black fire of the candle. It felt like a lifetime ago, and it surely was.
He did not manage to do so, nor were there ever any who did so.
The ritual was meant to show that even with all the knowledge one acquired, there were always things that were impossible and beyond reach. He did not want to think what would happen if the Red Woman were the one to light the candles. The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with these glass candles, he remembered the Archmaester of Magic telling him once.
Most of the Citadel derided Marwyn the Mage as a mad man, who kept the company of whores and hedge wizards, consorting with mummers and priests. Cressen never gave his words too much thought in the past but…
“Is real,” Andrei said, staring at the Red Woman, who only smiled at him.
“I thank you, Andrei,” Cressen said, “I would have…”
“Died for nothing,” Andrei said bluntly. He shook his head. “War coming. You still needed, grandfather. The girl and her king father.”
He is right, Cressen thought, hope blooming within. I am still needed.
Notes:
Chapter reference: ACOK, Prologue
And so we kick off Arc 2! As this arc progresses, there will be a mixture of the main POV chapters and bonus chapters. The main POVs will cover the ones who have been introduced in the previous arc (the party, Ned, Cat, Robb, Arya, Sansa, Bran, Tyrion) and new POVs will be added in as well. These will follow the naming convention I have been using [Eddard I, Catelyn II, Arya III etc].
Bonus chapters will be from the perspective of other characters, shorter and meant to show what is happening in other parts of the realm/world or to showcase what has changed. These ones will be denoted by the chapter titles which will be called 'The [Something]'. Generally speaking, I will not upgrade them to main POVs (for this arc at least) so they'll only appear once, but if I really enjoy writing them, they may become POVs in the next arc. Any guesses for who the first bonus chapter will be?
That said, I am very excited to get this arc going!
Chapter 48: Gunther I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Four.”
“Four,” Gunther almost laughed. “I know the worth of that ring, Chataya. Eight.”
“Value changes,” Chataya countered. “Five.”
“It does,” he agreed, “but not by this much. Seven.”
“Look around the city, Gareth,” she laughed sweetly. “The poor eat bones. Good, honest, rich folk will not buy from you. Five.”
“Five gold dragons, and a dozen silver stags,” he insisted.
“Five and ten.”
“Deal,” Gunther reached out to shake her ebon hand.
Chataya smiled at him. “Mhaegen!” she called out. “Bring us some wine.”
Gunther raised an eyebrow, leaning against the comfortable couch. It felt like sinking in snow, he thought. A man could drown in the softness. “I didn’t know our conversation would be that long.”
“Will you make me pay for your time?” Chataya reclined from her ebonwood and gilded chair. She wore a feathered gown of purple this time, and her sandalwood eyes peered at him. “Shall I toss you another silver then?”
“Maybe two,” he sniffed, reaching out for the goblet from the young girl, with light red hair and a powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. “Thanks.”
She bowed lowly and retreated to a corner of the room where a slumbering baby with dark hair slept. He watched her tend to her child with curiosity. It felt … familiar. Andrei had fought Jaime Lannister just outside the brothel, and he was here with the Lord Stark to investigate…
Ah, Gunther thought uncomfortably. That’s the king’s bastard.
“Entranced by a young mother?”
He gave Chataya a repulsed look. “I will raise the price to three silvers now. Four maybe, now that I think about it.”
Chataya’s smile did not falter. “You are a man of talent, despite your youth. A man of shadowy talent.”
Underworld talk, he knew at once. “You need a shadow somewhere?”
“On behalf of a client, yes,” Chataya sipped from her goblet. “A vintage red, worth aplenty. Discretion will be valued.”
“How much is aplenty?” Gunther raised his eyebrow.
“Twenty dragons.”
“Make it twenty-five.”
“Two-and-twenty and no higher,” she shook her head. “There is a small manse, not too far from the Iron Gate, with flowers carved into the iron gates.” Her lips curled in amusement. “A merchant’s manse. In his chamber, and on the table, you will find a bottle of aged Dornish red. Bring it to me and you will have your gold.”
“Done,” he rose. “Any urgency?”
“Preferably within the week,” Chataya shrugged.
“You will have it,” he promised, draining the wine in his goblet.
When he stepped out of the brothel, Mhaegen was by the door, her babe suckling from her freckled breasts. He blinked at the sight before looking away.
“Chataya likes you,” she giggled.
“What?” he blinked again.
“Not like that, no,” she shook her head violently. She placed a hand against her child’s cheek, rubbing it softly. “I think she enjoys your company as… as someone reliable. She has hired people to, um, work for her and they are usually…”
“Incompetent?”
She nodded. “You are young and a talent. Chataya likes it.”
“She pays well,” he shrugged.
“She does,” Mhaegen agreed. “She is kind. I still have a few months before I need to go back to work. She lets me stay here and rest for now.”
A brothel madame with compassion, Gunther pondered. As common as a pirate who gives to charity, or a general with insanity.
“Do you want to hold her?”
“What?”
“Here,” Mhaegen held the sleepy baby to him. His hands reached out almost instinctively while his mouth protested. “Hold your own child…”
“Barra, her name is,” Mhaegen giggled as Barra reached out for his lips.
Barra, Gunther thought, Baratheon.
He shook his head lightly. His mother’s voice came to him, a world and a lifetime ago. Here, hold your sister. Hold her like this, place your hand here.
The baby burped and giggled, and drooled on him. He handed her back to Mhaegen.
“She’s alright,” he nodded stiffly.
“Never heard anyone describe a child as ‘alright’,” Mhaegen laughed. “See you around, Gareth.”
He fished out a gold crown and handed it to her. She accepted it with wide eyes. Just a tithe, he told himself. He nodded again, and left the mother and child behind. It was still early in the morning, with dawnlight blooming over the busy city. Next was the fishermerchant in Riverrow. The one who wants a lion’s carving for some bloody reason, Gunther scratched at his cheek. At least he’s paying a good sum for it.
The walk from Chataya’s brothel to Riverrow took him the better part of the morning, and midday found him invading the river reek of Fishmonger’s Square. His fingers had not been idle during his walk, and his coinpouch was all the heavier for it.
“Greetings,” he called out to the merchant by his stall. “Heard a man’s got a craving for wooden lions?”
“Oh, aye,” the brown-haired man nodded seriously. “So long as no one else knows about what wooden lions sound like when they roar.”
“No one,” he assured, subtly leaving the carving on the wooden surface.
The merchant covered it with a wicker basket, flipped around, and swiped it off the surface. In its place were three gold crowns. Gunther nodded, swiping them away.
As agreed upon, no questions asked. A good job.
He could hit the merchant’s manse now, and whisk away the red that Chataya’s client wanted. Some food first, he decided. Drop off the money with those two. Then, the manse. After that, I need to lay low for a bit.
As he turned to walk away from Fishmonger’s Square, he became acutely aware of a man keeping pace with him. A portly man in the dirty garbs of a fisherman, with a mess of black hair and the stench of the sea.
“Hail, friend,” the fisherman rasped out. “Mind giving some directions?”
“Mud Gate’s that way,” he pointed south.
“I know all too well where the Mud Gate is,” the man snapped in the rough accent of Flea Bottom. “I’s looking for… talent, if you know my meaning.”
“I can cook a stew decently,” Gunther offered, glancing around subtly. “But I do best with exotic ingredients.”
“Har!” the man barked. “I know that all too well. Some of the crew even fish in waters that don’t belong to us.”
“Going against the king’s laws,” Gunther shook his head. “Thieves truly are the lowest of scum, eh?”
“The lowest,” the man agreed, spitting on the ground. He extended a dirty hand to Gunther. “Adrack.”
“Gaven,” he offered, shaking the man’s hand. Strange, he thought. The palms were not as coarse as they looked.
“Meet me at the Honest Man’s Manse,” Adrack muttered, “Midday tomorrow. It’s by the Muddy Way, there’s a-”
“I’ve seen it,” he waved his hand. “Certainly a place for honest men to gather.”
“Honest men,” agreed Adrack, “and the lowest of scum."
He is not who he says he is, Gunther thought as Adrack walked away. He shook his head as he made for Flea Bottom. Then again… Neither was I
He bought three tarts from a pushcart baker on his way back to the hideout. One of raspberries for himself, one of blueberries for Len, and one of chopped nuts and cheese for Arya. He munched on his warm pie as he knocked thrice then once then thrice again on the sevenfold locked door.
By now, the windows had been fully boarded and loosely covered with dirty cloth. A smear of mud and filth on the outer walls gave the place a mask of barren poverty. The door, meanwhile, was reinforced with seven metal locks and thick wooden planks behind.
Seven metal locks that he could hear being slowly opened.
They grinned at him from the doorway, reaching out for the tarts.
Ungrateful brats, he complained.
“Oh, this is good,” Len chewed.
“Almost as good as some of the pies I had before,” agreed Arya with her mouth full.
Gunther locked the door behind them, noticing how Len glanced at her, blinking. “Aren’t you a noble? Where’s your manners?” he muttered.
Arya scowled. “Aren’t you a thief? Why do you need manners?”
She got you there, he could almost hear Lucia say.
“Whatever,” he grumbled, sitting down on a sturdy stool.
Both of them were clad in a white tunic and grey breeches, one of various sets that they had bought from a tailor in the Street of Silk. Arya was sweating, and he could see the flush on her face. He glanced at the wall, and found two throwing knives embedded in the wall. One was closer to the chip in the wall, but the other was not too far away. Huh, Gunther thought, not bad.
“We’ve been practising,” Len puffed his chest, licking the crumbs of the pie from his fingers. “We’re getting better, aren’t we?”
“You are,” Gunther allowed. “Now, you’ll hit the shoulder rather than a bystander.”
Arya laughed. “I’ll hit the chest,” she boasted.
“Maybe,” he shrugged. She frowned.
“So how did it go?” Len asked, curiosity written all over his face.
“Chataya gave me five gold and a handful of silvers for the ring,” he said, flicking a gold crown to each of them. “The wooden lion was worth three, and we got three. I got three, rather.”
“That’s not fair,” Arya protested. “We helped with that ring!”
“We did!” Len nodded.
“Unfair wages for unfair work,” Gunther said. “I did the actual stealing. I negotiated the prices.”
Both of them sulked until he threw them each two silvers. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to barter with some of the scum out there,” he complained.
“You will do that,” Arya pointed out.
“Aye,” he nodded. “I’ll take my cut too.”
He reached for a flagon of ale, taking a long swig of it. “Got two other jobs. Chataya’s got something. Steal a vintage red from a merchant’s manse near the Iron Gate. Then the other thing… A man came to me just now. Looked like a sailor, smelled like a sailor and talked like one but…” He shook his head. “Sounds like he’s got a job as well. Told me to meet him tomorrow, at midday.”
“When are we hitting the manse?” Len asked.
“We?” Gunther parroted.
“Don’t try to take all the money,” Arya pointed her finger at him. He pushed it aside.
“I think the manse is a little too much at the moment,” Gunther shook his head. “Andrei and your lord father will have my hide if I let you follow me there.”
Arya’s face fell. Ah, I should not have said that.
“Did you dream of the cat again?” he asked hurriedly. “Or the wolf?”
“Oh, I did,” Arya blinked. “I was the wolf again, and I saw some large castle. There were other wolves there as well, smaller ones. Then…” She trailed off.
“Then?” He asked, at the same time as Len.
“Saw a big direwolf. I think I recognised it. A mother direwolf.”
“Do you have a fever?” Len asked.
“No!” she scowled.
“And of the cat?” Gunther asked.
“Just once,” Arya chewed her lips. “I think it was watching me.”
Don’t I know it?
“You know what?” Gunther said. “You can come, but I want you both watching from across the street. Night would be best.”
“Can we practice water dancing?” Arya asked.
Gunther shrugged. Len clapped and laughed as they moved to stand facing each other. Arya held her Needle close to her, and Gunther drew both of his regular daggers. “Go!” Len hollered.
Arya leapt forward, her thin rapier snaking forward.
He parried it with one dagger, held in reverse, and darted to her side. She tried to turn but he was faster, holding the other dagger to her throat.
“Well, Arry,” Len said, disappointed, “You lasted a second longer, I think.”
“Shut up!” Arya scowled. “I’ll fight with you too.”
Len reached for a long, hard loaf of bread on the table and pointed it at her like a sword. “Oh, aye, we can.”
Gunther fought to suppress the smirk on his face. Arya laughed.
“Rest,” Gunther said. “We’ll eat at sunset. Then, we take a look at the manse.”
They had placed a ladder against the two halves of the collapsed stairway, and nailed it tightly into place, making it far easier to reach the second floor. He washed his face in a bucket of water before crawling into his bedroll and letting his tired eyes close. As he drifted off to sleep, he could hear the two of them arguing about the merits of different kinds of cheeses and the type of bread they go well with.
Children, he thought.
When he woke, his neck ached from the stiff position he had slept in.
“Here,” Len thrusted a piece of bread, with melted cheese and a slice of ham slotted inside, towards him.
“What?” He said groggily, accepting the bread. “Is it poisoned?”
“Aye,” Arya said to his right, sitting on her bedroll. “With cheese.”
“The most pleasant poison of them all,” Gunther took a bite. It was surprisingly good, he thought. The bread was soft, freshly warmed from a pan. The cheese melted into the bread and the ham was thickly cut. He took another bite, and a third.
Len shifted from where he stood. “You’re Arya Stark, aren’t you,” he blurted out.
Arya froze, as did Gunther, in the midst of taking a fourth bite.
“No, I’m not,” Arya lied terribly.
“You are a terrible liar,” Len said.
“How did you know?” she demanded.
“You’re a noble, obviously, I have ears,” he rolled his eyes. “I saw Lord Stark from afar once. You have his face. And the whole city is looking for his daughter.”
“Are you going to tell the Queen?” Arya demanded, panicking.
“What?” Len said, offended. “The Queen’s not my friend. You are.”
“Oh,” Arya said, blinking.
“He’s right,” Gunther chimed in. “He’s a shit, but if he had told the Queen, we would all be up there now.” He pointed out the window and towards the Red Keep.
Arya looked away. “I am Arya Stark,” she admitted. “What’s it to you?”
“So where’s your lady’s manners?” Len asked.
Gunther snorted in laughter as Arya leapt from her bedroll to chase Len. “Alright, calm down,” he intervened. “We should head out soon. Keep your knives hidden. And Arya,” he rolled his eyes. “Don’t take Needle.”
“Fine,” she frowned.
Under a moonlit night, they stepped out into the den of filth that was Flea Bottom.
Moonlight guided their walk, as did flickering torches and candle light scattered across the slums of King’s Landing. The Iron Gate was not far from the hovels of Flea Bottom.
A thin line on the ground, Gunther thought. This way is Flea Bottom, and that way are some manses. This way is the Shantytown, and that way is the Imperial Palace.
“That one,” he whispered, nudging them to cross the street.
The manse was not overtly large, a pitiful sight compared to even the merchant’s manses in Altdorf and Nuln. Low stone walls formed a square around a mansion with two floors, and no guards stood by the iron gates.
“That’s shite,” Len said. Arya nodded.
“It’s a merchant, not the king,” Gunther pointed out. “Wait here. I’ll be done in a bit.”
If the Thieves’ Guild in Altdorf could see this, he could already hear their laughter. Now those are some proper criminals, Gunther mused. He thought of the ever smirking Locke, of the Brotherhood of Ranald, who seemed to have forgotten more about a rogue’s life than Gunther had ever known. He thought of Volt, the dangerous right hand to the Emperor of the Underworld. And he thought of Vesper Klasst, Herr Klasst, the Underworld’s Emperor. The other gangs were all fearsome and formidable as well. The Dwarfen Underground Brigade, the Vachini Family, the Lowhaven Clan. Even the Fish gangs, once they had decided to work together.
The criminals of King’s Landing were not of the same make, Gunther knew. Then again, is anything here of the same make? Forget Nuln or Altdorf, even Ubersreik or Bogenhafen is a better sight than this shithole. His many complaints about the capital of the Seven Kingdoms flooded his head as he vaulted over the low stone walls of the manse. There was a servant’s backdoor, one that they had not even bothered to lock.
The hallway of the first floor was dark and quiet. It was a silent sort of shadow that set him on edge. Instantly, he drew his crossbow with his left hand and the dragonsteel dagger with his right, and held it in reverse. He kept his footsteps silent, and crouched lowly as he made his way up the stairs. Are they all asleep?
One botched heist was enough for a lifetime, Gunther thought. He pressed his ear against the door to, he assumed, the main chamber. Silence. He glanced at the flickering torchlight dancing from the bottom of the door.
“Come in,” a voice tittered from within. Gunther felt his heart freeze, as did his whole body. He stared at the door in silence.
“I sent for you, yes,” the voice continued, drying into a rough rasp. “No one else is here. As good a place as any for honest men to talk.” Adrack of Riverrow said.
“The Honest Man’s Manse,” Gunther whispered. His feet were frozen onto the soft purple carpet. “Chataya…”
He glared at the door, and nudged it with his foot. He stepped into the room, dagger in one hand and loaded crossbow in the other.
“My,” a bald, portly man simpered from a padded chair, a hearthfire burning warmly by his side. “No need for that, I assure you. This is a conversation that can lead to gold, not steel.” His voice was sweet and cloying, and the plump man wore a lavender robe. He gestured for the seat across him. There was a small, round table between them, with a decanter of wine and two goblets.
“Adrack of Riverrow,” Gunther said drily. “Is he hiding in that fire?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” the man tittered. “His clothes are burning, you see.”
“Who are you then?”
The portly man smiled sweetly and fakely. “Some call me the Spider. Others offer me the courtesy of a lord’s title. Most call me Varys.”
Gunther slowly sheathed the dagger but kept the crossbow pointed at the Spider, as he called himself. “Chataya, Adrack, you went through a lot of trouble.”
“Not too much,” Varys shook his head. “Not too much, I assure you.”
“Did I steal something of yours?” Gunther asked.
“Not at all,” Varys assured, smiling. “If anything, your talent for borrowing items is something that has caught my eye. You are a man of talent, and I do enjoy working with talented people.”
“Is the city lacking in thieves?”
“Lacking,” Varys tittered. “Not at all. From Flea Bottom to the Red Keep, thieves there are aplenty. Good thieves… Ah, now there is a dearth.”
“What makes a good thief, then? In your eyes.” Gunther questioned.
“Talent, discretion,” Varys gestured at the fire. “See now, Adrack of Riverrow is dead. Never to be seen again. Now there is a good thief.”
“You want something stolen then?”
“Could you steal a sword from the Iron Throne?” Varys asked.
“I’m not a smith,” Gunther replied, befuddled.
“A riddle,” Varys said, “If you had to, how would you do it?”
“Not alone,” Gunther shrugged. “I’ll need someone good with a hammer.”
Varys tittered once more. “That was how the throne was won. Pardon my curiosity. You see, a man of some wealth and influence was … slain recently. Most inconvenient for him, I am sure, but most convenient for me.”
Varys stopped speaking, pouring himself a goblet of gold wine.
A test, thought Gunther. “You want his wealth and properties,” he deduced. “And you need someone to steal… keys? Documents?”
“Sharp,” Varys praised. “There are few in this city that I can rely upon for a task such as this,” he sighed sadly.
“I could do that,” Gunther offered. “Not out of the kindness of my heart, for sure.”
“For sure,” the man agreed. “I doubt there are many within this city with even a shred of kindness. Or a heart. You may take however much gold you can feasibly take. I merely desire the paperwork.”
“Deal,” Gunther agreed. “Where are we talking?”
“Oh, many places,” Varys sighed, “Our dear, late, friend had his little fingers in many pots, I fear. This is not a task that can be resolved from moonlight to dawn. Nor a sennight or a moon’s turn.”
All the more gold for me, Gunther thought.
“Are you in a hurry, Lord Varys?” Gunther asked, with a smile.
“Oh, not at all,” Varys tittered. “Spiders spin their webs and wait for however long it may take.”
Egon, Gunther thought of the sly, smiling information broker from Bogenhafen. This one is thrice as dangerous.
“I spy a profitable relationship in the moons to come then?”
Gunther nodded, accepting Varys’ hand. It was powdered and cold.
“No vintage red for Chataya, then?” he asked.
“Oh, yes actually,” Varys rose, walking for a shelf and retrieving an exquisite glass bottle with a swirling red within. Gunther accepted it.
“Consider that a starting gift,” Varys smiled at him. “It was Lord Varys that asked of Chataya questions, of course. Questions about talents in King’s Landing. It was someone else that tasked her with this job.”
“Ah,” Gunther said, his lips dry. “Whatever happened to that someone?”
Varys pointed at the hearthfire with a silent smile. “I shall not be here tomorrow night but there will be a piece of parchment on this table with a location. When you have obtained the necessary paperwork from the location, leave it here. And trust me, friend, while I cannot slay the temptation of taking the gold and only that… I assure you that there will be much more to come from a continuous, uninterrupted relationship between the two of us.”
“I do not feel that you are a man to make a foe of,” Gunther said.
Varys tittered. “Whatever makes you say so?”
Gunther rose slowly. His finger had never left the trigger of his crossbow, he realised. And yet, Gunther thought, he talked like it was nothing. He gave Varys a bow.
No, Gunther thought, this is no man to make a foe of.
He found the children waiting across the street, bored and impatient. As he caught the sight of Arya’s face, his blood froze again. Varys, Andrei had mentioned the name once. The spymaster. Gunther’s eyes widened, even as he nudged the two of them to walk away. Does he know?
He glanced at Arya, as she argued with Len quietly over the superior flavour of pies. Her hair was cut abyssmally short and mud was smeared on her face, and on her boyish clothes. He wondered if even her family could recognise her.
A spider, Varys had called himself. And in the spider’s web, Gunther felt himself entrapped. Chataya mentioned me because I was useful to her. She never saw Arya. He can only know about Arya if… if he knows that I know Andrei. Does he?
A northman riding through the streets of King’s Landing was hardly subtle, let alone the winner of the melee, the swornsword of Eddard Stark who bloodied one of the Kingsguard. Yet, Varys gave no sign of knowing. Even if he does know, he’s a spymaster. The thoughts haunted Gunther as they marched back to Flea Bottom.
Lorenzo should be the one dealing with this, Gunther complained, not me. And this is Andrei’s mess. Wherever did he run off to? Back to Kislev?
He drowned his face in the bucket of water when they returned, relishing in the cold, clean water. When he tore his head from the bucket, water dripped from his face and hair back onto the container. He spied his reflection against the rippling surface.
I need some sleep, he thought.
“What’s the matter?” Arya asked, looking at him. “You’ve been brooding the whole way back from the manse.”
Len was already fast asleep in his bedroll, so he nodded at the window. He dried his face with a cloth before standing against the window and peering at the night sky. Arya, meanwhile, looked at him impatiently.
“It was not a regular job,” he admitted. “It was Lord Varys, the King’s spymaster.”
Arya looked ready to scream. He held his hand out, and she was silent.
“What?” She hissed. “Does he…”
“I don’t know,” he ground out. “He did not seem to, in our conversation.”
“Father…” She trailed off. “Father never said much about him, but he didn’t seem to trust him, or like him.”
“I can see why,” he said drily. “I don’t think he knows.”
“Are you sure?”
“Mostly,” he admitted. “If he knew, I doubt we would be here. And we were not followed, I made sure to check.”
“Alright,” she whispered, “alright.”
“I’ll leave some traps around,” he assured her. “If anyone comes through the door, we’ll be awake in an instant. Like we practised.”
“Leap out of that window,” Arya nodded, “Roll as I fall. Dash down the alleyway and meet at the South Boar.”
“Aye,” Gunther smiled. “Now, go to bed, Arry. Shoo.”
Arya rolled her eyes before turning away. Gunther kept his gaze on the white moon above, even as Arya’s soft snores could be heard. Ranald, he offered a quick prayer, watch over us.
Sleep found him easily. The tide of questions ebbed away as the tendrils of exhaustion claimed him, his eyelids slowly closing. When he woke, it was to the warmth of sunlight spilling onto his face. He grumbled, covering his eyes with a gloved hand. Arya was still snoring softly, and Len was buried under his bedroll.
He rose reluctantly, cupping a handful of water and splashing his face.
Give Chataya her damned red, Gunther thought as he chewed on a piece of bread, and meet the Spider at night. I can do that.
“G’morning,” Len yawned as he descended the ladder. “Need me to come with you?”
“Nah,” he shook his head. “Make yourself something to eat, for her too. I’ll be out for a while. Just have to give Chataya this,” he shook the glass bottle.
Len nodded slowly, slicing a cut of cheese and ham. “Ranuld be with you.”
“Ranald,” he corrected as he left. He wondered if teaching those two the tenets of Ranald was sacrilegious. He was not even a part of the Brotherhood of Ranald, though the offer was tempting. He wondered what Lorenzo would say, whether the damned bard was already singing songs of Shallya to whichever maiden and lord he must be with at the moment. And Lucia… would probably scream Myrmidia’s name as she carved through whatever unlucky sod stood in her way.
Whatever, Gunther shrugged, passing by the shadow of the Dragonpit. If Ranald is unhappy, he’ll give me a sign, right? Like a cat scratching me or something.
He had never been one for the gods in his childhood. Even as a thief in Nuln, Ranald was a distant dream and an occasional prayer. It was the road that truly made the gods real for him, that and Lorenzo.
The streets were oddly quiet, he thought with a sinking feeling. This close to the Street of Sisters, life and laughter could usually be heard. The giggling of women, the talking of men, conversations and japes and cursing. Yet, it was awfully silent tonight, like Morr’s Gardens.
The thought sent a shiver down his spine. He cursed this city again, remembering that terrible day when the bells howled their misery, and that rainsoaked day where he had found Andrei clashing steel with the Kingslayer. What is wrong with this city? He lamented, keeping a hand on his daggers.
As he neared Chataya’s brothel, he could spy a man leaving it. Gunther almost froze again. The man was covered in blood, and was sheathing his longsword. He was armored in the black breastplate and gold cloak of the City Watch, with four golden disks adorning his plate. The man hardly glanced at him as he passed by him.
“Whores will be busy today,” he grunted out with a laugh. “Better find somewhere else,” the man said, wiping at the blood on his face.
Gunther did not bother to reply, doubling his steps towards Chataya’s brothel. He could hear low mournful wailing and a terrible, horrid cry of pain. He stepped in, and he felt his vision blur. Almost by instinct, he clutched at his daggers.
On the soft velvet carpet, a baby drowned in a puddle of her own blood, spilling from its open neck. A pale hand was frozen in caress against the child’s lifeless cheek. Mhaegen’s eyes were glossed over and glassy, and a bright red wound bloomed against her dress like a dreadful rose. She laid on her side, one hand outstretched against Barra. In death, as in life, her touch and eyes were on her child.
The ladies had not noticed him. Alayaya wailed mournfully on her knees, her hands clutching Mhaegen’s other hand. Chataya stood behind her daughter, and her head was lowered, and tears trickled onto the velvet.
Red, Gunther thought numbly, red. Red. Red.
He left the bottle by the entrance silently and turned around. Her eyes had been staring at him, dead and haunting and helpless. He stumbled away from the brothel, yet unnoticed by the ladies of the night, each mourning and weeping soft tears of sorrow and agony for one of their own.
Why, why, why, why?
His feet were moving on their own, down the street where the gold cloak had walked away. The child, the king’s bastard… That’s why.
He felt the urge to vomit, to spew his bread and cheese over the sidewalk. If Lucia were here, he thought numbly, she would kill the gold cloak and the man who sent him, and keep killing until no one else could be found to bear the heavy brunt of her steel vengeance. He was not Lucia. No, I am not, he thought, so why am I following the bastard?
Something soft and furry brushed against his legs but he paid it no mind, deep in his frantic thoughts. He could see the fluttering gold of the dyed woolen cloak ahead now, the man was still sauntering proudly down the Street of Sisters.
She was just a whore, Gunther thought, a nobody to him. A nobody. Her glassy eyes kept staring at him. A nobody; yet another body in the crowd, that no one cared for. He is the law, Gunther thought, as he neared the man, she is just a whore.
A nobody, he could hear Locke’s voice say in that arrogant, strutting tone, just another weak, powerless nobody, shackled and beaten and killed.
Kill him, Lucia demanded. Shove that sword through his black heart.
Andrei would bury his axe in the man’s skull, he knew. What would Lorenzo do? Would he even care? Maybe not, there was something dark inside that bard.
He was close enough that he could hear the man humming to himself now.
What do I do? What am I doing? It was not Mhaegen’s eyes that stared at him now. Viola looked at him accusingly. Perhaps his only friend in Nuln, alive that is, and …
Just a whore right? He could hear her youthful, bitter voice.
“No,” Gunther whispered, reaching out for the man’s pouch.
With a swift tug, he seized it. The gold cloak shouted in outrage, reaching out with a mailed hand to grab him. He was too slow. He dodged out of the way of the hand, and dashed down the nearest alleyway. He could hear the heavy thud of the man’s boots, the clanking of his mail and plate, the huffing of his voice.
“Do you know who I am?” The man roared. “Allar Deem! You’re dead, you bloody street urchin. You’re dead! As dead as that whore.”
Gunther turned, dropping the pouch and drawing his crossbow.
The steel bolt took Allar Deem through the eye. He fell to the floor in a twitching, convulsing mess of gold, black and blood. A slight rasp and choke came from his throat as his hands reached hesitantly for the bolt in his eye. “I- I…” the man moaned in deep agony. Gunther slashed him across the throat with the dragonsteel dagger.
He stood there for a long, silent moment, watching Allar Deem clutch at his open throat with trembling hands. He gurgled a bloody, choking sound, his eyes widening, before crumpling to the floor, dead and glassy-eyed. His eyes were not so haunting.
Good, he could hear Lucia’s voice.
Interesting, he could hear Lorenzo’s.
Locke’s was silent, as was Viola’s. His mind was silent as well.
His stomach lurched, like a ship in a storm, and he spewed his breakfast over Allar Deem’s corpse. He hacked and coughed, taking his waterskin and taking a deep mouthful before spitting the disgusting mixture out onto Allar Deem’s corpse.
Allar Deem, he remembered the name now. Feared and loathed on the streets, he terrorised the poor folk often. He remembered the innkeeper’s words well, and the weeping woman whose husband was slain by Deem just so he could…
No, not a soul would miss him, Gunther thought, glancing at the corpse, drowned in blood and vomit as it were.
“Meow.”
He wheeled around. A ginger cat meowed at him once more, licking its paw.
“Are you a sign,” Gunther said drily, “or are you just a cat? Truth be told, I do not want to know.”
The ginger cat only meowed.
“I suppose that is the only answer that I will get.”
“Meow.”
The cat made its way towards him, making a disgusted look at the stench reeking from the corpse. The ginger cat pawed and scratched at his leather shoes. Gunther scrunched his face in confusion. The cat leapt past the puddle of vomit and blood, and clawed at the metal bolt stuck in Deem’s eye. It clawed curiously at the bolt, hissed at the blood but meowed reluctantly.
Gunther reached for the bolt, seizing it with all his strength. It took both hands to wrench it out from the man’s eye and it came forth with half an eye. He shuddered in disgust, quickly wiping Allar Deem’s eye on his gold cloak.
“You wanna come with me?” he asked the cat and it meowed. “Alright.”
He stepped out of the alleyway with a gingercat on his shoulder. Across the street, he spied four gold cloaks marching with spear and sword for the Street of Steel.
Notes:
Wanted to get this one out!
In terms of willingness and experience with killing for the party, it goes: Andrei > Lucia > Lorenzo/Gunther obviously. Andrei is a killing machine and a hardened soldier. Lucia is freakish strong, martially trained, and a Myrmidian. Lorenzo prefers not to get his clothes and hands dirty. Gunther is only 20 and a thief for the most part. A man grown by Westerosi standard, but often insulted as 'boy' back in the Old World.
Fun fact! All the party members have nicknames given to them by us on the table. Gunty, Lori, and Lulu. Except for Andrei of course, which is incredibly hilarious and fitting.
Chapter 49: Sansa I
Summary:
"The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven" - The Merchant of VeniceSansa wonders what it means to be merciful.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The morning of King Joffrey’s name day dawned bright and windy, with the long tails of the great comet visible through the high scuttling clouds. Sansa was watching it from her tower window when Ser Mandon Moore arrived to escort her and Jeyne down to the tourney grounds. “What do you think it means, Ser?” she asked him.
“Glory to King Joffrey,” Ser Mandon answered coldly. “King Joffrey’s Comet.”
No doubt that was what they told Joffrey. Sansa was not so sure. It blazed across the heavens for king and commoner alike. Red for the blood Robb has spilled in his victories, she thought. And … and gold for victory. “The servants call it the Dragon’s Tails.”
“King Joffrey sits where Aegon the Dragon once sat,” Mandon Moore said. “Crimson and gold are the colors of House Lannister. This comet is sent to herald Joffrey’s ascent to the throne, he will triumph over his enemies.” His gaze was flat and dead.
Would the gods be so cruel? Sansa wondered. Her mother was one of Joffrey’s enemies now, her brother Robb another. Her father as well, wherever he had disappeared to... The comet was red and gold, but Joffrey was Baratheon as much as Lannister, and their sigil was a black stag on a golden field. If it truly were his, would it not be black and gold? She wondered what a black star in the sky would look like. No, she prayed, the comet is not for him.
She had seen the red blaze melt into gold, seen how the tail forked in two as the golden light shimmered and streaked across the sky. She had stood at this very windowsill that night, watching it burn above the city. In that moment, she had felt, known, it must mean something.
Sansa closed the shutters and turned from the window, her silken skirts swishing like wind in the grass. “Come then, Jeyne. The King’s Tourney awaits us. We should not miss such glories.”
She wore a gown of pale white silk, soft and shimmering, as milky as her skin. A net of moonstones lay atop her hair, glinting faintly in the morning light, a gift from Joffrey. Along the bare flesh of her arms and legs, faint bruises lingered, shadows of deeper wounds now fading. Those had been Joffrey’s gifts as well.
When word reached the Red Keep that the Riverlands and the North had declared for Stannis Baratheon, Joffrey had flown into a dark rage and sent for Ser Meryn to take it out on her. The bruises bloomed black and purple across her limbs, vivid as spilled ink.
Normally, they would have lasted a fortnight. This time, they had already begun to fade after two days. That frightened her more than the bruises ever had.
Beside her, Jeyne wore a gown of somber grey, her face solemn and still. The grey of Winterfell, Sansa thought. The grey of mourning.
“Who do you think will win the day’s honors?” Sansa asked Jeyne as they descended the steps arm in arm. Ser Mandon followed them like a ghost.
“The bravest squire,” Jeyne whispered.
Sansa almost smiled, but hid her amusement behind a lady’s courtesy. Squires, free riders, and hedge knights, Anna had whispered to her while delivering their meals. A poor man’s tourney.
The last tourney had been different, Sansa reflected. King Robert had held it in her father’s honor. High lords and fabled champions had come from every corner of the realm to compete, and the whole city had turned out to watch. She remembered the splendor of it all: the field of pavilions stretched along the riverbank, each with a knight’s shield hung proudly before the flap; long rows of silken pennants fluttering like flames in the wind; sunlight gleaming off polished steel and gilded spurs. The days had rung with trumpets and the thunder of hooves, and the nights had been alive with feasts, laughter, and song. Those had been the most magical days of her life, but they seemed a memory from another age now.
Songs for a child, Sansa thought, songs of summer and spring, of gallant knights and fair maidens. Those songs will give me no joy now.
Robert Baratheon was dead, and her father was gone, disappeared somewhere. Three kings now claimed the realm, and war raged beyond the Trident. The streets swelled with refugees and hungry men with hard eyes and harder hearts. No wonder, then, that Joffrey’s tourney was held behind the thick stone walls of the Red Keep, safe from the city he ruled, yet feared.
“Will the queen attend, do you think?” Sansa asked.
“Perhaps,” Jeyne said softly. “Perhaps not, what say you, Ser Mandon?”
Mandon Moore only stared at them, as silent as ever.
“Perhaps not, then,” Jeyne glanced at her.
A column of Lannister guardsmen marched past, in crimson cloaks and lion-crested helms. Jeyne wilted at their presence and Sansa reached out with a gentle hand.
The carpenters had raised a modest gallery and marked out the lists in the outer bailey. It was a poor thing, hastily done, and the thin crowd that had gathered filled barely half the seats. Most of the spectators wore the gold cloaks of the City Watch or the crimson livery of House Lannister; of highborn lords and ladies, there were but a paltry few, the scattered remnants of a court that had once been splendid.
Grey-faced Lord Gyles Rosby sat wheezing into a square of pink silk, his coughs echoing thinly through the chill air. Lady Tanda Stokeworth was flanked by her daughters; dull-eyed, placid Lollys and her sharp-tongued sister Falyse, whose sour expression could have curdled cream. Jalabhar Xho, ebon-skinned and richly dressed, sat stiffly among them, an exile from a far-off isle with no haven but the Red Keep. Lady Ermesande, the infant heir of House Hayford, was perched on her wet nurse’s lap, oblivious to it all. The talk in the court was that she would soon be wed to one of the queen’s cousins, that the Lannisters might secure her lands before she learned to speak.
A tourney indeed, Sansa thought, a most humble one.
The king sat shaded beneath a crimson canopy, one leg slung carelessly over the carved wooden arm of his chair. Behind him perched Princess Myrcella and Prince Tommen, watching the field with bright, expectant eyes. At the back of the royal box stood Ser Boros Blount, hands resting on his swordbelt, his white Kingsguard cloak draped over his broad shoulders and fastened with a jeweled brooch that caught the morning light. “Lady Sansa and her companion,” he announced curtly at their arrival.
The servants had whispered that Jory Cassel disarmed him and thrusted the knight’s own blade through his shoulder.
Princess Myrcella offered a shy nod at the sound of Sansa’s name, but plump little Prince Tommen jumped to his feet, beaming. “Sansa, did you hear? I’m to ride in the tourney today! Mother said I could.” Tommen was all of eight. He reminded her of her own little brother, Bran. They were of an age. Bran was back at Winterfell, a cripple, yet safe, and the lord of the castle for now…
Sansa would have given anything to be with him. “I fear for the life of your foeman,” she told Tommen solemnly.
“His foeman will be stuffed with straw,” said Joffrey as he rose from his seat. He wore a gilded breastplate chased with a roaring lion, as though he expected to march to war at any moment. He was thirteen today, tall for his age, with his mother’s golden hair and the sharp green eyes of House Lannister.
“Your Grace,” she said, dipping in a curtsy as did Jeyne.
He studied Sansa from head to heels. “I’m pleased you wore my stones.”
I did, and I shall wear a mask of courtesy as well, she thought.
“I thank you for them... and for your tender words. I pray you a lucky name day, Your Grace.”
“Sit,” the king commanded, gesturing to the empty seat beside his own. “Have you heard? The Beggar King is dead.”
She gave a brief glance to Jeyne, who bowed and left for a seat by Jalabho Xho. “Who?” For a moment Sansa was afraid he meant Robb. Then, she told herself that Robb would not lose, nor was he a king. Stannis?
“Viserys. The last son of Mad King Aerys. He’s been going about the Free Cities since before I was born, calling himself a king. Well, Mother says the Dothraki finally crowned him. With molten gold.” He laughed. “That’s funny, don’t you think? The dragon was their sigil. It’s almost as good as if some wolf killed your traitor brother. Maybe I’ll feed him to wolves after I’ve caught him. Did I tell you, I intend to challenge him to single combat?”
“I should like to see that, Your Grace.” More than you know.
Word had come far and fiercely of Robb’s fighting in the Riverlands.
Like a wolf, the servants had said, as fierce and savage as one. The Kingslayer was defeated and captured, Lord Tywin was forced to retreat to Harrenhal, and the Northmen took the heads of any Westermen with axe and sword. She thought of that dreadful tale that had come from High Heart, and she almost shuddered.
Joffrey’s eyes narrowed as he tried to decide whether she was mocking him. “Will you enter the lists today?” she asked quickly.
The king frowned. “My lady mother said it was not fitting, since the tourney is in my honor. Otherwise I would have been champion.”
You would, Sansa thought. All the squires and free riders and hedge knights will aim their lances for the wind, when they should be thrusting it for your golden heart.
A blare of trumpets split the air. The king leaned back in his seat and reached for Sansa’s hand. Once, that simple touch might have set her heart to fluttering. But that was before he'd answered her pleas for mercy with the promise of her father’s head. His fingers were warm, but his touch filled her with dread revulsion. She dared not pull away. Instead, she made herself sit very still. Like the statues in the crypts, she told herself. Still and silent and strong.
As Ser Meryn Trant rode against Hobber Redwyne, Sansa kept her eyes on the tilt but did not truly see. Her mind had drifted far from the dusty tourney grounds, far from the crimson banners of House Lannister and the bloodstained stone of the Red Keep. She was in the white garden again, the one from her dreams. A peaceful haven of grass like emerald silk and roses pale as snow. There, gentle streams murmured lullabies, doves left flowers and feathers in her hair, and her heart felt light, unburdened.
It felt like Winterfell, she thought, and that thought ached so sweetly.
Each night, a voice sang to her in her sleep, soft and clear as moonlight, easing the fear from her heart, quieting the tremble in her limbs.
“In your embrace, the pain subsides, and hope in hearts once lost abides,” was all she could remember from her dream last night. She wished she could remember more, but each time she woke, the words melted away like snow.
A sudden crash drew her back to the present. Ser Horas Redwyne had hit the ground hard, and his curses rang out as he limped forward to help his battered brother from the field.
“Poorly ridden,” declared King Joffrey.
“Ser Balon Swann, of Stonehelm,” came the herald’s cry. Wide white wings ornamented Ser Balon’s greathelm, and black and white swans fought on his shield. “Morros of House Slynt, heir to Lord Janos of Harrenhal.”
“Look at that up-jumped oaf,” Joffrey laughed, loud enough for half the yard to hear. Morros Slynt, a mere squire and newly made at that, was struggling to manage his lance and shield. The lance was a knight’s weapon, meant for warriors born and bred, and the Slynts were lowborn. Lord Janos had been no more than commander of the City Watch before Joffrey had raised him to Harrenhal and placed him on the king’s council.
I hope he falls and shames himself, she thought bitterly. I hope Ser Balon kills him. When her father had marched into the throne room, she heard, it had been Janos Slynt who led the treason against him. A pang of pity flashed in her, then. No, he did not hold the spear. He is the son to the father, treason does not flow in the blood.
Morros wore black armor inlaid with golden scrollwork, a checkered black-and-gold cloak fluttering from his shoulders. On his shield was the bloody spear his father had chosen as the sigil of their new-made house. But he did not seem to know how to hold it. The moment he charged, Ser Balon’s lance struck true, slamming square into the shield. Morros dropped his own lance, fought for balance, and lost it. One foot caught in the stirrup as he fell, and his horse dragged him the length of the lists, his head bouncing against the packed earth like a rag doll’s. The King hooted derision like a displeased child with a broken toy.
Sansa looked away, her heart wrenched in pity.
“Tommen, we picked the wrong foe for you,” the king told his brother. “The straw knight jousts better than that one.”
Sansa glanced at him from the corner of her eye. His father betrayed mine for you, and you reward that with mockery and derision. She did not know how to feel at that.
Morros stumbled to his feet, bruised, dirtied, and alone, limping from the yard without so much as a backward glance. No squire came to aid him, nor his father or brothers. Sansa’s heart gave a small, reluctant tug of pity. Next came Ser Horas Redwyne’s turn. He fared better than his brother, unseating an elderly knight whose silver griffins fluttered on a striped blue-and-white field. The man looked splendid in his finery, but he made a poor contest of it. The match was over before it truly began.
Joffrey curled his lip in disdain. “This is a feeble show.”
Sansa watched the old knight as he was helped from the field, his steps stiff, his hands trembling slightly. That knight was too old to be here, Sansa wondered. He should be at home resting, not here, jousting for Joffrey’s amusement. She pondered restlessly while the old man saw fit to come.
The king was growing bored. It made Sansa anxious. She lowered her eyes and resolved to keep quiet, no matter what. When Joffrey Baratheon’s mood darkened, any chance word might set off one of his rages.
“Lothor Brune, freerider,” cried the herald. “Ser Dontos the Red, of House Hollard.”
The freerider, a squat man in battered plate without banner, trotted to the west end of the yard, unremarkable but ready. Of his opponent, there was no sign, until a chestnut stallion burst into view in a swirl of crimson and scarlet silks, riderless
Ser Dontos appeared a heartbeat later, cursing and stumbling, his plumed helm askew. He wore a breastplate and helm... and nothing else. His legs were pale and thin, and his manhood swung grotesquely as he chased after the horse. Sansa turned her eyes away in horror. The crowd roared with laughter, pelting him with jeers. Dontos caught the stallion’s bridle and made a clumsy attempt to mount, but the horse shied from his fumbling hands. He was too drunk to manage even the stirrup.
By now the yard was howling with mirth … everyone save the king. Joffrey’s face had hardened to something dark and dangerous. At last, Ser Dontos gave up, collapsing into the dirt with a wheeze. He pulled off his helm and shouted, “I lose! Fetch me some wine!”
The king rose. “A cask from the cellars!” he barked. “I’ll see him drowned in it.”
A jolt of fear passed through Sansa. Disgust curdled in her throat, but she kept her voice soft, controlled. “Please, Your Grace,” she said, “it’s ill-luck.”
Joffrey glared at her. “Ill-luck to do what?”
“To slay a man on one’s name day,” she replied evenly. Her heart thundered in her chest. “The comet shines for you, Your Grace, and all know you to be a just and noble king. Your subjects need not bleed for you, only your enemies.”
Joffrey shifted, unhappy. He drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair and flicked his hand toward Dontos. “Take him away. I’ll have him killed tomorrow. The fool.”
“He is a fool,” Sansa said quickly. “You’re so clever to see it. He’s better suited to motley than mail. Let him caper and sing for your amusement. He doesn’t deserve the mercy of a knight’s death.”
Joffrey studied her with narrowed eyes. “Perhaps you’re not as stupid as Mother says.” He raised his voice. “Did you hear, Ser Dontos? From this day forth, you’re my new fool. You’ll sleep with Moon Boy and wear motley.”
Ser Dontos, suddenly sober, crawled to his knees. “Thank you, Your Grace. And you, my lady,” he murmured, eyes wide with mingled gratitude and dread.
Two Lannister guardsmen hauled him to his feet and led him away. As they disappeared, the master of revels approached the royal box and bowed. “Your Grace,” he asked, “shall I summon a new challenger for Brune or proceed with the next tilt?”
“Neither. These are gnats, not knights. I’d have them all put to death, only it’s my name day. The tourney is done. Get them all out of my sight.”
The master of revels bowed, but Prince Tommen was not so obedient. “I’m supposed to ride against the straw man.”
“Not today.”
“But I want to ride!”
“I don’t care what you want.”
“Mother said I could ride.”
“She said,” Princess Myrcella agreed, nodding.
“Mother said,” mocked the king. “Don’t be childish.”
“We’re children,” Myrcella declared haughtily. “We’re supposed to be childish.”
Joffrey was beaten. “Very well. Even my brother couldn’t tilt any worse than these others. Master, bring out the quintain, Tommen wants to be a gnat.”
Tommen gave a shout of joy and ran off to be readied, his chubby little legs pumping hard. “Luck,” Sansa called to him.
A pair of squires strapped the prince into his silver-and-crimson armor, each polished plate gleaming in the sunlight. From the crest of his helm sprouted a plume of red feathers, tall and proud. On his shield, the lion of Lannister and the crowned stag of Baratheon danced together in painted harmony, as if there were no war, no blood between them.
Once armored, the squires helped Tommen mount his pony. Ser Aron Santagar, master-at-arms of the Red Keep, stepped forward to present him with a blunted silver longsword. Its leaf-shaped blade was sized for a boy’s hand, more toy than weapon, yet Tommen’s face shone with excitement.
He urged the pony into a brisk trot, lifted his sword, and struck the quintain squarely on the shield. The device spun on its post, and the padded mace on the far side swung in return, thudding hard into the back of Tommen’s helm. With a clatter and a cry, the prince tumbled from the saddle, armor jangling like a bag of pots. His sword flew one way, his pony another.
A chorus of laughter erupted from the crowd, sharp and unkind. No one laughed harder than King Joffrey.
Princess Myrcella cried out and darted from the box, skirts flaring as she rushed to her fallen brother. Sansa found herself possessed of a queer giddy courage. “You should go with her,” she told the king. “Your brother might be hurt.”
Joffrey shrugged, indifferent. “What if he is?”
“You should help him up and tell him how well he rode.” Sansa could not stop herself. Robb would never have treated Bran like this.
“He got knocked off his horse and fell in the dirt,” the king pointed out. “That’s not riding well.”
No, but he is brave. They were helping Prince Tommen mount his pony. If only Tommen were the elder, Sansa thought. I wouldn’t mind marrying Tommen.
The sounds from the gatehouse took them by surprise. The chains rattled as the portcullis was drawn upward, and the great gates groaned open, their iron hinges protesting. “Who told them to open the gate?” Joffrey demanded. With the troubles in the city, the gates of the Red Keep had been closed for days.
A column of riders emerged beneath the portcullis, the clink of steel and the clatter of hooves filling the air. The men were ragged, haggard, and caked in dust, but the banner they carried was unmistakable; the lion of Lannister, golden on a crimson field. The riders were a motley crew; some wore the red cloaks and mail of Lannister men-at-arms, but many were freeriders and sellswords, armored in mismatched pieces, their weapons bristling with sharp steel. And then there were others; monstrous figures straight from one of Old Nan’s tales, the kind Bran used to listen to in rapt horror.
Clad in torn skins and weathered boiled leather, they had long hair and fierce beards. Some wore bloodstained bandages over their brows or hands, while others were missing eyes, ears, or fingers. They looked like they'd seen far too many battles.
They have fought, thought Sansa, glancing at Joffrey whose face was confused, unlike the man they fought for.
At the head of the column rode Tyrion Lannister, the queen’s dwarf brother, who was often called the Imp. His short frame was perched atop a tall red horse in a strange high saddle that seemed to cradle him both back and front. His beard, thick and bristly, had grown wild to hide the twisted contours of his face, and it was a mess of yellow and black, coarse as wire. His cloak, made of shadowskin fur striped with white, hung down his back, but it did little to conceal the grotesque shape of him.
There are fairer men than him, Sansa thought, whose hearts are blacker.
Yet Tommen put his spurs into his pony and galloped headlong across the yard, shouting with glee. One of the savages, a huge shambling man so hairy that his face was all but lost beneath his whiskers, scooped the boy out of his saddle, armor and all, and deposited him on the ground beside his uncle. Tommen’s breathless laughter echoed off the walls as Tyrion clapped him on the backplate, and Sansa was startled to see that the two were of a height. Myrcella came running after her brother, and the dwarf picked her up by the waist and spun her in a playful circle as she squealed with joy.
When he set her down, Tyrion kissed her lightly on the brow before waddling across the yard toward Joffrey, his footsteps small but confident. Two of his men followed close behind him; one, a black-haired sellsword with cat-like grace, the other a gaunt youth with a vacant socket where one eye should have been. Tommen and Myrcella trailed behind, their laughter and voices echoing across the yard.
The dwarf went to one knee before the king. “Your Grace.”
“You,” Joffrey said.
“Me,” the Imp agreed, “although a more courteous greeting might be in order, for an uncle and an elder.”
“They said you were dead,” the king remarked, his words sharp and indifferent.
“I’m glad you’re not dead,” said Princess Myrcella, her voice full of innocent warmth.
“We share that view, sweet child.” Tyrion turned to Sansa. “My lady, I am sorry for your losses. Truly, the gods are cruel.”
I have not lost anything, Sansa thought bitterly, her chest tightening. Does he think my father is dead? She could not bring herself to speak the words, so instead, she bowed her head in silence.
“I am sorry for your loss as well, Joffrey,” Tyrion continued, his voice laced with a calmness that felt just shy of mockery.
Joffrey blinked, confused. “What loss?”
“Your royal father. A large, fierce man with a black beard; you’ll recall him if you try,” Tyrion said, his words deliberately slow, as if speaking to a child. “He was king before you.”
“Oh, him. Yes, it was very sad, a boar killed him.”
“Is that what ‘they’ say, Your Grace?”
Joffrey frowned, lips twisting as if the words troubled him.
Sansa felt that she ought to say something. Septa Mordane used to tell her, a lady’s armor is courtesy. Sansa donned her armor and said, “I’m sorry my lady mother took you captive, my lord.”
“A great many people are sorry for that,” Tyrion replied, “and before I am done, some may be a deal sorrier ... yet I thank you for the sentiment. Joffrey, where might I find your mother?” One of his eyes was green, one was black, and both were cool.
You will, she promised herself. And your brother, and your sister.
“She’s with my council,” the king answered. “Your brother Jaime keeps losing battles.” He gave Sansa an angry look, as if it were her fault. “He’s been taken by the Starks and we’ve lost Riverrun and now her stupid brother has called Stannis king.”
The dwarf smiled crookedly. “All sorts of people are calling themselves kings these days.” Sansa almost smiled at that.
Joffrey did not know what to make of that, though he looked suspicious and out of sorts. “Yes. Well. I am pleased you’re not dead, Uncle. Did you bring me a gift for my name day?”
“I did. My wits.”
“I’d sooner have Robb Stark’s head,” Joffrey said with a sly glance at Sansa. “Tommen, Myrcella, come.”
Sansa was left with the dwarf and his monsters. She tried to think of what else she might say. “You hurt your arm, my lord,” she managed at last.
“One of your northmen hit me with a morningstar during the battle on the Green Fork. I escaped him by falling off my horse.” His grin turned into something softer as he studied her face. “Is it fear for your lord father that makes you so sad?”
“I fear only for my beloved,” Sansa said softly.
“No doubt. As loyal as a deer surrounded by wolves.”
“Lions,” she whispered, without thinking. She glanced about nervously, but there was no one close enough to hear.
Tyrion Lannister reached out and took her hand, and gave it a squeeze. “I am only a little lion, child, and I vow, I shall not savage you.” Bowing, he said “But now you must excuse me. I have urgent business with queen and council.”
Sansa watched him walk off, his body swaying heavily from side to side with every step, like something from a grotesquerie. He speaks more gently than Joffrey, she thought, but the queen spoke to me gently too. He’s still a Lannister, her brother and Joffrey’s uncle, and no friend. Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with Northern blood. Sansa would never make that mistake again.
“Come, Jeyne,” she said, extending a hand, “we may have a pleasant day yet.”
Jeyne linked her hand through Sansa’s own, and they walked together through the middle bailey on their way to their chambers. Seldom did they linger far from their comfortable cage these days.
“Why do you think he is here?” Jeyne whispered.
Sansa gave their surroundings a glance. “He must have been sent here, by Lord Tywin, his father. Last anyone heard, he was in the Vale, and then the Riverlands.”
“Sent here to do what?” Jeyne wondered.
Tyrion Lannister was whispered to be many things; a lecher, a drunk, a little monster, but never a fool. “To help the king rule, of course,” Sansa said, ever polite. “Wise councilors are ever needed for a good king.”
Jeyne nodded softly, clutching at her arm. A red-faced Maester Pycelle emerged from behind it, his breath labored as he shut the door with a weary groan. The sweat beaded on his brow, and his rheumy eyes, usually dull with disinterest, seemed even more tired than usual. Yet those eyes lingered on Jeyne’s neck and legs for a moment too long. Sansa repressed a shudder, a cold prickling of discomfort running through her.
“Ah,” Pycelle muttered, blinking and stroking his long white beard, “Lady Sansa…”
“Grand Maester,” both she and Jeyne said in unison, bowing slightly.
The old man chuckled, the sound dry and rasping, his heavy chain clinking with each movement. “My mind seems to wander far and wide these days,” he admitted, his gaze flickering between them, though his words seemed directed more to himself than to anyone in particular. “A most ponderous and onerous task it is, to keep the king’s hound alive.”
Sandor Clegane, she thought. The servants called him the Burned Hound nowadays. Ever since that day, the Hound had lingered on the bridge between life and death, with only the Maester’s care chaining him to the world of the living. No, not just that, she thought with pity. Hatred for his brother.
A whisper in the kitchens, something Anna had shared with her in confidence, echoed in her mind. Sandor Clegane was covered in horrid burns, from feet to face. Whereas his brother had burnt half of his face away, Andrei had soaked him in flames. Sandor Clegane, they say, wept with rage on the days he was awake, screaming vengeance for two names. Gregor Clegane, Andrei Yeltska.
A wave of pity flooded over Sansa. The thought of that kind of suffering, of being burned beyond recognition, sent a cold shiver through her. She couldn’t fathom it. The mere thought of a candleflame touching her skin made her tremble. She wondered, for a brief moment, if it had felt like the Stranger’s cold touch, that searing pain. And yet, a voice within her reminded her, he is your enemy.
He stood against my father, Sansa thought, and drew his steel to slay Northmen.
There were still men who fought that day whose wounds still chained them to bed. Ser Arys was another. His head had swelled from a wound Andrei had given him, Anna said, and he had been in a deep slumber since that day. Joffrey had an arsenal of cruel words and japes to sing of the young knight, who had fought for him. The Sleeping Knight, Joffrey had said once in court to the laughter of a few dozen courtiers. The Knight of Dreams, the king called him on another occasion.
King Joffrey, Sansa thought, wielded malice without creativity.
“Is Ser Arys still in there?” she asked politely.
“Ah, yes,” Pycelle slowly nodded. “His swelling seems to have subsided ever so slightly, I believe. I fear he still shows no sign of waking, I must admit.”
She wondered if she should visit the young knight. Of all of Joffrey’s Kingsguard, Arys Oakheart had always seemed the most pleasant. Pleasant and gallant, Sansa thought, but still one of Joffrey’s.
“I pray you tend to him as well as you tend to kings, Grand Maester,” she bowed.
The day was still bright when they returned to their chambers, but they blocked the light with the silk curtains nonetheless. A platter of honey cakes and a bowl of fruits were left on the table, as well as a jug of cold milk.
Jeyne chewed on one of the sweetcakes. “Your brother…”
“Is a traitor,” Sansa declared, with a soft smile. “Who should not have defeated Ser Jaime the way he did.”
“Yes,” Jeyne agreed, nodding. “He should march here, with all twenty thousand Northmen and bow to the rightful king.”
“He should,” Sansa giggled, sipping from a cup of milk.
They sat by the fire for the rest of the day; they talked and laughed about knights and lords, sang of maidens and queens, embroidered wolves and doves, while sipping on milk and chewing on sweetcakes. It helped them to forget; to forget that Jeyne’s father was cruelly slain by the Lannisters, to forget that her own father was missing, to forget that her brother was waging a war, that they were in a cage of red and gold.
It was near sunset when Anna arrived, with a platter of cold meats, cheese and bread, and her face grew mournful at the expectation on Sansa’s face. “A thousand apologies, m’lady,” Anna bowed, “the head chef won’t let me out to the city anymore, not after…”
Sansa suppressed a sigh. “There is nothing to forgive,” Sansa said. She gestured to the platter that Anna had placed on the table. “Please, sit. Eat with us. This is too much food for two ladies, and we long for company.”
Anna bowed once more and sat stiffly between Jeyne and her.
“What news?” Sansa asked eagerly.
“Nothing new from the Riverlands, m’lady,” Anna whispered, chewing on a cut of cheese and cold ham. “No one seems to know what your brother is doing.”
That is good, Sansa thought, Robb will beat them all.
“The Queen is furious,” Anna said. “Some of the squires say that Lord Tywin has gone to ground in Harrenhal, instead of answering her calls to come to King’s Landing. And now Lord Tyrion is here… They say he came with his father’s sigil, to act as Acting Hand in his stead.”
Sansa nodded. “What about… the other two?”
Anna shook her head. “We know little,” she admitted. “The squires and knights know little as well. They say that King Renly has marched from Highgarden, but they’ve been saying that for a sennight, and no one knows what Lord Stannis has done. No ravens had flown from Dragonstone, the Maester’s assistant told me.”
So many kings, Sansa wondered, like mushrooms after the rain.
Sleep was easy that night. Jeyne slumbered softly in her arms, and Sansa let the crackling of the hearthfire take her to sleep. It reminded her of her room in Winterfell, and that brought her comfort. Soon, she thought, soon, Robb will win. Father will return. Arya, too. Mother will come. And we will all go back to Winterfell.
She could hear the gentle lullaby as she drifted to sleep.
There were two voices; a light, beautiful maiden’s voice that sounded as sweet as the summer air, and a man’s. Whoever the man was, he could sing, Sansa thought in wonder. Together, the voices sang a song of gentle mercy. It was a soft, ethereal melody; flowing and smoothing, slow and sung in choral harmony to the tune of harps and lutes.
She was in that garden again; the one with white roses and grass as green as emerald. There was a calm stream, as clear as glass, and she smelled the scent of fresh flowers. By the stream, Lady slept peacefully, and doves left lilies on her fur.
Sansa’s breath caught. “Lady?” she whispered, her voice trembling. She stepped closer, afraid that if she moved too quickly, the dream would shatter like spun sugar.
Lady stirred. Her golden eyes blinked open slowly, calm and kind. She lifted her head and let out a soft yawn before padding toward Sansa, tail wagging slightly, ears perked in recognition.
Sansa fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around her. “Oh, Lady,” she breathed, burying her face into her direwolf’s thick, silvery fur. “I’m so sorry. I let them take you. I should have-” Her voice broke, and she clutched tighter, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I lied about Arya… and Joffrey. I should have fought for you.”
Lady licked her face, soft and warm, the way she always used to when Sansa had scraped her knee or come back cold from riding in the snow. It was as if to say, I forgive you.
Sansa pulled back just a little to look at her. Lady’s eyes were full of knowing, full of peace. She wasn't angry. She was here, and she was still hers.
They played then, as they once had in the godswood. Sansa tossed petals into the air and Lady leapt to catch them, her tail sweeping happily behind her. They chased each other through the grass, and Lady splashed her paws in the shallow stream. Sansa laughed, truly laughed, the sound clear and bright and full of something she hadn’t felt in a long time, joy.
But as the light shifted and the lullaby returned on the wind, Sansa felt a weight in her chest. The dream was fading. She knelt beside Lady once more, holding her close. “Don’t go,” she whispered. “Please.”
Lady nuzzled her cheek again, and this time, Sansa felt something different. A warmth that lingered even as the world around her began to dissolve into mist.
And then she was awake. The fire in the hearth had burned low, casting golden light on the stone walls. Jeyne still slept beside her, curled and peaceful. But Sansa lay there for a long while, her arms folded as if still holding something precious.
She could still smell lilies.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: ACOK, Sansa I
My heart was aching when writing the Lady scene, not gonna lie. I am fond of Sansa, and how sassy she can be at times.
Chapter 50: Art: From Kislev with Love
Notes:
We interrupt our usual broadcasting to bring you a piece of cool art! One of my players who has been reading this fic, and has been invaluable in providing me feedback, has drawn a scene from my story! As you will recognise, it's of Andrei shooting Littlefinger in the throne room. It is one of my favorite scenes so far and arguably the most significant one in the story at the moment. Hope you enjoy! (They have just made an Instagram: nulnvamp. Go check it out!)
P.S
can you believe that Andrei is only 38? This is what living in Kislev does to a Kossar
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Notes:
Other titles that were considered by the artist and I:
The Fall of the Mockingbird.
Blackpowder comes to Westeros.
Westeros, meet blackpowder.
Might of Nuln.
Littlefinger gets a taste of blackpowder.
Littlefinger gets REKT.
Chapter 51: Tyrion I
Notes:
"Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible." - Frank Herbert
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When he shouldered open the door, the small council’s conversation died at once. Four heads turned. “You,” said his sweet sister, Cersei, her voice a blend of disbelief and disdain.
“I can see where Joffrey learned his courtesies.” Tyrion paused to admire the pair of Valyrian sphinxes that guarded the door, affecting an air of casual confidence. Cersei could sniff out weakness the way a hound scents fear.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her striking green eyes fixed on him, void of any warmth.
“Delivering a letter from our lord father.” Tyrion strolled to the table and set a rolled parchment down between them.
The eunuch Varys picked it up with his powdered hands, turning it over delicately. “How thoughtful of Lord Tywin. And the sealing wax, what a delightful shade of gold.” He inspected it closely. “It appears entirely authentic.”
“Of course it’s genuine.” Cersei snatched it away. She cracked the seal and unrolled the parchment. As her eyes moved down the page, her expression soured.
Tyrion watched her read. His sister had taken the king’s seat for herself. Joffrey did not trouble to attend council meetings, it seemed, no more than Robert had, so Tyrion climbed up into the Hand’s chair. It seemed only appropriate.
“This is absurd,” the queen said at last. “My lord father has sent my brother to sit in his place in this council. He bids us accept Tyrion as the Hand of the King, until such time as he himself can join us.”
Grand Maester Pycelle gave his beard a solemn stroke and nodded slowly. “Then it would seem a welcome is in order.”
“Indeed,” said Janos Slynt. The balding, jowly man resembled a smug toad, one clearly too pleased with his station. “We’re sorely in need of you, my lord, rebellions across the realm, that dire sign in the sky, unrest in the streets...”
“And who’s to blame for that, Lord Janos?” Cersei snapped. “Your gold cloaks are supposed to keep order. They could not even find three souls.” She turned her glare back to Tyrion. “As for you, you’d be of more use in the Riverlands. Perhaps there’s still time to set a few more fields ablaze.” Her smile was icy.
He laughed. “No, I’m done with fields of battle, thank you kindly. I sit a chair better than a horse, and I’d much rather grip a goblet of Arbor Gold than a battle-axe. All that romantic nonsense about the thunder of drums, sunlight flashing off polished armor, destriers prancing like dancers? The drums gave me migraines, the sunlight roasted me like a goose, and those magnificent destriers, pardon me, shit everywhere. Not that I’m complaining. Compared to the hospitality I enjoyed in the Vale of Arryn, drums, dung, and horseflies are the finest luxuries.”
He looked around the table with a pleasant smile. “Please, allow me to be of some small service. Tell me, what’s become of our dear friend, Petyr? Littlefinger’s absence weighs heavily.”
A palpable discomfort fell over the room. Pycelle gave a shudder, Varys tittered, nervously this time, and Janos Slynt’s jowls visibly trembled. Cersei’s expression turned guarded, her eyes narrowing with cold wariness.
“He’s dead,” she said flatly.
“Do tell,” Tyrion replied, his brows arching in mock surprise. “We've heard all manner of grim rumors on the road; a spear through the heart, a quarrel in the eye, some northern hex, a fireball, even whispers of a dragon soaring over the Wall and biting his head off.”
“It was…” Cersei was uncertain. That was sweet and sour to him. Fear in her eyes was as sweet as honey, but rare it was to see Cersei Lannister anxious.
“Foul, heathen northern magicks,” Janos Slynt muttered, his fingers curling nervously against the edge of the table.
Pycelle mumbled something, low and wheezy.
“Pardon me, Grand Maester,” Tyrion glanced at the old man, “I must have misheard you. My ears are not the same after those drums, you see.”
“A weapon,” Pycelle said at last, unwilling and wheezing. “Some strange weapon… in the hands of…”
“Andrei Yeltska,” Varys supplied, his voice as soft as silk, “Eddard Stark’s swornsword. The same man who won the melee for the Hand’s Tourney, the man who fought with Ser Jaime…”
“Savaged,” Cersei snarled.
Varys bowed his plump head. “Savaged our dear Ser Jaime,” he repeated.
Tyrion’s smile thinned. “I must hear that tale in full. My brother is not often savaged.”
But they weren’t listening anymore. The atmosphere had grown thick, charged with dread. “It was like thunder,” Pycelle said, eyes distant and fingers trembling.
“Lord Petyr was … seizing the traitor lord,” Janos Slynt explained. “That northern brute drew a weapon most queer… it … it…”
Varys was more helpful. “It was small, smaller than a crossbow. It belched fire and death like a dragon’s breath and our dearly lamented Master of Coin … fell.”
“Fell?” Tyrion wondered.
“It screamed like the end of days, my lord,” Slynt was saying. “A grand thunder … and Lord Baelish was dead, his head shattered.”
The smoke must have gotten to them. A queen, a eunuch, a doddering old man, and a butcher made lord. “As you say. And Lord Stark and this warlock of his…”
Cersei read the letter again, ignoring him. She was eager to take another road. “How many men have you brought with you?”
“A few hundred. My own, mainly. Our lord father was loath to part with any of his. He is fighting a war, after all.”
“What use will your few hundred men be if Renly marches on the city, or Stannis sails from Dragonstone? I ask for an army and my father sends me a dwarf. The king names the Hand, with the consent of council. Joffrey named our lord father.”
“And our lord father named me.”
“He cannot do that. Not without Joff’s consent.”
“Lord Tywin is at Harrenhal with his host, if you’d care to take it up with him. Though, I do recall some slight warring around the area,” Tyrion said politely. “My lords, perchance you would permit me a private word with my sister?”
Varys slithered to his feet, smiling in that unctuous way he had. “How you must have yearned for the sound of your sweet sister’s voice. My lords, please, let us give them a few moments together. The woes of our troubled realm shall keep.”
Janos Slynt rose hesitantly and Grand Maester Pycelle ponderously, yet they rose.
“Shall I tell the steward to prepare chambers in Maegor’s Holdfast?”
“My thanks, Lord Varys, but I will be taking Lord Stark’s former quarters in the Tower of the Hand. It seems fitting, no?”
Varys bowed, tittered, and left.
“How I have yearned for the sound of your sweet voice,” Tyrion sighed to her.
“How I have yearned to have that eunuch’s tongue pulled out with hot pincers,” Cersei replied darkly. “Has Father lost his senses? Or did you forge this letter?” She read it again with mounting irritation. “Why would he inflict you on me? I wanted him to come himself.” She crushed the parchment in her fingers. “I am Joffrey’s regent, and I sent him a royal command!”
“And he ignored you,” Tyrion said simply. “He has quite a large army. He can do that. Nor is he the first, is he?”
Cersei’s mouth tightened. Color rose in her cheeks. “If I name this letter a forgery and tell them to throw you in a dungeon, no one will ignore that, I promise you.”
He was walking on rotten ice now, and he knew it. One false step and he would plunge through. “No one,” he agreed amiably, “least of all our father. The one with the army. But why should you want to throw me in a dungeon, sweet sister, when I’ve come all this long way to help you?”
“I do not require your help. It was our father’s presence that I commanded.”
“Yes,” he said quietly, “but it’s Jaime you want.”
Her face, usually so carefully composed, betrayed her. Rage, fear, and despair rippled beneath her skin like shadows beneath silk. She was not as subtle as she liked to think she was. “Jaime—”
“—is my brother no less than yours,” Tyrion cut in. “Give me your support and I promise you, we will have Jaime freed and returned to us unharmed.”
“How?” Cersei demanded. “The Stark boy and his mother have him in Riverrun, in irons. He is surrounded by hundreds, thousands. And Eddard Stark…”
Vanished, Tyrion thought, you let him slip, perhaps to his death.
“True,” he said aloud. “But you still hold the daughters, don’t you? I saw the older girl in the yard with Joffrey.”
“Sansa,” she said. “I’ve given it out that I have the younger brat as well, but it’s a lie. I sent Meryn Trant to seize her when Robert died, but her wretched dancing master interfered and the girl fled. No one has seen her since. Likely she’s dead. A great many people died that day.”
We had three Starks, Tyrion lamented, amused and in dread, now we have one.
“Tell me about our friends on the council.”
His sister glanced at the door. “What of them?”
“Father seems to have taken a dislike to them. When I left him, he was wondering how their heads might look on the wall.” He leaned forward across the table. “Are you certain of their loyalty? Do you trust them?”
“I trust no one,” Cersei snapped. “I need them. They have their uses. Does Father believe they are playing us false?”
“Suspects, rather.”
“Why? What does he know?”
Tyrion shrugged. “He knows that your son’s short reign has been a long parade of follies and disasters. That suggests that someone is giving Joffrey some very bad counsel.” For one reason or another.
She gave him a searching look. “Joff has had no lack of good counsel. He’s always been strong-willed. Now that he’s king, he believes he should do as he pleases.”
“Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them,” Tyrion agreed. “What exactly happened that day? How did a crippled lord and his swornsword disappear?”
“If I had the answer,” Cersei glared at him, “we would not be here. When Stark came limping into the throne room, he thought that the Gold Cloaks would be with his treason. He was wrong.”
No, Tyrion almost laughed, they were for other treasons.
She continued, voice clipped. “Janos Slynt’s spears took his northmen, but that savage brute Yeltska fought. Him and Cassel. They killed over a dozen good men in a blur. The swornsword shattered a glass of wine across the Hound and set him alight. Cassel disarmed Ser Boros Blount and stabbed him with his own blade.”
Cersei’s eyes were deep with scorn. Tyrion thought better than to laugh.
“They set the throne room on fire, with glass bottles of wine. A hundred men, a hundred cravens more like,” she snarled. “The last three of his household guards fought in the narrow hallway. Selmy took them in alive. By the time that was done, Eddard Stark and his man had vanished.”
“And what of this ‘weapon’ everyone’s whispering about?” Tyrion asked softly.
Cersei’s eyes hardened. “Yeltska had some kind of black spell. A device. It roared like a dragon and killed like one. I saw Baelish die, his head shattered into pieces. He … he pointed it at Joff, and me.”
“The gates…” Tyrion trailed off.
“Closed,” Cersei closed her eyes. “Do you take me for a fool? The portcullis lowered, the drawbridge raised. Every room and chamber checked, every servant questioned. Slynt’s Gold Cloaks have been sweeping through the city for weeks; every tavern, shophouse, warehouse. Riders have been sent out north and west and south. Nothing, they found nothing.”
“Perhaps, they swam away,” Tyrion offered. “So this Lord Slynt…Tell me, whose fine notion was it to grant him Harrenhal and name him to the council?”
“I did,” Cersei sniffed. “We needed Slynt’s gold cloaks. Eddard Stark was plotting with Renly and he’d written to Lord Stannis, offering him the throne. We might have lost all. Even so, it was a close thing. If Sansa hadn’t come to me and told me all her father’s plans ...”
Tyrion was surprised. “Truly? His own daughter?” Sansa had always seemed such a sweet child, tender and courteous. Treason from one’s own child, wondered Tyrion. He wondered how Lord Tywin Lannister would react to that.
“The girl was wet with love. She would have done anything for Joffrey, until he had the last of her father’s men executed, called it mercy, and promised her Lord Stark’s head. That ended her devotion.”
“His Grace has a unique talent for winning hearts,” Tyrion said with a crooked smile. “Was it Joffrey’s idea to dismiss Ser Barristan Selmy from the Kingsguard as well?”
Cersei sighed. “Joffrey wanted someone to blame for Robert’s death. Varys suggested Ser Barristan. Why not? It gave Jaime command of the Kingsguard, and a seat on the council. We were ready to offer Selmy land and a towerhouse, more than the useless old fool deserved.”
Jaime as Lord Commander, Tyrion almost winced. He could already hear the whispers of knights and smallfolk across the realm.
“I hear that useless old fool freed Cassel and they cut down half a dozen of Slynt’s gold cloaks in their daring ride away from the city.”
His sister looked displeased. “Janos should have sent more men. He is not as competent as might be wished.” No, Tyrion agreed.
“Ser Barristan was the Lord Commander of Robert Baratheon’s Kingsguard,” Tyrion reminded her pointedly. “He and Jaime are the only survivors of Aerys Targaryen’s seven. The smallfolk talk of him in the same way they talk of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight. What do you imagine they’ll think when they see Barristan the Bold riding beside Robb Stark or Stannis Baratheon?”
Cersei glanced away. “I had not considered that.”
“Father did,” said Tyrion. “That is why he sent me. To put an end to these follies and bring your son to heel.”
“Joff will be no more obedient for you than for me.”
“He might.”
“Why should he?”
“He knows you would never hurt him.”
Cersei’s eyes narrowed. “If you believe I’d ever allow you to harm my son, you’re sick with fever.”
Tyrion sighed. She’d missed the point, as she did so often. “Joffrey is as safe with me as he is with you,” he assured her, “but so long as the boy feels threatened, he’ll be more inclined to listen.” He took her hand. “I am your brother, you know. You need me, whether you care to admit it or not. Your son needs me, if he’s to have a hope of retaining that ugly iron chair that men do so love.”
His sister seemed shocked that he would touch her. “You have always been cunning.”
“In my own small way.” He grinned. More than you.
“It may be worth the trying ... but make no mistake, Tyrion. If I accept you, you shall be the King’s Hand in name, but my Hand in truth. You will share all your plans and intentions with me before you act, and you will do nothing without my consent. Do you understand?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you agree?”
“Certainly,” he lied. “I am yours, sister.” For as long as I need to be. “So, now that we are of one purpose, we ought have no more secrets between us. You say that Varys dismissed Ser Barristan. Joffrey had the Northmen killed. Who murdered Jon Arryn?”
Cersei yanked her hand away. “How should I know?”
“The grieving widow in the Eyrie seems to think it was me. Curious, that. Where did she get such an idea?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. That fool Eddard Stark accused me of the same thing. He hinted that Lord Arryn suspected or... well, believed...”
“That you were fucking our sweet Jaime?”
Her slap cracked across his face.
“Did you think I was as blind as Father?” Tyrion rubbed his cheek. “Who you choose to lie with is no concern of mine… though it does seem a bit unjust that one brother gets what’s between your legs, and the other does not.”
She slapped him again.
“Gently, Cersei. I’m only jesting. Truth be told, I prefer a good whore. I never understood what Jaime saw in you, aside from his own reflection.”
Her hand struck him a third time.
His face burned, but he grinned. “Keep that up and I may lose my temper.”
That stayed her hand. “Why should I care if you do?”
“I’ve made some new friends,” Tyrion said. “You won’t like them. Not one bit. Tell me, how did Robert die?”
“He did that himself. We only helped him along. Lancel made sure he had his favorite sour red, but thrice as strong. When Robert announced he was hunting boar, Lancel gave him skin after skin of the stuff. He could’ve stopped, if he’d had the sense. Instead, he drained it dry and asked for more. The boar did the rest. You should’ve come to the feast, Tyrion. They cooked it with mushrooms and apples. It tasted like triumph.”
“Truly, sister, you were born to be a widow.” Tyrion had rather liked Robert Baratheon, great blustering oaf that he was... perhaps because Cersei so thoroughly despised him. “Now, if you are done slapping me, I will be off.” He twisted his legs around and clambered down awkwardly from the chair.
Cersei frowned. “I haven’t given you leave to go. I want to know how you intend to free Jaime.”
“I’ll tell you when I know. Schemes are like fruit, they need time to ripen. Right now, I have a mind to ride through the streets and take the measure of this city.” Tyrion rested his hand on the head of the sphinx beside the door. “One parting request. Kindly make certain no harm comes to Sansa Stark. It would not do to lose a third Stark.”
Outside the council chamber, Tyrion nodded to Ser Mandon and made his way down the long vaulted hall. Bronn came beside him. Of their red hand, there was no sign. “Where is Timett?”
“He felt an urge to explore. His kind was not made for waiting about in halls.”
“I hope he doesn’t kill anyone important. Try to find him. And while you are at it, see that the rest have been quartered and fed. I want them in the barracks beneath the Tower of the Hand, but don’t let the steward put the Stone Crows near the Moon Brothers, and tell him the Burned Men must have a hall all to themselves.”
An hour later, Tyrion rode from the Red Keep with a dozen Lannister guards in crimson cloaks and lion-crested half-helms. As they passed beneath the portcullis, he looked up at the heads lining the walls. Black with rot and old tar, they were long past recognition.
“Captain Vylarr,” he called. “Have those taken down on the morrow. Turn them over to the silent sisters for cleaning.” Matching heads to bodies would be a nightmare, but some decencies must be upheld, even in war.
Vylarr hesitated. “His Grace has said the traitors’ heads are to stay until the last five spikes are filled.”
“Let me guess. One for Robb Stark, one for his father, a third for his swornsword. The others … Stannis and Renly?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“My nephew is thirteen today, Vylarr. Try to remember that. I’ll have the heads down tomorrow, or we may find a different head on one of those spikes. Do you take my meaning, Captain?”
“I’ll see to it personally, my lord.”
“Good.” Tyrion put his heels into his horse and trotted away, leaving the red cloaks to follow as best they could.
He’d told Cersei he meant to take the measure of the city. That wasn’t entirely a lie. But what he found displeased him.
King’s Landing had always been noisy, crowded, chaotic, but now it stank of something darker. On the Street of Looms, naked corpses sprawled in the gutter, half-devoured by feral dogs, and no one even looked twice.
Gold cloaks patrolled in groups of three and four, cudgels at the ready, black ringmail gleaming. The markets were filled with ragged men bartering household goods for whatever they could get, and nearly empty of farmers. What little produce he saw was four times the cost it had been a year ago.
One peddler was hawking rats roasted on a skewer. “Fresh rats,” he cried loudly, “fresh rats.” Doubtless fresh rats were to be preferred to old stale rotten rats. The frightening thing was, the rats looked more appetizing than most of what the butchers were selling.
Another sold pigeons, a third sold something Tyrion did not recognise, nor did he want to. On the Street of Flour, Tyrion saw guards at every other shop door. When times grew lean, even bakers found sellswords cheaper than bread, he reflected.
Lean, he thought, lean and hungry. He recalled a line he read from a tome once.
“Beware the man with the lean and hungry look,” he muttered to himself. “It is not the well-fed, long-haired men to fear but the pale and hungry-looking.”
The worst were the dishevelled wretches who scourged themselves raw. Rows of gaunt, rag-clad men, their eyes wild with fervor and madness, staggered forward in lockstep, flaying their own flesh with barbed whips. Each strike tore open skin already purpled and weeping, sending arcs of blood spraying across the dust-choked road. Their chants to the Seven were hoarse and ragged, barely rising above the wet slap of lash against flesh. Bits of torn skin clung to the thongs of their whips, and a stench hung about them; sweat, blood, and something fouler, like rot. They left behind a red-slick trail, a gruesome testament to their suffering, their feet bleeding and raw, painting the stones with every faltering step.
“There is no food coming in, is there?” he said to Vylarr.
Little enough,” the captain admitted. “With the war in the riverlands and Lord Renly raising rebels in Highgarden, the roads are closed to the south and west. And few ships have come to port from the bay.”
“And what has my good sister done about this?”
“She is taking steps to restore the king’s peace,” Vylarr said. “Lord Slynt has tripled the City Watch, and the queen has put a thousand craftsmen to work on our defenses. Stonemasons are strengthening the walls, carpenters are building scorpions and catapults by the hundred, fletchers are making arrows, the smiths are forging blades... and the Alchemists’ Guild has pledged ten thousand jars of wildfire.”
Tyrion shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. He was pleased that Cersei had not been idle, but wildfire was treacherous stuff, and ten thousand jars were enough to turn all of King’s Landing into ashes. “Where has my sister found the coin to pay for all of this?” It was no secret that Robert had left the crown drowning in debt, and the pyromancers of the Guild were not known for their charity.
“She has imposed a tax on those seeking entry to the city, my lord, and on many merchants and traders. For the war effort, we tell them.”
“Yes, that would work,” Tyrion said, thinking, Clever. Clever and cruel. Tens of thousands had fled the fighting for the supposed safety of King’s Landing. He had passed them on the kingsroad; mothers clutching babes, grim-faced fathers with carts and bundles, gazing longingly at his wagons. Once inside the walls, they’d pay whatever coin they had left to remain behind those high, comforting stones... though they might think twice if they knew of the wildfire. This talk of taxes on merchants and traders however…
“What word is there about a new Master of Coin?”
“I am unsure, my lord,” Vylarr bowed. “There is talk of finding one amidst the lords of the Crownlands, or the Westerlands.”
Searching for diamonds in a stable, Tyrion almost laughed.
The inn beneath the sign of the broken anvil stood within sight of those walls, near the Gate of the Gods where they had entered that morning. As they rode into its courtyard, a boy ran out to help Tyrion down from his horse. “Take your men back to the castle,” he told Vylarr. “I’ll be spending the night here.”
The captain looked dubious. “Will you be safe, my lord?”
“Well, as to that, Captain, when I left the inn this morning it was full of Black Ears. One is never quite safe when Chella daughter of Cheyk is about.” Tyrion waddled toward the door, leaving Vylarr to puzzle at his meaning.
A gust of merriment greeted him as he shoved into the inn’s common room. He recognized Chella’s throaty chuckle and the lighter music of Shae’s laughter. The girl was seated by the hearth, sipping wine at a round wooden table with three of the Black Ears he’d left to guard her and a plump man whose back was to him. The innkeeper, he assumed... until Shae called Tyrion by name and the intruder rose. “My good lord, I am so pleased to see you,” he gushed, a soft eunuch’s smile on his powdered face.
Tyrion stumbled. “Lord Varys. I had not thought to see you here.” The Others take him, how did he find them so quickly?
Tyrion misliked the conversation that followed. Varys had come to deliver a message, telling him in subtle words that, I know who she is, where she is, and here I am. The eunuch wanted him to know that he had been watching since they passed through the streets. Tyrion’s smile was tight and cold, even as Shae laughed at Varys’ jests.
Varys rose from his seat, his movements smooth and deliberate. "I will leave you," he said, his tone almost apologetic. "I know how weary you must be after your journey. I only wished to extend my welcome, my lord, and express how truly pleased I am by your arrival. The council is in dire need of you, as I’m sure you’ve already realized. Have you seen the comet?"
Tyrion’s gaze flickered up to the ceiling as he thought of the night sky. "I’m short, not blind," he replied dryly. Out on the kingsroad, the comet had been impossible to miss. It stretched across the sky, so large it seemed to dwarf the crescent moon itself. One night, its single tail had split into two, both shimmering with the intensity of a golden coin. He spent the night awake, watching the burning star.
Varys' lips curled into something like a smile, but it lacked warmth. "In the streets, they call it the Red Messenger," he said softly, as though savoring the words. "When it split and grew golden, they called it the Gold Messenger. They say it comes as a herald before a king, a sign of fire and blood to follow." The eunuch rubbed his powdered hands together. “May I leave you with a bit of a riddle, Lord Tyrion?” He did not wait for an answer.
“In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?” Bowing deeply, the eunuch hurried from the common room on soft slippered feet.
Tyrion’s eyes were on him as he left. A golden crown, Tyrion thought, a golden sceptre, a golden hand. Who wins?
A curious riddle indeed. If Joffrey, the High Septon and his father stood before Bronn in the throne room, who would the sellsword unsheathe his steel for?
Not the pious walrus, Tyrion thought, but some would draw their blade for a holy man. Perhaps fewer nowadays, after Maegor. No one would be foolish enough to rearm the Faith Militant. No, the Sword and the Stars will not shine anymore.
What of Joffrey? King Joffrey, he reminded himself. If the Kingsguard were in the throne room, he is King. If the throne room is empty, he is just a boy. A cruel, foolish boy, with a crown of gold.
A rich man then, he thought. As rich as the West, as rich as lion’s gold?
In one room, a pouch of gold holds more weight and worth than a crown of gold, he thought. For one man, the raised golden sceptre of a holy man holds more sway than all the gold of kings and men.
“A curious riddle,” he muttered to himself.
Tyrion filled Lord Slynt’s cup to the brim. “I have been glancing over the names you put forward to take your place as Commander of the City Watch.”
“Good men. Fine men. Any of the five will do. I would have recommended Allar Deem, he was my right hand until…”
“Until?” Tyrion raised his eyebrow. Truth be told, he had heard that dreadful tale from a dozen mouths but he wanted a thirteenth song, from the butcher’s mouth.
“He … never returned from his task, I fear,” Slynt’s face was tight.
“Deem was little loved in the streets, I am told,” Tyrion allowed himself a slow sip. “And what task was that? Pray tell. I do recall hearing of some trouble in a brothel.”
“That. Not his fault, my lor-Tyrion. No. He never meant to kill the woman, I think.”
“Do you? How curious, it is. The thoughts of a dead man. Still ... mothers and children, he might have expected she’d try to save the babe.” Tyrion smiled. “Have some of this cheese, it goes splendidly with the wine. Tell me, why did you choose Deem for that unhappy task?”
“A good commander knows his men, Tyrion. Some are good for one job, some for another. Doing for a babe, and her still on the tit, that takes a certain sort. Not every man’d do it. Even if it was only some whore and her whelp.”
“I suppose that’s so,” said Tyrion, hearing only some whore and thinking of Shae, and Tysha long ago, and all the other women who had taken his coin and his seed over the years.
Slynt went on, oblivious. “A hard man for a hard job, was Deem. Did as he was told, and never a word afterward. A shame what happened to him. No doubt, one of the other whores, with a dagger in the dark perhaps? You should give Deem justice, Tyrion, and a tight rope for the whores.”
Justice would be a heavy pouch of gold for them, I think, or whoever rid the realm of Allar Deem.
He cut a slice off the cheese. “This is fine. Sharp. Give me a good sharp knife and a good sharp cheese and I’m a happy man.”
Tyrion shrugged. “Enjoy it while you can. With the riverlands in flame, Renly king in Highgarden, and Stannis as king of ships, good cheese will soon be hard to come by. So who sent you after the whore’s bastard?”
Lord Janos gave Tyrion a wary look, then laughed and wagged a wedge of cheese at him. “You’re a sly one, Tyrion. Thought you could trick me, did you? It takes more than wine and cheese to make Janos Slynt tell more than he should. I pride myself. Never a question, and never a word afterward, not with me.”
“As with Deem.”
“Just the same. He would have made for a fine commander.”
Tyrion broke off a nibble of the cheese. It was sharp indeed, and veined with wine; very choice. “Whoever the king names will not have an easy time stepping into your armor, I can tell. Lord Mormont faces the same problem.”
Lord Janos looked puzzled. “I thought she was a lady. Mormont. Beds down with bears, that’s the one?”
“It was her brother I was speaking of. Jeor Mormont, the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. When I was visiting with him on the Wall, he mentioned how concerned he was about finding a good man to take his place. The Watch gets so few good men these days.” Tyrion grinned. “He’d sleep easier if he had a man like you, I imagine. Or the ghost of valiant Allar Deem.”
Lord Janos roared. “Small chance of that!”
“One would think,” Tyrion said, “but life does take queer turns. Consider me, my lord. I managed the sewers of Lannisport as a youth. The filth never flowed better or more smoothly away from the city. I hope to accomplish that here as well, you see. Might I have a look at your spear?”
“My spear?” Lord Janos blinked in confusion.
Tyrion pointed. “The clasp that fastens your cape.”
Hesitantly, Lord Janos drew out the ornament and handed it to Tyrion.
“We have goldsmiths in Lannisport who do better work,” he opined. “The red enamel blood is a shade much, if you don’t mind my saying. Tell me, my lord, did you drive bloody your spear yourself, or did you only dip it into a red puddle after?”
“Lord Stark was a traitor.” The bald spot in the middle of Slynt’s head was beet-red, and his cloth-of-gold cape had slithered off his shoulders onto the floor. “The man tried to buy me.”
“Not knowing that you had already been sold.”
Slynt slammed down his wine cup. “Are you drunk? If you think I will sit here and have my honor questioned ...”
“What honor is that? A lordship and a castle for a spear thrust in the back, and you didn’t even need to thrust the spear.” He tossed the golden ornament back to Janos Slynt. It bounced off his chest and clattered to the floor as the man rose.
“I don't like your tone, Imp,” Janos Slynt snapped. “I am the Lord of Harrenhal and a member of the king’s council. Who are you to speak to me like this?”
Tyrion tilted his head, his voice cool. “I think you know exactly who I am. How many sons do you have?”
“What business are my sons of yours, dwarf?”
Tyrion’s eyes hardened. “Dwarf?” he echoed, voice rising. “You should’ve stopped at ‘Imp.’ I am Tyrion of House Lannister, and one day, if you have the sense of a sea slug, you’ll thank the gods it was me you dealt with, and not my father. Now, I’ll ask again, how many sons?”
Fear flickered across Slynt’s face. “Th-three, my lord. And a daughter. Please—”
“No need to beg,” Tyrion said, rising from his chair. “Your sons will be treated well. The younger two will be fostered out as squires, if they serve loyally, perhaps they’ll earn knighthood. Your eldest will keep your name and sigil,” he nudged the gaudy golden spear across the floor with his boot, “and be granted lands to build his own seat. Not Harrenhal, but enough. As for your daughter, well, he’ll have to make a marriage for her himself.”
Slynt had turned pale. “Wh-what ... what do you ... ?” His jowls were quivering like mounds of suet.
“What do I mean to do with you?” Tyrion let the oaf tremble for a moment before he answered. “The carrack Summer’s Dream sails on the morning tide. Her master tells me she will call at Gulltown, the Three Sisters, the isle of Skagos, and Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. When you see Lord Commander Mormont, give him my fond regards, and tell him that I have not forgotten the needs of the Night’s Watch. I wish you long life and good service, my lord.”
Once Janos Slynt realized he was not to be summarily executed, color returned to his face. He thrust his jaw out. “We will see about this, Imp. Dwarf. Perhaps it will be you on that ship, what do you think of that? Perhaps it will be you on the Wall.” He gave a bark of anxious laughter. “You and your threats, well, we will see. I am the king’s friend, you know. We shall hear what Joffrey has to say about this. And the queen, oh, yes. Janos Slynt has a good many friends. We will see who goes sailing, I promise you. Indeed we will.”
He turned sharply and stormed toward the doors, only to halt dead as they swung open. A tall, broad-shouldered man stood waiting, clad in black breastplate and a gold cloak. An iron hand was strapped to the stump of his right wrist. “Janos,” he said, deep-set eyes glinting under a prominent brow ridge and a shock of salt-and-pepper hair. Six gold cloaks moved quietly into the Small Hall behind him as Janos Slynt backed away.
“Lord Slynt,” Tyrion called out, “I believe you know Ser Jacelyn Bywater, our new Commander of the City Watch.”
“We’ve a litter waiting for you, my lord,” Bywater said, calm and courteous. “The docks are distant, and the streets are dark. Men.”
The gold cloaks surrounded Slynt, guiding him out. As they went, Tyrion handed Bywater a sealed parchment. “A long voyage can be lonely. These five will accompany him.”
Bywater glanced over the names and smiled. “As you will.”
Ser Jacelyn bowed and took his leave, his cloak rippling behind him. He trod on Slynt’s cloth-of-gold cape on his way. Tyrion sat alone, sipping at what remained of the fine sweet Dornish wine. Servants came and went, clearing the dishes from the table. He told them to leave the wine. When they were done, Varys came gliding into the hall, wearing flowing lavender robes that matched his smell. “Oh sweetly done, my good lord.”
“Then why do I have this bitter taste in my mouth?” He pressed his fingers into his temples. “If Allar Deem were still amongst the living, I would have told them to throw him into the sea. I am sorely tempted to do the same with you.”
“You might be disappointed by the result,” Varys replied. “The storms come and go, the waves crash overhead, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling. Might I trouble you for a taste of the wine that Lord Slynt enjoyed so much?”
Tyrion waved at the flagon, frowning. Varys filled a cup. “Ah. Sweet as summer.” He took another sip. “I hear the grapes singing on my tongue.”
“I wondered what that noise was. Tell the grapes to keep still, my head is about to split. It was my sister. That was what the oh-so-loyal Lord Janos refused to say. Cersei sent the gold cloaks to that brothel.”
Varys tittered nervously. So he had known all along.
“You left that part out,” Tyrion said accusingly.
“Your own sweet sister,” Varys said, so grief-stricken he looked close to tears. “It is a hard thing to tell a man, my lord. I was fearful how you might take it. Can you forgive me?”
“No,” Tyrion snapped. “Damn you. Damn her.” He could not touch Cersei, he knew. Not yet, not even if he’d wanted to, and he was far from certain that he did. Yet it rankled, to sit here and make a mummer’s show of justice by punishing the sorry likes of Janos Slynt, while his sister continued on her savage course. “In future, you will tell me what you know, Lord Varys. All of what you know.”
The eunuch’s smile was sly. “That might take rather a long time, my good lord. I know quite a lot.”
“Not enough to save this child, it would seem.”
“Alas, no. There was another bastard, a boy, older. I would have intervened there but… no sense in talking of fruits unplucked and I have been dreadfully occupied, but I confess, I never dreamed the babe would be at risk. A baseborn girl, less than a year old, with a whore for a mother. What threat could she pose?”
“She was Robert’s,” Tyrion said bitterly. “That was enough for Cersei, it would seem.”
“Yes. It is grievous sad. I must blame myself for the poor sweet babe and her mother, who was so young and loved the king.”
“Did she?” Tyrion had never seen the dead girl’s face, but in his mind she was Shae and Tysha both. “Can a whore truly love anyone, I wonder? No, don’t answer. Some things I would rather not know.”
Sighing, Tyrion started to reach for the wine again, then remembered Lord Janos and pushed the flagon away. “When Joffrey had the Northmen executed, with their lord’s own sword, what advice did you give him?” He demanded.
“I could not have, my lord,” Varys tittered nervously. “Kings, occasionally, do not wait for advice before taking strong action.”
“You are the spider,” Tyrion said, “are we not all suspended in your web?”
“Kings,” Varys smiled, “are above such fears.”
So I am not, Tyrion thought, you damned eunuch.
“Why are you so helpful, my lord Varys?” he asked, studying the man’s soft hands, the bald powdered face, the slimy little smile.
“You are the Hand. I serve the realm, the king, and you.”
“As you served Jon Arryn and Eddard Stark?”
“I served Lord Arryn and Lord Stark as best I could. I was saddened and horrified by Lord Arryn’s most untimely death. As for Lord Eddard, with this much time having passed, we may have to believe in another untimely demise as well.”
Varys’ eyes were all empty tragedy.
“Think how I feel. I’m like to be next.”
“Oh, I think not,” Varys said, swirling the wine in his cup. “Power is a curious thing, my lord. Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?”
“It has crossed my mind a time or two,” Tyrion admitted. “The king, the priest, the rich man—who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It’s a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.”
“And yet he is no one,” Varys said. “He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel.”
“Steel in your hand, I have learnt, is the power of life and death.”
“Just so ... yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?”
“Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords. And I seem to recall from the tales that a strong man with an axe did not bother to bow before Joffrey?”
“Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they? Whence came their swords? Why do they obey?” Varys smiled. “Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Should it derive from steel, shall we then pray to smiths?”
Tyrion cocked his head sideways. “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?”
Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”
“So power is a mummer’s trick?”
“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. A mummer’s dragon may yet breath fire. And oft-times a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”
Tyrion smiled. “Lord Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I’d feel sad about it.”
“I will take that as high praise.”
“What are you, Varys?” Tyrion found he truly wanted to know. “A spider, they say.”
“Spies and informers are seldom loved, my lord. I am but a loyal servant of the realm.”
“And a eunuch. Let us not forget that.”
“I seldom do.”
“People have called me a halfman too, yet I think the gods have been kinder to me. I am small, my legs are twisted, and women do not look upon me with any great yearning ... yet I’m still a man. Dwarfs are a jape of the gods ... but men make eunuchs. Who cut you, Varys? When and why? Who are you, truly?”
The eunuch’s smile never flickered, but his eyes glittered with something that was not laughter. “You are kind to ask, my lord, but my tale is long and sad, and we have treasons to discuss.” He drew a parchment from the sleeve of his robe. “The master of the King’s Galley White Hart plots to slip anchor three days hence to offer his sword and ship to Lord Stannis.”
Tyrion sighed. “I suppose we must make some bloody lesson out of the man?”
“Ser Jacelyn could arrange for him to vanish, but a trial before the king would help assure the continued loyalty of the other captains.”
And keep my royal nephew occupied as well. “As you say. Put him down for a dose of Joffrey’s justice.”
Varys made a mark on the parchment. “Ser Horas and Ser Hobber Redwyne have bribed a guard to let them out of a postern gate, the night after next. Arrangements have been made for them to sail on the Pentoshi galley Moonrunner, disguised as oarsmen.”
“Can we keep them on those oars for a few years, see how they fancy it?” He smiled. “No, my sister would be distraught to lose such treasured guests. Inform Ser Jacelyn. Seize the man they bribed and explain what an honor it is to serve as a brother of the Night’s Watch. And have men posted around the Moonrunner, in case the Redwynes find a second guard short of coin.”
The eunuch gave a nervous giggle and made another mark. “We also have a sudden plague of holy men. The twin-tailed comet has brought forth all manner of queer priests, preachers, and prophets, it would seem. They beg in the winesinks and pot-shops and foretell doom to anyone who stops to listen. They speak of a most queer phrase but I must admit, it is one that sends shivers. The End Times, they call it. That the comet brings an end; an end to summer, to light, to life.”
Tyrion thought of those madmen he saw on the streets. “How morbidly poetic. We are close on the three hundredth year since Aegon’s Landing, I suppose it is only to be expected. Let them rant.”
Though, for some reason, he felt a slight tingle in his spine. The End of Times, he mused, a most dreary phrase. How can time end?
“They are spreading fear, my lord. Already, mad men stalk the street, whipping and flogging themselves for repentance and purity.”
“They are stealing your job then?”
Varys covered his mouth with his hand. “You are very cruel to say so.”
“Still,” Tyrion admitted. “A troubling sight. Inform Ser Jacelyn as well. Have his men bring order, or whatever is closest to it.”
“You are as wise as you are gentle, my lord.” The parchment vanished up the eunuch’s sleeve. “Oh,” Varys gasped fakely, “I fear I shall be remiss as a loyal councillor if I do not make mention of a most useful talent I have recently worked with. A young man with deft hands and fingers, if you understand. Gaven is his name, a false name for sure, but the mask is sufficient, if not the man behind. You would find him in Flea Bottom, of course.”
Tyrion nodded. “High praise, coming from you.”
Varys tittered. “We both have much to do. I shall leave you.”
When the eunuch had departed, Tyrion sat for a long time watching the candle and wondering how his sister would take the news of Janos Slynt’s dismissal. Not happily, if he was any judge, but beyond sending an angry protest to Lord Tywin in Harrenhal, he did not see what Cersei could hope to do about it. Tyrion had the City Watch now, plus a hundred-and-a-half fierce clansmen and a growing force of sellswords recruited by Bronn. He would seem well protected.
Doubtless Eddard Stark thought the same.
The Red Keep was dark and still when Tyrion left the Small Hall. Bronn was waiting in his solar. “Slynt?” he asked.
“Lord Janos will be sailing for the Wall on the morning tide. Varys would have me believe that I have replaced one of Joffrey’s men with one of my own. More likely, I have replaced Littlefinger’s man with one belonging to Varys, but so be it.”
“You’d best know, Timett killed a man—”
“Varys told me.”
The sellsword seemed unsurprised. “The fool figured a one-eyed man would be easier to cheat. Timett pinned his wrist to the table with a dagger and ripped out his throat barehanded. He has this trick where he stiffens his fingers—”
“Spare me the grisly details, my supper is sitting badly in my belly,” Tyrion said. “How goes your recruiting?”
“Well enough. Three new men tonight.”
“How do you know which ones to hire?”
“I look them over. I question them, to learn where they’ve fought and how well they lie.” Bronn smiled. “And then I give them a chance to kill me, while I do the same for them.”
“Have you killed any?”
“No one we could have used.”
“And if one of them kills you?”
“He’ll be one you’ll want to hire.”
“Speaking of,” Tyrion rubbed his weary eyes, “Varys mentioned a name. Gaven.”
“Flea Bottom?”
“Where else?” Tyrion gave him a crooked smile. “A talented thief, if I were to believe Varys’ words. It may be worth hiring him. I have plenty of men who can steal lives with steel. Mayhaps, a man with more… finesse is needed as well.”
Notes:
Chapter Reference: ACOK, Tyrion I and II
I have always enjoyed Small Council scenes, and I do look forward to writing more of those as the political landscape becomes more and more altered. Next chapter will be Cat's!
Chapter 52: Catelyn I
Summary:
"The Mother gives the gift of life,
and watches over every wife.
Her gentle smile ends all strife,
and she loves her little children." - Song of the Seven
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Her son’s eyes were cold and wintry, like the white, merciless judgement of winter itself on the unworthy and the weak.
When the guards brought in the captive, Robb called for his sword. Olyvar Frey offered it up hilt-first, and her son drew the blade and laid it bare across his knees, a silent threat plain for all to see. “My lord, here is the man you asked for,” announced Ser Robin Ryger, captain of the Tully household guard.
“Kneel before the wolf, Lannister!” Theon Greyjoy shouted, a smirk dancing across his lips. Ser Robin forced the prisoner to his knees.
Catelyn studied the man. He did not look the lion. Ser Cleos Frey, a son of Lady Genna, Tywin Lannister’s sister, had none of the famed Lannister allure: no golden hair, no green eyes. Instead, he bore the unfortunate features of his father, Ser Emmon Frey, Lord Walder’s second son. Stringy brown hair, a weak chin, and a long, narrow face. His pale, watery eyes blinked ceaselessly, though perhaps that was the fault of the light. The dungeons beneath Riverrun were dark, damp… and lately, far too full.
“Rise, Ser Cleos.” Her son’s voice was as icy as his father’s would have been. War had carved a man of him before his time. He had grown an inch or two since leaving Winterfell, and his arms were stronger, his eyes colder. Morning light glimmered faintly against the edge of the steel across his knees.
Yet it was not the sword that made Ser Cleos Frey anxious; it was the beasts.
Grey Wind, lean and smoke-dark, with eyes like molten gold, padded forward and sniffed at the captive knight. Nymeria circled around Cleos Frey, growling low. The mother wolf sat by Robb’s feet, her eyes glimmering and watching. Every man in that hall could smell the scent of fear. Ser Cleos had been taken during the battle in the Whispering Wood, where Grey Wind had ripped out the throats of half a dozen men, and his mother had savaged thrice as many.
The Greatjon had been heard to say that the Old Gods had sent the wolves to her children, and Catelyn could not find it in her to disagree vehemently. Six wolves for six children, Catelyn thought, and the mother wolf was saved by the man who would save Ned. She did not know what to make of it in truth. It was the light of the Seven that she had been raised in … but she was starting to believe that her husband’s gods sent the wolves.
The knight scrambled to his feet, edging away with such alacrity that some of the watchers laughed aloud. “Thank you, my lord.”
“I brought you from your cell to carry my message to your cousin Cersei Lannister in King’s Landing. You’ll travel under a grey banner, with thirty men to escort you.”
Ser Cleos was visibly nervous. “Then I should be most glad to bring your message to the queen.”
A grey banner, Catelyn reflected, not the white.
There would be no peace, not yet. Not while the Lannisters ruled from King’s Landing, not while her husband was still on Dragonstone. It was Ned’s words that had bound them to Stannis, King Stannis now, as much as Robb’s own.
“Understand,” Robb said, “I am not giving you your freedom. Your grandfather Lord Walder pledged me his support and that of House Frey. Many of your cousins and uncles rode with us in the Whispering Wood, but you chose to fight beneath the lion banner. That makes you a Lannister, not a Frey. I want your pledge, on your honor as a knight, that after you deliver my message you’ll return with the queen’s reply, and resume your captivity.”
Ser Cleos answered at once. “I do so vow.”
“Every man in this hall has heard you,” warned Catelyn’s brother Ser Edmure Tully, who spoke for Riverrun and the lords of the Trident in the place of their dying father. “If you do not return, the whole realm will know you forsworn.”
“I will do as I pledged,” Ser Cleos replied stiffly. “What is this message?”
“Demands,” Robb stood, longsword in hand. Grey Wind and Nymeria moved to his side. The hall grew hushed. “A declaration.”
“Olyvar, the paper,” he commanded. The squire took his longsword and handed up a rolled parchment.
Robb unrolled it, the parchment crackling. “First, let all men hear the words of the North and the Riverlands. Joffrey Baratheon is not worthy to sit upon the Iron Throne. We have taken Stannis Baratheon as our king; not Joffrey, nor Renly.”
Catelyn Stark wished she could read the thoughts that hid behind each face, each furrowed brow and pair of tightened lips.
“Second, the queen must release my sisters and provide them with transport by sea from King’s Landing to White Harbor. It is to be understood that Sansa’s betrothal to Joffrey is at an end.”
“Third, the remains of the men and women of my father’s household who died in his service at King’s Landing must be returned.”
“Fourth, my father’s greatsword Ice will be delivered to my hand, here at Riverrun.”
She watched her brother Ser Edmure Tully as he stood with his thumbs hooked over his swordbelt, his face as still as stone.
“Fifth, the queen will command her father Lord Tywin to release those knights and lords bannermen of mine that he took captive in the battle on the Green Fork of the Trident. Once he does so, I shall release my own captives taken in the Whispering Wood and the Battle of the Camps, save Jaime Lannister alone, who will remain my hostage for his father’s good behavior.”
She studied Theon Greyjoy’s sly smile, wondering what it meant. That young man had a way of looking as though he knew some secret jest that only he was privy to; Catelyn had never liked it.
“Lastly, let it be known that this is no offer of peace. All good men and true of the North and the Trident shall bear their steel in service of their true king. There is no need for a declaration of war, for Lord Tywin has proclaimed his blood desire with smoke and fire. If these demands are not met, no mercy will be shown for the Westermen to be captured in the coming battles.”
“These are the terms. If she meets them, I’ll give her mercy. If not”—he whistled, and the wolves came snarling—“Winter will come.”
Ser Cleos had gone the color of curdled milk. “The queen shall hear your message, my lord.”
“Then we are done.” The assembled knights and lords bannermen bowed as Robb turned to leave, the wolves at his heels. Olyvar Frey scrambled ahead to open the door. Catelyn followed them out, her brother at her side.
“You did well,” she told her son in the gallery that led from the rear of the hall, “though that business with the wolf was japery more befitting a boy than a lord.”
Robb scratched Grey Wind behind the ear. “Did you see the look on his face, Mother?” he asked, smiling coldly. “These wolves are no japes. Nay, they are reminders; of what they do in war, what they can do in winter.”
“As you say,” Catelyn replied.
“War,” Edmure said, “war there is. The Lannisters spread like a pestilence over my father’s domains, stealing his crops and slaughtering his people. I say again, we ought to be marching on Harrenhal.”
“A risk, uncle,” Robb reminded. “Not even with an army a hundred thousand strong can we storm that accursed keep.” He said unhappily.
Edmure persisted. “Do we grow stronger sitting here? Our host dwindles every day.”
“And whose doing is that?” Catelyn snapped at her brother. It had been at Edmure’s insistence that Robb had agreed that the river lords should, depart after their declaration for Stannis, each to defend his own lands. Ser Marq Piper and Lord Karyl Vance had been the first to go. Lord Jonos Bracken had followed, vowing to reclaim the burnt shell of his castle and bury his dead, and now Lord Jason Mallister had announced his intent to return to his seat at Seagard, still mercifully untouched by the fighting.
“You cannot ask my river lords to remain idle while their fields are being pillaged and their people put to the sword,” Ser Edmure said.
“No, we cannot,” Robb agreed.
“Cersei Lannister will never free your sisters,” said Catelyn.
Robb nodded. “I know.”
“Then, why send those offers?” Edmure pressed. “They will never give those girls up, nor your father’s sword. Bones mayhaps.”
“It is our right,” Robb reminded, “to make those demands. It is a reminder.”
“They are caught between three blades,” Catelyn murmured, thinking, realising. “Renly at Highgarden, Stannis at Dragonstone, and here…”
“We are not marching on Lord Tywin, uncle,” Robb said, calmly, “because we do not need to. He sits at Harrenhall, his gaze torn north and south and east. We have lost men, true, but we have lost them for the nonce as they protect their lands and slay Westermen. Tywin Lannister is losing men to death, to disease, desertion.”
“And those demands,” Cat mused, “will be read in the Small Council. The court if we are fortunate.”
“A reminder of their position,” Robb nodded.
“And your sisters?” Catelyn questioned. “Would this not provoke a response?”
“And would their response not provoke one from us?”
“He is right,” Edmure admitted, unhappily. She knew well and clear the reason for his displeasure. He was soon to be wed … when the war was ended. Her brother had not taken the news well, but Robb would not budge. And even Edmure cannot meet his gaze for long now, Catelyn observed. There was a growing coldness in her son’s eyes, one that she worried after.
“This declaration,” Catelyn asked, “will King Stannis not frown upon it?”
“Will he?” Robb wondered. “We have taken the Kingslayer, broken a Lannister host, and we appear to be the only kingdoms to have declared for him.”
“Would your father agree to this?”
“I do not know, Mother,” he said drily. No more ravens had come from Dragonstone since the first. Along their corridor, Nymeria had bounded off somewhere.
“It is a long distance,” Edmure reminded them. “Dragonstone and Riverrun. And Harrenhal sits athwart us. Ravens can be shot down.”
He is right, Catelyn thought, though her heart did not settle.
“Mother, are you certain you will not consent to go to the Twins? You would be farther from the fighting, and you could acquaint yourself with Lord Frey’s daughters to help Ser Edmure choose his bride when the war is done.”
Her brother’s frown grew into a scowl. “And that matter…”
“Is concluded,” Robb said, coldly. “If not for the Twins, we would not have arrived in time. You would still be a prisoner of the Kingslayer, uncle.” He reminded.
Edmure’s face flushed, but he remained silent.
“Edmure can decide which of Walder’s brood he wants,” Catelyn said.
“Then, to Winterfell,” Robb suggested. “Or White Harbour. Ride with the Mallisters as they escort the captives to Seagard, and take the Kingsroad north.”
“My lord father has little enough time remaining in him. So long as your grandfather lives, my place is at Riverrun with him.”
Robb sighed. “Very well, Mother.”
“Speaking of Seagard,” Edmure said, “what did you discuss with Lord Mallister?”
“The Ironborn.”
A cold hand closed around Catelyn’s heart. “You do not intend to send Theon to them, do you?”
Robb smiled. It was a rare sight these days, she thought suddenly. War had melted the boy and his smiles like ice, leaving behind a cold man. His smile flashed like the sun in winter, Catelyn thought forlornly, bright and sharp and gone too soon.
“No,” Robb said. “I suspect King Stannis will not be pleased at that. The demands to the Lannisters is one thing, negotiating with the Ironborn is another. I have informed Lord Mallister to keep his eyes west.”
“Good,” Edmure nodded.
“This business with High Heart,” Catelyn said, the thought surfacing unbidden.
“What of it, Mother?” Robb met her eyes, steady.
“The south will not react well,” she warned.
“What is the south now?” He laughed. “Renly? Dorne? Joffrey in King’s Landing?”
“Even so,” Catelyn said slowly, “it is-”
“I agree with it,” Edmure interjected. “It is savage, aye, but a purposeful kind. No more savage than what Tywin Lannister has done to my people; farmers and fishermen and children. Let the men of the West know fear for once.”
“They will,” Robb promised.
Edmure nodded reluctantly. “I need to have a word with those new bowmen Ser Desmond is training.”
“Go, uncle,” Robb said. It struck Catelyn, not for the first time, how strange it was to hear her son commanding her brother beneath her father’s roof.
“Will you visit your grandfather with me?” She said instead. If he still lives.
Robb did not speak at once, but he nodded. “Mother, I-”
“There is no need,” she said softly, placing a hand against his cheek. She dared not to act the mother around his lords and men, but here, with no witness but the stone of her father’s halls, she could allow herself the softness of motherhood.
“I understand.”
The shortest way to the central keep where her father lay dying was through the godswood, with its grass and wildflowers and thick stands of elm and redwood. A wealth of rustling leaves still clung to the branches of the trees, all ignorant of the word the white raven had brought to Riverrun a fortnight past. Autumn had come, the Conclave had declared, but the gods had not seen fit to tell the winds and woods as yet. For that Catelyn was duly grateful. Autumn was always a fearful time, with the specter of winter looming ahead. Even the wisest man never knew whether his next harvest would be the last.
This one will be hard, Catelyn almost despaired. A long summer means a long winter, or so they say. And half the fields in the riverlands have been burnt or drowned with blood.
Hoster Tully, Lord of Riverrun, lay abed in his solar, where once he had stood tall and proud, watching the meeting of the Tumblestone and the Red Fork beyond the castle walls. Now he slept beneath the light of that same eastern window, his hair and beard as white as his featherbed, his once-portly frame shrunken and frail, hollowed out by the death that gnawed at him day by day.
Beside the bed, still clad in mail and a cloak stained from the road, sat her uncle, the Blackfish. His boots were dusty, crusted with dried mud.
“Ser Brynden?” Robb greeted.
“Robb,” he nodded. The Blackfish was a tall, lean man, grey of hair and precise in his movements, his clean-shaven face lined and windburnt. “I have tidings that you will want to hear but…”
Ser Brynden Tully was Robb’s eyes and ears, the commander of his scouts and outriders. There were no men they could trust more.
“Please,” Robb said, bowing his head slightly. “At your time.”
Her uncle nodded gratefully. “How is he?”
“Much the same. The maester gives him dreamwine and milk of the poppy for his pain, so he sleeps most of the time, and eats too little. He seems weaker with each day that passes.”
“Does he speak?”
“Yes ... but there is less and less sense to the things he says. He talks of his regrets, of unfinished tasks, of people long dead and times long past. Sometimes he does not know what season it is, or who I am. Once he called me by Mother’s name.”
“He misses her still,” Ser Brynden answered. “You have her face. I can see it in your cheekbones, and your jaw ...”
“You remember more of her than I do. It has been a long time.”
She seated herself on the bed and brushed away a strand of fine white hair that had fallen across her father’s face.
“Each time I ride out, I wonder if I shall find him alive or dead on my return,” Ser Brynden said softly. Despite their quarrels, despite years of silence and stubborn pride, there was a thread between the brothers that war and age had not severed.
“At least you made your peace with him,” Catelyn murmured.
“We both knew time was short,” the Blackfish said. “But I am glad for it.”
They sat a while in silence, listening to the faint breath of her father’s sleep, the rustling of the godswood outside the open windows, the muffled life of Riverrun beyond these high, fading walls. Catelyn felt the quiet in her bones, heavy and still. Yet it was not a dead stillness, it was a waiting. A kind of presence, as though the room were not empty, but watched.
“You spoke of tidings,” she said at last, raising her head. “Tidings we needed to hear?”
As if stirred by her voice, Lord Hoster moaned softly, shifting onto his side. His eyes opened, clouded, bloodshot, but alert. The movement startled them both.
“Cat…?” His voice rasped from a throat dry as parchment.
“I’m here, Father,” she said quickly, taking his hand in both of hers. It felt fragile as a bird’s wing.
For a moment he looked at her, truly looked, and she saw a rare light kindle behind his eyes. His mouth trembled into something like a smile. “You came back… you always came back, my little cat.”
Tears sprang to her eyes unbidden. “I never left you, Father. I was always yours.”
His thin fingers tightened against hers, just barely. “There was something I had to… must… a thing I left undone…”
“Rest now. You’ve done enough.”
“No…” His eyes fluttered, but did not close. “The rivers… the lands… I see them in you. You carry them. She gave them to you.”
“She?” Brynden asked gently.
But Hoster did not answer him. His gaze was fixed on Catelyn, wonder and confusion mingled. “Not Tully,” he whispered, “not only… something older… red hands… red roots…” His breath caught. “She watches you… she watches…”
He blinked, his eyes flicking toward Ser Brynden, who had quietly stepped back, giving them space. Hoster's gaze lingered on the Blackfish for a heartbeat longer than necessary. “Brynden,” he muttered, his voice clearer now. “Still with us, I see. A Tully to the last.”
“I’ve no intention of leaving yet, my lord,” Brynden replied, his voice gruff, but his eyes soft as he looked at his brother.
Hoster grunted softly, but there was a flicker of something in his gaze. “You were always the last to listen,” he said with a weak laugh. Then his attention shifted, and he turned his gaze to Robb, who stood silently near the bed, as if waiting for his turn to be seen.
“You’ve grown,” Hoster said slowly, eyes narrowing as though trying to see through the veil of age and illness. “I remember… when you were born.”
“I do not, grandfather,” Robb told him, smiling.
“Ha!” Hoster Tully barked. She could not remember when last she heard her father laugh. His lips twisted into something of a grimace. “You are your mother’s son, and your father’s too.”
Robb nodded, though the words seemed to sit heavily on him.
Hoster’s breath rattled in his chest, the weight of his body sinking back into the bed as if the effort had been too much. Catelyn felt her own heartbeat stutter as her father’s eyes fluttered shut once more. But then, with one final, conscious effort, he spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Cat,” he said slowly. “I dreamt of the river…”
His eyelids closed then, and Catelyn's heart sank as the brief light in his eyes faded. She gently smoothed his hair back, wiping away a tear she hadn’t realized had escaped. For a moment, she felt a weight, ancient, old, and quiet, press in on her, as though something was watching her, too, from the shadows of the room.
Brynden stepped forward, laying a firm hand on Robb’s shoulder. His voice was low, but insistent. “Best to let him rest.”
“I don’t want him to go,” Catelyn said quietly, but the words felt hollow as they left her.
“I know,” Brynden said simply. “None of us do. But there is a war to be won.”
With a last look at her father, Catelyn rose to her feet, her hands trembling as she wiped them on the hem of her dress. She exchanged a fleeting glance with Robb, his eyes filled with something unspoken, a flicker of uncertainty, before he stepped back.
They followed Ser Brynden out onto the stone balcony that jutted three-sided from the solar like the prow of a ship, giving them a commanding view of the riverlands below, the world stretched out in quiet desolation. The wind stirred the leaves of the trees, a distant rustling sound that seemed far too peaceful for the tumult of the world below. Her uncle glanced up at the sky, his brow furrowing at the sight. “You can see it by day now,” he muttered, his sharp eyes tracking the faint gold streak that cut across the sky. “My men call it the Red Messenger, and then the Gold… but what is the message?”
Catelyn raised her eyes, following his gaze. The comet loomed overhead, faint but unmistakable, its long, glowing trail scarring the deep blue heavens like a wound across the face of gods. She remembered the first night she had laid her eyes upon the twin-tailed comet. It was a sight that filled her with awe and dread in equal measures. Though she did not understand why, hope and fear bloomed in her heart at the sight of the gold in the sky.
Robb stood beside her, his lips tight as he studied the comet. “The Greatjon told me that the old gods have unfurled a flag of vengeance. Red for lion’s blood,” he muttered. “Gold for the wealth we will take.”
“Edmure thinks it’s an omen of victory for Riverrun. He sees a fish with a long tail, in the Tully colors, red against blue. Fish do not have two tails.” She sighed. “I wish I had their faith. Crimson and gold is a Lannister color.”
“That thing’s not crimson,” Ser Brynden said. “Nor Tully red, the mud red of the river. That’s blood up there, child, smeared across the sky. Blood, and the gold of gods.”
“Whose blood?” Catelyn wondered.
“Was there ever a war where only one side bled?” Her uncle gave a grim shake of the head. “The Riverlands are awash in blood and flame all around the God's Eye. The fighting has spread south to the Blackwater and north across the Trident, almost to the Twins. Marq Piper and Karyl Vance have won some small victories, and this southron lordling Beric Dondarrion has been raiding the raiders, falling upon Lord Tywin’s foraging parties and vanishing back into the woods. It’s said that Ser Burton Crakehall died chasing this Lord Dondarrion. Rode into the woods with two dozen men and they never left.”
“Some of Ned’s guard from King’s Landing are with this Lord Beric,” Catelyn recalled. “May the gods preserve them.”
Robb’s face was cold in concentration.
“Dondarrion and this red priest who rides with him are clever enough to preserve themselves, if the tales be true, and a touch brutal. They’ve left Westermen hanging from trees across the damned land. Word has it that some soldier or hunter has joined them,” her uncle said, “but your father’s bannermen make a sadder tale. You should never have let them go. They’ve scattered like quail, each man trying to protect his own, and it’s folly. Jonos Bracken was wounded in the fighting amidst the ruins of his castle, and his nephew Hendry slain. Tytos Blackwood’s swept the Lannisters off his lands, but they took every cow and pig and speck of grain and left him nothing to defend but Raventree Hall and a scorched desert. Darry men recaptured their lord’s keep but held it less than a fortnight before Gregor Clegane descended on them and put the whole garrison to the sword, even their lord.”
Catelyn was horrorstruck. “Darry was only a child.”
“Aye, and the last of his line as well. The boy would have brought a fine ransom, but what does gold mean to a frothing dog like Gregor Clegane? That beast’s head would make a noble gift for all the people of the realm, I vow. They say the boy’s skull swings from his horse’s saddle.” The Blackfish scowled.
Catelyn knew Ser Gregor’s evil reputation, yet still…
“Clegane is no more than Lord Tywin’s knife,” Robb said, “a brutal blade held in the hand of a butcher.”
“True enough,” Ser Brynden admitted. “And Tywin Lannister is no man’s fool. He sits safe behind the walls of Harrenhal, feeding his host on our harvest and burning what he does not take. Gregor is not the only dog he’s loosed. Ser Amory Lorch is in the field as well, and some sellsword out of Qohor who’d sooner maim a man than kill him. I’ve seen what they leave behind them. Whole villages put to the torch, women raped and mutilated, butchered children left unburied to draw wild dogs ... it would sicken even the dead.”
“When Edmure hears this, he will rage,” Catelyn said, looking at Robb.
“And that will be just as Lord Tywin desires. Even terror has its purpose. Lannister wants to provoke us to battle.” The Blackfish said.
“Aye,” Robb agreed. “A battle is senseless. A siege even more. We strike at his raiders and outriders, and bleed his host.”
“Wise,” Ser Brynden agreed. “Never give the enemy his wish. Lord Tywin would like to fight on a field of his own choosing.”
“We shall choose it for him,” Robb nodded.
“Harrenhal.” Every child of the Trident knew the name, steeped in shadow and ruin. Tales of the fortress loomed as large as its towers, raised by King Harren the Black beside the waters of the Gods Eye three centuries past, in a time when the Seven Kingdoms were still seven, and the riverlands groaned beneath the yoke of the ironborn. In his pride, Harren had desired the highest hall and tallest towers in all Westeros.
It had taken forty years to build, rising like a brooding specter on the lakeshore while Harren’s armies scoured the realm for stone, timber, gold … and flesh. Thousands died to feed his ambition, chained in quarries, lashed to sledges, crushed beneath the weight of his five monstrous towers. Men froze in the winters and withered in summer heat. Even weirwoods, ancient with three thousand years of silent memory, were felled for rafters and beams. Harren beggared both the riverlands and the Iron Islands to adorn his dream. And when at last Harrenhal stood complete, on the very day King Harren took up residence, Aegon the Conqueror had come ashore at King’s Landing.
Catelyn could remember hearing Old Nan tell the story to her own children, back at Winterfell. “And King Harren learned that thick walls and high towers are small use against dragons,” the tale always ended. “For dragons fly.” Harren and all his line had burned in the fires that engulfed his monstrous keep. Every house that held Harrenhal since had met ruin. Strong it might be, but dark it was, and cursed beyond doubt.
“There is more,” the Blackfish admitted gruffly. “The men I sent west have brought back word that a new host is gathering at Casterly Rock.”
Another Lannister army. The thought made her ill. “Under whose command?”
“Ser Stafford Lannister, it’s said.” Her uncle turned his gaze back to the waters, his red-and-blue cloak swirling around him like a storm cloud. “An old man, and a bit of a dullard, but he has a son, Ser Daven, who is more formidable.”
Catelyn's brow furrowed, and she exchanged a quick glance with Robb. A formidable Lannister was a danger to them all, no matter his age. “How many?” Robb asked, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade.
“Ten thousand perhaps, or slightly more,” the Blackfish shrugged. “We have some time yet before we must face them. This lot will be sellswords, freeriders, and green boys from the stews of Lannisport. Ser Stafford must see that they are armed and drilled before he dares risk battle… and make no mistake, Lord Tywin is not the Kingslayer. He will not rush in heedless. He will wait patiently for Ser Stafford to march before he stirs from behind the walls of Harrenhal.”
But Robb would not wait.
“He will not sit there so comfortably when his lands are burning,” Robb declared, his voice firm with the weight of command. There was a fire in his eyes, a cold resolve that mirrored his father’s. “Lord Tywin cannot hide behind the walls of Harrenhal forever.”
“You mean to strike west?” Catelyn asked.
“We should,” Ser Brynden agreed.
“The men grow restless,” Robb explained. “So far, we have been defending, and defending well.”
“But we need to do more,” the Blackfish nodded.
“More,” Robb agreed, a hungry look in his eyes. Grey Wind tilted his head curiously, and the mother wolf’s golden eyes stared at him. “If the West is ravaged, Lord Tywin will have to march forth and give battle. Else, his men will sit and wait, and each lord and knight will hear of their lands burnt and castles taken.”
“Even the chains of fear can be rusted with doubt,” Brynden Tully said.
“The Golden Tooth stands in your way,” Catelyn reminded them.
“Can your men find ways to bypass the Tooth?” Robb looked at the Blackfish. “Goat trails, mountain paths…”
“Aye, perhaps,” the Blackfish looked thoughtful. “We can interrogate some of the Lefford men we have, ask the shepherds.”
The mother wolf licked at Robb’s hand, and her son blinked. “Are you offering?” he asked with slight amusement. The wolf only tilted her head. A curious sight, thought Catelyn. A direwolf, near as large as a horse, tilting her head curiously.
“Those wolves may prove useful,” the Blackfish looked reluctant.
The mother wolf trotted towards him, licking his glove. Ser Brynden reluctantly stroked her fur. “My father’s wolf seems to agree,” declared Robb with a smile.
“Your father’s wolf?” she wondered.
“Do you claim her, Mother?” Robb raised an auburn eyebrow.
“No,” she shook her head, smiling.
“It will be hard for an army to cross,” Ser Brynden reminded her son. “And slow.”
“On foot, yes,”
“Ah,” the Blackfish realised in an instant. “You will send horsemen across.”
“The west must burn,” declared Robb.
“It will be done,” Ser Brynden promised.
All this talk of war, Catelyn thought, it felt strange and feverish to hear from her son’s mouth. He should be laughing, she lamented, and talking to a girl. Not discussing burning lands and killing men. He has grown too fast.
The Seven take the Lannisters, she thought bitterly. She cursed Cersei Lannister; and her son, and her father, and her brothers. And she cursed herself.
Her musings were broken with rushed footsteps approaching them and the cry of “My lord, my lady!” Jory thundered towards them. His face was stern and cold; the man had hardly smiled since he had arrived. He had begged the honour of fighting with the outriders, constantly skirmishing with the Lannisters, from Pinkmaiden to Stone Hedge… and to High Heart. A fell deed was done there, but Catelyn could not find it in her heart to protest too loudly. He held a yellowed scroll in his hand, rolled and sealed.
“Jory,” Robb nodded, “what has happened?”
“The Maester sent me,” the one-eyed man said grimly, “Word from Dragonstone.”
Catelyn’s heart fluttered like a bird in a storm. She looked to her son, saw the flicker of a smile tug at the corner of his mouth as he took the message. “Stay, Jory. You as well, Ser Brynden.”
As her son unrolled the letter, she saw his face turn in confusion. Robb blinked, reading the words again. “What does it say?” Catelyn urged.
There had been nights, long and lonely nights, where she feared the first letter had been no more than a cruel jest. A Lannister ploy, perhaps. Or worse, some false hope her heart had conjured to fill the emptiness. The more she had dwelled on it, the more it unraveled. And so, she had buried the doubt deep, locked it away.
Robb read aloud, haltingly, “Father asks after you… and all the children. He dreamt of Bran and Rickon fighting, and that you may need to step in to quell the thunder.”
He looked at her, puzzled. “That’s all he wrote.”
“Code,” the Blackfish deduced instantly.
“Bran is the second son,” Catelyn mused, reading the words carefully, “and Rickon the youngest. Just as Stannis and Renly. And this talk of quelling the thunder, it must mean Storm’s End.”
Robb turned to her uncle. “Where is Renly now?”
“Last we heard, marching for Bitterbridge,” said the Blackfish.
“Then King Stannis sails for Storm’s End.” Robb’s voice grew distant, calculating. “The Narrow Sea houses… How many men, do you think?”
“Not many,” the Blackfish said grimly, “a few thousand at most.”
“This talk of fighting with Renly… folly,” Catelyn despaired. “Cersei Lannister will laugh herself mad once she hears this. Renly is a boy playing with a crown, the Lannisters are the danger.”
“A boy with all the might of the Reach,” Brynden Tully reminded her. “The Baratheons have always been stubborn men, and Stannis is stubborn enough for three. Still, I do not think it is as folly as you think. If Renly were to take King’s Landing, taking it from him would be a tad more difficult than taking bread from a child’s fingers. Stannis cannot let his little brother prance about with an army.”
“An army,” Robb said. “They say he has a hundred thousand men, or near enough that it counts as such. How will Stannis prevail? We cannot march there as well, nor in time. Father…”
“Bitterbridge is no stone’s throw from Storm’s End,” Ser Brynden assured them. “Nor has Renly heard of this, I am sure. Most likely, Renly will lead a detachment of men to confront his brother.”
“Even his cavalry alone must outnumber Stannis’ host,” she said, her heart pounding with fear. “Ned will be there, by Stannis’ side. And Storm’s End is Renly’s.”
“Stannis is a fine commander,” Ser Brynden said gently, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“He will need Aegon’s dragons to win against those numbers,” she said. “Perhaps… Perhaps there can still be peace between those two…”
“Can there?” Robb asked, his gaze steady on her. “You wish to be there, Mother.”
She met his eyes. “I must try. Perhaps a woman’s voice may reach them where armies cannot.”
“A godly voice is needed for those brothers,” the Blackfish grumbled.
“And King Stannis will want an envoy from us. We might have declared for him, but he is a prickly man. He will want bent knees. Who else represents the North and the Riverlands better?” She said stubbornly. And in her heart, she whispered, and I must see Ned.
“There is some truth in that,” her uncle admitted with a sigh. He did not seem pleased with the idea, but he would not disagree with her. Her son’s face was a dance of conflict; doubt, worry, fear, and thought … and resignation.
“Very well,” Robb said at last, “but you will not go alone. You will ride with five hundred horse. One hundred light and four hundred heavy riders. Ser Wendel Manderly and Ser Perwyn Frey will go with you. Jory as well, and the mother wolf. Take the Kingslayer's sword too and present it to the king, and to Father.”
Catelyn smiled at her son then, her heart swelling with pride and sorrow in equal measure. He had grown so quickly, too quickly. She saw his father in the set of his jaw, in the resolve behind his eyes.
And in her mind, she held fast to the memory of Ned’s smile; quiet and sure, like the promise of spring after a long northern winter.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: ACOK, Catelyn I
My exams are over!
Cat has really grown on me over the course of my reading of ASOIAF, and she is surprisingly easy for me to write and get into her head. Next chapter will be the first bonus chapter of Arc 2, and we shall see Gendry's fate...
Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 53: The Smith
Summary:
"The Smith, he labors day and night,
to put the world of men to right.
With hammer, plow, and fire bright,
he builds for little children." -The Song of the Seven
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The shield was heavy; a slab of thick, dark metal.
Good metal, Gendry thought. He gave the shield another round of hammering, balancing out the edges. This was his world; metal, bellows, fire. The hammer was part of his arm, as if it had been melted in the forge and hardened to fuse with his flesh. That might not be too bad, Gendry wondered idly, raising the shield to inspect it. His face blurred in the reflection as the drunken rambling of that bizarre smith he stumbled across the other day rang in his head like hammer blows.
E’er since I realised the weakness of flesh, lad, the thought was disgusting. Steel is strong, and certain, and pure.
He shook his head and flipped the shield around. There, he noted, need to bolt there. Then the leather strap and…
“Let me take a look,” Master Mott grunted, snatching the shield. The master smith flipped the great, heavy shield around, eyeing it like a hunter gazing at his prey. “Good,” he muttered, tossing the shield back to him. “Get back to work. Fifty swords, a hundred speartips. Two dozen shirts of mail, greaves, gauntlets too. A hundred dirks,” Tobho Mott’s voice dripped with slight disdain.
“Which army is that for?” Gendry wondered.
“Not one that you need to be concerned with,” his master shook his head, “we make the metal, others wield them.”
And fight, and die, with them, Gendry pondered. He found that thinking too hard made his head pound in pain, like the Smith had taken a hammer to his mind, and so he turned back to the forge.
The dirks first, he decided as he marched back for the heat of the forge. The shield was still clutched in his hand when Master Mott’s voice floated across the room.
“How can I help you?”
“You,” he heard a nasally voice call out. “Stay out of this. We’re here for the boy.”
Gendry turned. Four gold cloaks were strolling into the shop. The two at the front wore a longsword at their hip, and the two behind held a spear, with an iron cudgel by their hips. Each was armoured in a shirt of mail, steel gauntlets and greaves, and a half helm. I might have made some of those, he thought, dully.
First, it had been the old Hand of the King and dour Lord Stannis who came for him. Then, it was the new Hand of the King, Lord Eddard Stark. Now…
What do you want? He wondered to himself, irritated.
“Kill him,” the leading gold cloak barked.
Two spears were thrown at him.
His head was empty, but for the booming voice in his head that seemed to roar at him to raise that bloody shield, to let it do what a shield was supposed to do. The shield held firm in his arms, as the steel of the speartips met it with a loud clang.
A good shield, Gendry thought, terrified, as the spears clattered to the ground before him. Spears cannot pierce a shield, not unless the core was flimsy wood. He wondered why he was thinking of this now.
“Oh, for the Stranger’s sake,” the first gold cloak snarled, drawing his blade.
A bolt met his snarl, entering through his open mouth and punching its iron path through the back of the man’s head. Tobho Mott flung the crossbow, that he always kept under the counter, at the second man as he fumbled with the sword by his hip. The two at the back, now spearless, drew their iron cudgels and advanced in a clumsy single file. Gendry stood unmoving, except for the trembling in his arms.
A cudgel, he thought, frozen. A cheaper mace. Still a weapon.
The gold cloak before him raised the cudgel. His face was not a mask of rage or hate, just resignation as he marched forward. What did I do? Gendry almost cried out. He raised the shield, letting the cudgel crash against the heavy slab of metal. His smith’s hammer still hung from his belt, he could feel it. Hit him like you hit metal, a voice roared in his pounding head, and he will sing too.
He swung the shield, feeling the crunch as it impacted against his wrist. Again! He crashed the shield the other way now, using the momentum to slam it against the side of the gold cloak’s helm. It sang, like raw metal when he hit it with his hammer. The sound that the man cried out was less pleasant. He did not think, he could not stop to think. He could feel his heart pumping, his blood rushing, his head pounding.
He raised the shield and brought the steel edge against the man’s face. There was a sickening sound, of something being shattered. He could feel the strong impact too. Gendry almost winced. He had always been strong.
He dropped the shield, reaching for his hammer. He raised it.
Before he could bring it down, the man fell. Gendry prepared himself for another bout but he saw only another dying man. The smoky steel of a dagger protruded from the throat of the fourth gold cloak. His eyes were wide and his hands were reaching for his throat, even as scarlet streamed down to dye his woolen gold a deep red. His cudgel was on the ground. Gendry tore his eyes to the last man, the one who had charged at Mott, and found him on the ground, clutching at the ruins of his knee.
There was a steel bolt jutting from it. He wondered where his master had found another crossbow. From Master Mott’s wide eyes and empty hands, he had not.
A soft, frustrated sigh brought him back to the reality of the room. It was the soft sigh of a young man, he thought, in dark leathers. The man was not too far from his own height but all other features were obscured by black leather armor, and a dark hood and mask of cloth. He held a small, empty crossbow in one hand, and…
Valyrian steel, Gendry’s eyes widened.
The man stalked towards the last survivor and wrenched his helmet away. “Please,” the watchman begged, his voice soft with pain. The response he received was silence, and the cold, smoky steel that was once forged with dragonfire.
As the gold cloak gurgled his last, his killer turned to them. Gendry raised his hammer and the man only sighed. “I was never here,” he muttered, swiping his blade on the woolen gold and snatching the bolt from the watchman’s knee.
“Who are you?” Gendry found himself asking.
“No one,” the stranger replied, his voice muffled behind his mask. “I was never here.”
“But you are,” said Gendry. He could still feel the racing of his heart.
“No, he is not,” Tobho Mott agreed. “He was never here. And soon, we will not be.”
Gendry tore his gaze away from the man, as he snatched the watchman’s coinpouch, and fixed it on the master armourer. “Are we running?”
The thought terrified him as much as dying at the cudgel of a watchman. His world was the forge; the heat of the fire, the sounds of the bellows, the hammer in his hand, the ringing of metal. “From who? Where are we going to go? Why did they…”
“Boy,” Tobho Mott barked. “Not now. We are running from someone, to somewhere. That’s all we need to know for now.”
“We?” Gendry wondered.
“We,” Tobho Mott nodded, pointing at the empty crossbow he had fired.
“The two of you,” the stranger agreed, turning for the door.
“Wait,” Tobho Mott said, raising a hand. The stranger stopped. “I know not who you are, nor do I want to. But if not for you, I would be dead. And the boy too. You have my thanks, stranger, and I would offer you my services but…”
The killer glanced at Mott with grey eyes. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that someday.”
“Thank you,” Gendry forced himself to say, looking at the ground, at the spears and the cudgels and the swords, and the growing puddles of blood.
The stranger waved it off. There must have been a thousand questions that protested within his mind. Who are you? Why were you here? Why did you kill those men to protect me? Why were they here to kill me? Where did you get Valyrian steel? What am I going to do now? Where are we going to run to?
“Boy,” Mott said again, softer. “The cart is still out there, yes?”
Gendry blinked. “Cart,” he muttered, “cart. Yes. Yes.”
“Good,” Tobho Mott crossed the distance, stepping over a watchman. He placed a hand on Gendry’s shoulder. “Albar sick today, Ferret taking care of his pa,” he wondered, “no coincidence.” Tobho Mott’s face was resolute and grim.
“The Black Goat,” the smith whispered, his eyes far away. “I dreamt…”
“The what?” Gendry said; confused and terrified and tired.
“Never you mind,” Tobho Mott shook his head. “Gather our best steel and pieces. We’ll put them on the cart, put a tarp over it. I have some friends who can hide us.”
At Gendry’s incredulous stare, he scowled. “Do you think the best smith in King’s Landing has no friends? In Qohor or here, Tobho Mott is no fool. I made steel for lords and knights and merchants, boy, and some of those men owe me great favors. We will hide safely.”
Gendry nodded dumbly.
“The way you swung that hammer,” Tobho Mott smiled, “keep swinging it that way.”
“I will,” Gendry promised, staring at the smith’s hammer in his hand. The song it sang when he wielded it felt right.
Notes:
And so Gendry's fate has been changed!
In canon, Varys arranged for him to be sent with Yoren, in the NW caravan that Ned was supposed to take. Well, here, that deal with Ned was never done, and Varys has had his hands full dealing with the fallout of Littlefinger's death and the chaos in the capital with Cersei's search for Ned. So...
Chapter 54: Art: The Alleycats
Notes:
New art dropped!
Credit goes to @nulnvamp (on IG!)
Fittingly, the next chapter will be Arya's and it will come sometime tomorrow :))
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
This is the scene where Gunther meets Arya in Arc 1, Gunther IV. The quote on the wall is from the chapter! [Something seemed to itch in his mind. There was a flash of familiarity, almost whispering to him. Where have I seen that face before?]
Notes:
Alternate titles that were considered:
Shadowcats
The Shadow and the Cat
The Cat and the Wolf
Luck at Night
Chapter 55: Arya I
Notes:
"O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle" - Romeo and Juliet
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Her mother gave her a strained smile.
Where is she going? Arya wondered, with a breaking heart. Stay, mother. Please…
They were on a bridge, and Lady Catelyn looked at her from a brown steed. A host of riders had gathered around her; fierce, stout men in steel and on barded horses, the direwolf fluttering from the banners hanging on their spears. The walls were foreign, as were the towers and the bridge and the smells. This is not Winterfell, Arya thought. She could hear the rushing of a river faintly. Catelyn Stark reached down with one gloved hand, and Arya closed her eyes, yearning for her mother’s touch.
She felt it, the warm palm against her… fur. Fur? She wondered.
The last thing she saw was the golden eyes of the mother direwolf by her mother’s side, watching her with a tilted head. Then, Arya woke up, gasping and sweating.
It was still dark, with only the barest slivers of moonlight spilling into the blackened room. She could hear the light snoring from Gunther as he rustled and turned in his sleep, with the ginger cat held carefully between his arms. Len was near silent in his bedroll, never moving much. Arya rose slowly, quietly too.
What Syrio had taught her, Gunther had kept up. From him, she learnt how to step quietly, how to place her weight on one foot just enough to not make sound. On their walks through the streets of King’s Landing, he taught her how to watch a man, how to tell if anyone else was watching them in return. They ran and climbed, and he taught her how to use the knife strapped to her belt; how to throw it, how to stab a man if needed, how to scare off someone with it. How to cut a purse, how to slash at a belt just enough for a coin pouch to fall unnoticed.
We’re thieves, he shrugged at her then, not killers.
We? Arya often wondered long into the nights. She wondered if she would spend the rest of her years here, in the alleyways and back streets of King’s Landing. What would her mother think of her now? She was a thief, stealing coin and cutting purses, and… and she had killed a man. No, Arya remembered, a boy. A stableboy.
She hovered over the basin of cool water that they kept close. The water saw her for a boy, another street urchin of King’s Landing; with short, messy hair in ugly clumps that had come from the tender mercy of a dragonsteel dagger, hair that a noble lady would scream in horror at. Hair that Sansa would never wear. Hair that her mother would have sighed and closed her eyes at.
Under the pale moonlight, she made her way to the rooftop of the building. It was peaceful there, a certain quiet of the world at the time where most men slept.
The moon alone watched her dance, with Needle in her hand.
She thrusted her thin blade forward, imagining it piercing through Meryn Trant’s mail. She stepped to the side, dodging a blade that was not there. She twirled and backstepped, and stabbed, and stepped to the side again. She danced through the night, and when the sun came to watch her, she danced for the dawn too.
As sunlight glimmered over the city, she stabbed Needle through the air once more. She heard the sound of yawning some distance away, and she turned swiftly. Gunther stood watching her, covering his yawn with an open hand. The thief perched himself lazily over the roof. “More exciting than my dreams, I can say.”
She huffed. “I’m practising,” she insisted.
“Sure,” Gunther offered her a tired smile. “Couldn’t sleep?”
She looked away. “Yes,” she admitted quietly. “I dreamt… the wolf dreams again.”
“That is not all,” he surmised, “you usually like them.”
“I do. I dreamt I saw… I saw my mother. But before that, I saw the stableboy again.”
“Ah,” Gunther said. His gaze looked beyond the Red Keep. Arya sat on the ledge next to him, peering at the red castle where her sister was held.
“Never easy,” he muttered, “your first.”
Her voice was quiet and distant. “Who was yours?”
“A mercy kill,” Gunther said. “Some poor bastard, hanging from a tree. They caught him stealing from some noble. He stole bread, and they gave him a beating.”
“Why did you…” Arya trailed off.
“Kill him?” He laughed bitterly. “They cut an eye and broke most of his bones, and hung him by his broken wrists. When we came by the tree, we saw his daughter there with a knife. Thought she wanted to free him,” he shook his head. “The guards thought the same. Almost hung her by her father too.”
“You saved her?”
“She didn’t hang,” Gunther said. “I don’t know if that counts as saving. I stabbed her father in the heart for her. Didn’t know how to kill a man then so I stabbed him wrongly. Took another two tries. It was…” He shook his head.
“I stabbed him too,” she whispered, “with Needle.” Her eyes were on the sword that Jon had given her. The steel that had saved her, like her brother’s hand reaching out to tussle her hair once more before slaying the stableboy. “He wanted to take me to the Queen. He reached out and… and I stabbed him with the pointy end. And … and when I took Needle out, he was dead.”
“As they tend to do,” Gunther said. “You did what you had to,” he said hesitantly.
“You said ‘we’,” Arya said quickly. “Who’s that? Was Andrei there?”
“Ah,” Gunther scratched his cheek. “He was, and others. We travelled together.”
“When?” She asked. “How long ago was that? I thought Andrei was from the North?”
Gunther’s lips grew tight. “It’s a tale for sure,” he said slowly. “A long one. When we see him again, we’ll tell the whole thing.”
Arya scowled. “And when will that be?”
“Not soon,” Gunther admitted. “Think of it as a siege.”
“A siege?”
“We need not do much,” Gunther looked at her. “Well, you need not do much. We wait. We eat and sleep. And when we see them again, that is victory.”
She nodded slowly, looking at him and the heavy eyebags below his grey eyes. “What happened today?” Arya demanded.
Gunther chuckled. “Sharp,” he muttered. He drew the dragonsteel dagger and raised it, letting the sunlight catch on the smoky steel. “Another three lives today.”
Arya stared at the Valyrian steel dagger. “What… What happened?”
“The first was by the brothel,” Gunther said, his eyes haunted. “When I went there to give Chataya her vintage red, a gold cloak came out, covered in blood. And… And when I walked in, I saw one of the girls dead, and her child too. A baby still at her breast. I followed the man. Lured him into an alleyway, like you did with the servant, and I opened his throat. I watched him die. The cat was there, watching me. That’s why I took it back with me.”
Arya felt a wave of horror shiver through her. A baby? She thought, disgusted. “The gold cloaks,” she whispered. “But why?”
“There was another,” Gunther smiled tightly.
“Four gold cloaks,” he explained, “I followed them towards the Street of Steel when I saw them marching. They forced their way into a smith’s shop and tried to kill the smith and his apprentice. They killed two, I took out the other two.” Gunther sighed.
“Joffrey,” she whispered. It had to be, she thought, no one else was as cruel. No, she remembered, the Queen was as well. All Lannisters are, Arya thought.
“A prostitute and her baby,” Gunther said, “a smith and his apprentice. Why would the city watch go around killing them? What can they have done?”
“Nothing,” she said bitterly. Lady had done nothing as well, nor Micah.
Gunther stared at her. “Madness,” he said, eventually. “If a king goes around killing babies and smiths, his people aren’t going to be happy for long.”
Arya shrugged. “I hope his people kill him too.”
They turned away from the ledge at the sound of footsteps. Len rubbed at his eyes blearily as he approached. “What’s this?” he asked, yawning. “Planning for a heist without me? Which merchant are we going for?”
“We’re not,” Arya snapped. She suppressed a yawn.
“Actually,” Gunther said, looking at them. “That sounds like a plan. Go back to sleep, the two of you. I need to get something done for… the lord, and I’ll go looking around that mansion we passed by the other day.” He rose, stretching. “I’ll come back at noon, I think. We’ll take a look at the mansion together and hit it at night.”
“Alright,” Len yawned, turning away.
And when she snuggled into her bedroll and rested her head onto the soft silk pillow, she felt sleep take her like a mother’s embrace. She dreamt once more as she slept, but not of wolves this time. She dreamt of cats.
A black cat with smiling green eyes prowled around her meowing. Arya stared at the small, lithe creature and it looked at her with amusement. The cat meowed, swiping one paw at her lazily.
“Hello,” she tried to say but no sound came from her mouth.
The cat pawed at a silk pouch on the ground. It was a heavy pouch, bulging with what she thought was coins. Yet, when she bent down to seize it, she saw dice.
The black cat played with one of the dice, flickering it lazily with its paws. Arya looked around. They were in an empty street of a city she did not recognise. The streets were made of dark cobblestone and the sky was blanketed in thick, black smoke that made it hard to see the sun or the stars.
“Where am I?” she wondered to herself.
The cat darted forward, ignoring the die and dashing forward. Arya followed, quickly scooping the small six-sided die in her hand. Ahead, she saw a gold man raising a hand to strike at a weeping woman. The black cat leapt at the man of gold, and slashed at its gilded knees. A sound of pain reverberated hollowly and the figure fell to a knee. The cat slashed at it with sharp claws that glinted like steel, until only an ugly, torn chunk of bleeding gold remained. The woman no longer wept.
The cat licked the pale cheek of the silent woman before padding away slowly. Arya followed forlornly. They walked past a giant’s gate and a little lion strolled in through, sauntering its way up the narrow street. Arya stared at the misfigured beast before tearing her eyes away. They made their way through alleyways drowning in spiderwebs, and stepped through empty houses where ghosts howled and laughed. The little feline swiped at a spider’s web, eyes glinting in the dark. Fleas fled, flying. The cat made a sound like laughing, as if amused by a jape only it understood.
On the web, three six-sided dice were rolling, and rolling, and rolling.
An eternity later, all three froze. The first face bore a black spider, the second flashed a gold lion, and the third hissed a shadowy cat. A fourth die fell onto the white web. She looked around to find who had thrown it, but green eyes were watching her from the dark; a thousand and one emeralds in the night. The die stopped rolling … and she saw a wolf’s head upon the smooth face.
“Arya Stark,” a man’s voice whispered to her. She reached for Needle but found nothing at her hip. The voice was light; a voice meant for laughter.
“Who are you?” She demanded.
“I have many names,” the voice laughed. The cat was no longer there. In its place was a dice cup. She stood in the middle of an empty street. There were two narrow paths before her. Both were obscured by a low mist below and a thick smog above. The path on the right was marked by iron coins stained with blood while the path on the left was marked by golden coins that were not hers, shining in the dark.
“Tell me some of them then.”
The voice laughed again. “There are those who call me the Night Prowler. From some lips, I am the Dealer. In some songs, I am the Deceiver. For the weak, I am the Protector. In the heart of gamblers, I am the Gamester. What am I?”
“Ranald,” she whispered, remembering Gunther’s explanation. “Are you one of the Seven? Or one of the Old Gods? Or from the east?”
“I am one of many,” the voice chuckled. “As are you.”
She wondered what that meant. “Am I dreaming?”
“You are,” the cat rubbed its head against her legs, purring playfully.
“So you are not real,” Arya said, “just a dream?”
“For some, what is real can be a dream. For others, what is false can be reality.”
She blinked in confusion. “That is a riddle,” she said, annoyed.
“Is it? Well then, here is one,” the voice laughed at her. “The enslaved fight for me. Wars are waged for me. I am the only thing that Death gives to life. What am I?”
And she woke, wondering.
Len glanced over at her from his bedroll, chewing on a slice of bread, ham and cheese. “Hungry?” He called out. “You were stirring something fierce in your sleep.”
She nodded slowly. “What was I doing?” She was sweating, Arya realised.
Len chewed, scratching at the purring ginger cat. “Talking in your sleep. Twisting and turning all over the place.” The cat strolled forward towards her. Arya rubbed its sides and the cat meowed at her softly. “Where did she come from?”
“He,” Len corrected. “Gunther brought him back.”
“She’s a she,” Arya declared. “Like Nymeria.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Warrior Queen!” she exclaimed. “The Queen of the Rhoynar! The Queen with a thousand ships. I named my wolf after her.”
“You have a wolf?” Len gaped.
Her frustration gave way to sorrow. “I… I did.”
“Oh,” he said, guilt on his face. “Sorry.”
She shook her head. “I had to… I threw stones at her. She ran away. I had to… or the Queen would have had her killed, like she did Lady.” She spat.
“The gods curse them,” Len said, anger on his youthful face. “King Joffrey, his mother, and the Lannister too.”
She nodded at that. She looked at the ginger cat, still purring in contentment.
“Her fur is like fire,” Arya said, to break the silence. “We should call her Visenya.”
“Is she even ours?” Len said. “And isn’t Visenya a dragon?” His face scrunched in confusion and thought. “We should call him… Fire.”
“That’s stupid,” she said. “And Vhagar was the dragon. Visenya rode Vhagar.”
“They sound the same,” Len complained. “All those Targaryens sound the same.”
“They do not,” Arya argued.
“How many Aegons were there?” Len asked. “I heard from a baker there were five of the buggers.”
“How many Lens are there?” Arya asked.
“Only the one,” he grinned.
“One too many,” she said, huffing.
“As the lady says,” Len bowed, reaching out to take the ginger cat.
Arya swatted at his hands. “Call me that again and I’ll… I’ll throw a knife at your food when you’re eating.”
He shuddered. “You might hit me by accident.”
“Hey!” She exclaimed, placing the cat down gently. The ginger cat meowed in annoyance. She chased him around. Len was faster than her and made sure to remind her of it, darting out of the way of her grip, leaping to the side just when she thought she could catch him. And when the familiar knock came to the door, Gunther found them covered in sweat and gasping. He looked at them flatly.
“I won,” Len said, panting.
“No,” she disagreed. “A draw at best.”
“You both win,” Gunther said drily. “I lost the day I took the two of you in.”
Both of them glared at him. Len reached for a piece of bread and threw it at the thief’s face but Gunther caught it, and tore a bite from it. “Saw the mansion already. Nothing too difficult. We’ll take a circle around it. Four guards. One patrolling and one at the gate. Two resting. They swap over every two hours.”
“Mercenaries?” Arya asked.
“Looks like it,” Gunther shrugged, reaching to give the cat a rub on the belly. “Might have been working for the merchant for some time now though.”
“Is it a she or he?” Len asked abruptly.
“The merchant?”
“The cat,” Arya chimed in.
“How would I know?” Gunther looked at them incredulously.
“We should name him,” Len suggested, “it feels right.”
“Her,” Arya protested.
“We’ll call him Balerion,” Len beamed.
“Are you stupid?” Arya demanded. “Her fur is not even black.”
Len kept beaming. “Balerion sounds great.”
“Visenya,” she insisted.
“Meow,” the cat meowed from Gunther’s hands.
“Emmanuelle,” Gunther said, smiling. They both deflated.
“Fine,” Arya said. “Alright,” Len whined.
“Come on,” Gunther said, placing the cat on a silk pillow. Emmanuelle purred softly as she returned to her slumber. It was not too terrible of a name, Arya thought.
Coal and mud were smeared on her face messily by a grinning Len, and Arya Stark became Arry once more. “Knives,” Gunther muttered, patting his chest and checking. Len and Arya followed along. “Daggers, crossbow. Bolts.”
“What are we stealing?” Len asked. “Just gold?”
“I have a plan actually,” Gunther smirked. “Call it… feeding the poor.”
She glanced at Len who only shrugged at her. She turned back to the smirking thief. “What does that mean?”
“You will see,” came the answer from a mouth that did not stop smiling.
The manse was not too far from the Gate of the Gods, and so they walked five blocks down first to peer at the gate, as Gunther had brought them to do several times. “Still shut tight like a vault,” he muttered, leaning against the mouth of some quiet alleyway, his grey eyes peering out curiously.
“Why are you surprised?” Len said, biting through an apple.
“If the gates remain closed,” Gunther glanced at them, “no food comes in. Already, no food has come for weeks. Prices are rising faster than the tides. More people are streaming in. I hear the Queen is letting them in but taxing them fiercely, but hardly anyone gets to leave since…” he nodded at her. “And…”
“More and more people in the city,” Arya whispered.
“Less and less food,” Len finished for her, the apple half-eaten in his hand.
“They’re opening the gates,” Gunther hissed, his gaze returning to the Gate of the Gods. “Wagons leaving the city. About thirty men.”
“What?” Arya blurted out, peeking her head out of the alleyway as well.
Indeed, she saw five wagons, each loaded with supplies; hides and bolts of clothes, bars of pig iron, a cage of ravens, jars of oil and chests. Teams of plow horses pulled the wagons, and she saw two coursers and a half-dozen donkeys. She saw a gruff man in black, stooped and sinister with a twisted shoulder, speaking tersely with the gate guards. There was an air of familiarity to him. The men behind him were of a rough sort; some were from Flea Bottom, she could tell, others looked like old thieves and poachers and worse…
Worse were two men fettered hand and foot in the back of a wagon. One had no nose, only the hole in his face where it had been cut off, and the other was gross, fat, and bald with pointed teeth and weeping sores on his cheeks. He had eyes like nothing human. They looked like nightmares, Arya thought.
There were boys here too, Arya noticed; thin, desperate, hungry boys that must have been plucked from the streets of King’s Landing.
“Bugger me,” Len swore, “that’s the pie boy. The fat one!”
Gunther blinked and Arya narrowed her eyes. There was a plump boy with straw-coloured hair and big eyes talking to another, a thin one whose arms were mottled green to the elbow. “Why are they going to the Wall?” she wondered. They looked like the Wall would freeze them, or eat them and spit them out.
“Thieves,” Gunther said grimly. “Just not very good ones.”
“We saw him selling pies some time ago,” Len explained, tossing the core of the apple behind him. “Guess he’ll be making pies at the Wall, then.”
“The pie gods be with him,” Gunther said drily. “There they go.”
Arya watched mournfully as the wagons streamed out of the gates. Take me with you, take us, she wanted to cry out but it was too late. Gunther saw her.
“It wouldn’t have worked,” he told her, shaking his head.
“Why not?” she scowled, glaring at him.
“Look,” he said, nodding his head at the gate. She did.
She looked, and she saw two Lannister men leaning against a postern gate. While the watchmen had inspected the wagons and the men, the two lion-helmed men had watched silently. “They’re watching for your father,” Gunther said, “or you. What would it have looked like if you or we ran out there and asked to be let out?”
Arya looked away bitterly. She stared at the closed gates. Just beyond it was Winterfell, she told herself. It was not so far, she thought.
“Come on,” Gunther patted her on the shoulder. Len had been silent, but he reached into his pocket, and tossed her another red apple. She caught it quietly and took a bite from it. It was still sweet. She took another bite.
Half an hour later, they were watching the merchant’s mansion.
Len whistled at the sight. “How much silk did he sell?”
“Enough,” Gunther looked amused. “More than silk too. He’s been hoarding food since they closed the city. Selling it at thrice the price now. Uses it to get others to perform… favours for him. Desperate mothers and wives.”
Len spat. Her brows furrowed. “We keep food too.”
“We do,” Gunther raised an eyebrow. “To eat. For survival. Your castles store food for winter and sieges too, right? This one’s keeping it for a profit, to earn from other’s misery, to reap from hunger.” His voice dripped with contempt.
She did not understand hunger. From Winterfell to the Red Keep, she was fed and fed well, though she did not grow much no matter how much she ate. Meat and bread and cheese, she had aplenty, vegetables and fruits. The look on Len and Gunther’s faces told her that she should not mention it. There was a dark look on their faces, boy and young man alike, that spoke of familiarity with hunger.
“What are we going to do?” Len said quietly.
“Watch,” Gunther told them, smirking.
Watch they did, as he spoke to a beggar, and another, then to a pair of street urchins, and a begging woman, and a dozen other desperate souls. “Seven blessings for you today,” he told them, smiling like a cat, “Master Jasper is looking to feed the poor tonight, an hour past sunset, at his manse just over yonder. There. He has been buying plenty of food just for this occasion, see? Bread and chicken and eggs and cheese, beer and ale and milk and honey. For you, he says.”
“Truly?” one old woman asked, her eyes glistening.
“Truly,” Gunther promised, grinning, “you merely have to ask politely. Many of these here rich folk are all too happy to give away their things if you know how to ask.”
So it was then, at sunset, that they stood on a rooftop not too far from the mansion. Each of them wore a heavy, large knapsack. By the night’s end, it would be heavier, she thought. Gunther pointed to the gate. “One guard there,” he said. “One guard on patrol. Two at rest inside. What happens when a mob of hungry men arrive?”
“They all have to go to the gates, and the merchant too, most likely,” she realised.
He nodded. “We’ll climb in through the back. It has to be a fast run. We rush in, head up the stairs. We avoid servants. If they see us, I will knock them out. We have a few minutes to clean his chamber and we leave. Questions?”
“What if they return?” Len asked, nervously.
“You jump out of the window,” Gunther said, “and run.”
Arya gulped. Yet, within her, she felt excitement bubbling. She felt a warmth bubbling in her, like she was in Winterfell’s hot springs again. She heard something. Arya looked around, confused.
“What?” Len said.
“You didn’t hear that?”
“Must be gamblers downstairs,” Gunther said, smirking. “Dice are loud.”
The shouting of hungry men and desperate women was louder, she realised, as they pressed themselves against the wall. It was near ten feet, Arya thought numbly. They could hear it from the back of the mansion, the indignant roaring and screaming for bread and meat and cheese, the demands for the promised ale and beer and wine.
Four guards are not enough to match them, Arya thought, they need forty.
“Now,” Gunther hissed. He crouched, cupping his hands together. Len took a step back, then three forward. He leapt, and Gunther flung it up, and the boy caught the edge of the wall, hauling himself over with ease. She was next, and she stared at Gunther with wide eyes. “Take a step back,” he smiled at her awkwardly, “a running start. Then, leap on my hand. When you are in the air, catch the wall.”
She took a step back, breathing. Like Bran, she told herself. I can climb like Bran and run like Rickon, and be brave like Robb and Jon. She took a step forward, and another, faster. It grew into a run, and she jumped. Her feet caught Gunther’s hands and she felt herself soar . Her hands reached out, catching the wall. She grimaced when the flesh of her palm was scraped but she gritted her teeth.
Arya twisted her body over, rolling as she landed.
“What took you so long?” Len laughed softly. She threw a handful of soil at him.
Gunther landed with a soft thud, his cloth mask and hood raised. Each of them wore something similar, a scrap of red cloth that obscured the lower half of Len’s face, a grey one for her, torn from a dirty tunic that she no longer wore. The shouting from the other side was growing louder by the time Gunther climbed through an open window on the first floor. “No one,” he whispered, “hurry.”
Hurry they did; through the window, then past the kitchens where pots were left unattended, up the velvet carpet of the stairs and into an empty hallway. A dozen steel sconces lit the way and they saw an ornamented door at the end. Outside, she could hear cursing and the start of a fight, of flesh meeting the fist. She wondered who was hitting who. The door unlocked with a simple nudge from Gunther’s foot.
Inside, she saw a solar that was packed with excess. A large bed of red satin and silk dominated the left, with pillows that a common man could work a year for and not be able to buy. She saw closets and shelves loaded with ornaments and decorative pieces; exotic flowers, gilded candlestands, a small marble sculpt of a deer, and a display case with a dozen rings, each with a different gem. To the right, she saw a table, with parchment and books messily scattered. And she saw a safe under the table. “That one’s mine,” Gunther said, eying the safe. “Clear the room.”
“Aye, aye,” Len laughed, rushing for the case of rings.
She reached for a shelf, seizing the candle stand of gold and tossing it inside of her knapsack. Then, the sculpt of the deer. It was masterfully crafted, she thought, and the eyes of the stag almost seemed to follow her movement. Don’t be stupid, she told herself, it’s just a toy. She reached for another candle stand, gilded and jeweled, and she heard the sound of a click and Gunther’s satisfied sigh.
“What do we have here?” the rogue chuckled to himself, reaching out for the four heavy pouches of coin. Arya ignored the rest of the room, and the giggling Len as he toyed with the rings, watching the thief. The four pouches disappeared into his knapsack, as did a golden necklace and a silver bracelet studded with emeralds. A sheaf of yellowed parchment went into the leather bag and Arya was confused.
“Why are you taking those?”
“It might be useful,” he shrugged, standing and eyeing the table. “Sometimes ink on paper might be worth more than gold and silver, to the right person.”
Three of the books on the table were taken as well. Ledgers, she thought. Who is going to buy ledgers?
Gunther glanced at her. “You’ll be surprised.”
“What?”
“People do want these,” he explained. “Rival merchants and guilds and what not. Don’t rightly know who to sell these to, though,”
“Ah,” Arya said, realising. “They will think you were hired by someone.”
Gunther smirked. “You’re learning.”
“Big deal,” Len scoffed, waving his hand. Each finger now bore a gem-encrusted ring, each one too large for him. “Anyone can realise that.”
“Took you longer to get that,” Gunther pointed out. Len looked away. “Anyways,” he said, giving the room a glance. The shouting outside had turned into something resembling a brawl. She leaned close to the window. One of the guards was on the ground, bleeding from his head. The other three were bracing against the iron gates, against a crowd of dozens pressing themselves to the gate. The merchant stood a few feet away, trembling, two servants behind him with knives. Arya felt a pang of regret and guilt but she shook it off. He deserves it, she reminded herself.
If Len felt any guilt, he did not show it. The boy spat on the ground instead, with an old hatred in his eyes. “They should eat him.”
“Someday soon,” Gunther shrugged, making for the door. “If this keeps up, they’ll start calling for bread across the city, and then for blood after that.”
Len was silent at that, even when they scaled the wall again. Even when the sound of shouting grew to envelop the mansion itself, as hungry men poured into the manse, pouring through the gates and doors, and swarming into the kitchens. They stood across the street, mesmerised and horrified. Even as a fire grew and black smoke began to billow from the windows, they stood, as still and silent as the marble deer she had stolen. It was the shouting of the gold cloaks, three dozen strong and armed with spears and swords, that stirred them back to life.
They turned away. Arya gave the burning mansion a last, lingering look. She could hear the crying now; of men being beaten with clubs, of swords being smashed against faces, of women wailing in fear, and men roaring in rage. She could hear the pounding of spears against the cobblestone as the gold cloaks tried to keep peace and order, but suppressing the noise was like stopping a rising tide. She stole a glance at the other two, but they were already ahead. They were in the maws of a narrow, dark alleyway, with dirty walls on either side pressing against them. And…
There was a man watching them, from a flat rooftop to their left.
Gunther’s hand was on his crossbow, but the man raised a hand slowly. He was dressed in filthy, torn garbs but he was slender, with handsome features. He had shiny long hair, straight and streaming down across his shoulders, with one side white like dirtied snow and the other red like blood on cloth. He watched them with a calm, casual smile, and a thin knife in one hand.
“Who are you?” Gunther asked cautiously.
“No one,” the man said smiling.
“All men have names,” Gunther pointed out, stiffly.
“This man has the honor of being Jaqen H’ghar, once of the Free City of Lorath,” he bowed. His voice was friendly but there was something else to it, a steel under the silk. It reminded her of Syrio, it was the same yet different too.
“Why are you here then?” Gunther demanded, his fingers curling around the hilt of his dragonsteel dagger. “I hear Lorath is far from here.”
“Far,” Jaqen agreed. “A man is here because he was needed to be here. Now he must go, east where his duty calls.”
Len glanced at her with wide eyes and back to Gunther, whose face was tight.
“I fail to see how that’s our business,” he said.
“Perhaps so,” Jaqen bowed again. “A man was curious.”
“About what?” Arya blurted out. Gunther glanced at her, sighing.
“A girl becomes a boy.”
She stiffened, clutching at her own knife. Gunther took a step closer to her, drawing his crossbow. “I see two boys with me. No girls.”
“Not anymore,” Jaqen agreed. “Not after steel made the boy.”
The man fixed his calm gaze on Arya. She felt a cold hand take her throat. “Yes, you,” he whispered. “One path was of iron and blood. That path is now closed to you. You walk the path of the pilfered gold now. Where a girl would have no name, now she will laugh and jape. Where a girl would wear many faces, now she will wear a smile. The doors to the House are now closed to you.”
She stared at him in utter confusion and terror. The two paths, she remembered, iron and gold. He knew what was in her dreams. “What house? What do you mean faces? Wear them?” She demanded.
Jaqen smiled. “A girl need not know. A girl will not know. It is not wise to talk of roads unwalked. A man must leave. He will never return to the land they call Westeros.”
Gunther looked between Arya and Jaqen. “Is that a riddle?” He asked drily.
“If a man wills it so,” Jaqen said calmly. He looked at Arya. “Once, a girl would have walked a different path, marching across blood and water. It is not for a man to call that path good or bad. It is a path he treads. Now, that path is closed to you. You walk the road of freedom now, girl. May you walk it well.”
“I don’t get it,” she said, tense and frustrated. “Who are you? What path?”
Jaqen smiled softly. “A man must go now. He will never return. Turmoil comes to the east as well. He of Many Faces calls, for the Bloody Handed has come. A man must return. He wishes you fortune, all three of you. Fortune and freedom.”
Riddles, Arya thought, more riddles.
And that night, her dreams were filled with riddles as well. She dreamt she was in an empty city again, guided by a cat and a laughing voice. She dreamt of riddles and coins and dice, and when she woke, she woke with a die in her hand.
Notes:
Has anyone seen Thunderbolts? The actor who plays Red Guardian could totally play Andrei...
Anyways, Arya's path changes for good! If you want a visualisation of Gunty, just glance over at the art from before.
Fun fact, that mention of his first kill is a real thing in our campaign.
Chapter 56: Davos I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The morning air was dark with smoke, and salty from the sea.
Old dry wood blazed with a fierce hungry light. Heat rose shimmering through the chill air; behind, the gargoyles and stone dragons on the castle walls seemed blurred, as if Davos were seeing them through a veil of tears and shattered glass. Or as if the beasts were trembling, stirring …
“A queer sight,” Allard declared, though at least he had the sense to keep his voice low. Dale muttered agreement.
“Silence,” said Davos. “Remember where you are.” His sons were good men, but young, and Allard especially was rash. Had I stayed a smuggler, Allard would have ended on the Wall. Stannis spared him from that end, something else I owe him…
Hundreds had come to the castle gates to bear witness to the burning of the Golden Light, a warship from the Royal Fleet whose captain had refused to swear loyalty to Dragonstone. One of three ships sent from King’s Landing to scout the Blackwater Bay. The other two were docked, too large and useful to be burnt. The Golden Light was the smallest and oldest, and the sacrifice. The smell in the air was ugly.
The red woman walked round the fire three times, praying once in the speech of Asshai, once in High Valyrian, and once in the Common Tongue. Davos understood only the last. “R’hllor, come to us in our darkness,” she called. “Lord of Light, we offer you the ship and steel of the traitors. The gold and the lion’s banner. The red shall be yours in flame. Take them and cast your light upon us, for the night is dark and full of terrors.” Queen Selyse echoed the words. Beside her, Stannis watched impassively, his jaw hard as stone under the blue-black shadow of his tight-cropped beard. He had dressed more richly than was his wont, as if for the sept.
Dragonstone's sept had been where Aegon the Conqueror knelt to pray the night before he sailed. That had not been what saved it from the queen’s men. It was a stern-faced Eddard Stark and an equally grim Andrei who stood between Septon Barre and the queen’s men. Two men, against two dozen. Then, Ser Hubard Rambton led his three sons to stand by them, and Guncer Sunglass, the most pious of lords, with a dozen of his own men. Still, the queen’s men would have drawn steel if not for the arrival of the Red Woman.
“No steel will be drawn today,” she declared, “no blood split. No wood burnt, nor shall glass break. Are we not all equal before our king?”
And the queen’s men obeyed.
“A foul business,” Lord Stark confessed to him after. “I mislike the mad look in their eyes. It is a madness that cannot be named.”
Ser Davos could. “Her madness.”
The gods had never meant much to Davos the smuggler, though like most men he had been known to make offerings to the Warrior before battle, to the Smith when he launched a ship, and to the Mother whenever his wife grew great with child. For men to abandon the gods of their fathers…
“At least it is just a ship,” Maester Cressen remarked softly. “A waste nonetheless. We could have used one more ship.”
The Red Woman had suggested burning the ship along with the crew who had sworn loyalty to King Joffrey. Eddard Stark’s face had been colder than ice. Cressen seemed ready then to speak a thousand words, but the King only stared at the Red Woman before shaking his head. In the place of flesh, cloth and steel and wood were burnt. And burnt it did, casting a pretty light. The sails were red and gold, and the fire wreathed around those cloth. Tongues of fire licked at the crimson and gold banner of the roaring lion. It did not seem so proud now, burning as it did.
Davos watched the mast creak, and writhe, and wither before crashing into the burning deck. The ropes blackened and fell away one by one, embraced by glowing charcoal. Here and there, scarlet armor grew redder, melting into slag. Nearby, Lord Celtigar coughed fitfully and covered his wrinkled face with a square of linen embroidered in red crabs. The Myrmen swapped jokes as they enjoyed the warmth of the fire, but young Lord Bar Emmon had turned a splotchy grey, and Lord Velaryon was watching the king rather than the conflagration.
Davos would have given much to know what he was thinking, but one such as Velaryon would never confide in him. The Lord of the Tides was of the blood of ancient Valyria, and his House had thrice provided brides for Targaryen princes; Davos Seaworth stank of fish and onions. It was the same with the other lordlings. He could trust none of them, nor would they ever include him in their private councils. They scorned his sons as well.
But they will not scorn him, Davos thought, turning his eye on the Lord of Winterfell whose face was grim. His eyes were alight with the flames and his gaze was fixed and frozen and far away. He wondered what foul advice the Red Woman would have given Stannis if not for the presence of Lord Stark, who spoke nothing but sense and honor, tempered with an understanding of war that Davos knew little of.
The Velaryon seahorse is old, Davos smiled to himself, but the Starks of Winterfell were kings before they came. Even the Red Woman cannot speak over him. Him and his warrior. For some reason, Melisandre seemed equal parts entranced and afraid of the burly, stoic warrior that shadowed Eddard Stark’s steps, like a loyal ghost in mail and leather and scales.
More than just a mere warrior, Davos knew. He had seen the maester slip something into the wine cup. Poison. What else could it be? He would have drunk a cup of death to free Stannis from Melisandre. She drank from it, and her god shielded her. If the old man had drunk from that cup…
Cressen had not. His half of the wine was rejected and spilled by Andrei, who dared to deny the Red God before the eyes of the Red Woman and the Queen. That man is fearless, Davos wondered. It was no surprise. A man who bested the Kingslayer, who fought dozens of men to allow his lord to escape the Red Keep, who brought Eddard Stark on a rowboat across the Blackwater…
When he heard the tales from the sailors, he bought a bottle of ale and handed it to a confused Andrei. “You beat the sea, good man,” Davos told him. “Every victory over the sea should be celebrated.”
Pale flames licked at the grey sky. Dark smoke rose, twisting and curling. When the wind pushed it toward them, men blinked and wept and rubbed their eyes. Allard turned his head away, coughing and cursing. A taste of things to come, thought Davos. Many and more would burn before this war was done. He prayed that it would only be wood and cloth and steel for them.
Fire is cruel, he thought. Give me a watery death any day.
Melisandre was robed all in scarlet satin and blood velvet, her eyes as red as the great ruby that glistened at her throat as if it too were afire. “In ancient books of Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.” She lifted her voice, so it carried out over the gathered host. “Azor Ahai, beloved of R’hllor! The Warrior of Light, the Son of Fire! Come forth, your sword awaits you! Come forth and take it into your hand!”
Stannis Baratheon strode forward like a soldier marching into battle. His squires stepped up to attend him. Davos watched as his son Devan pulled a long padded glove over the king’s right hand. The boy wore a cream-colored doublet with a fiery heart sewn on the breast. Bryen Farring was similarly garbed as he tied a stiff leather cape around the king’s neck. Behind, Davos heard a faint clank and clatter of bells. “Under the sea, smoke rises in bubbles, and flames burn green and blue and pink,” Patchface sang somewhere. “I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
The king plunged into the fire with his teeth clenched, holding the leather cloak before him to keep off the flames. He went straight to the banner of the lion, grasped the sword with his gloved hand, and wrenched it free of the burning wood with a single hard jerk. Then he was retreating, the sword held high, jade-green flames swirling around cherry-red steel. Guards rushed to beat out the cinders that clung to the king’s clothing.
“A sword of fire!” shouted Queen Selyse. Ser Axell Florent and the other queen’s men took up the cry. “A sword of fire! It burns! It burns! A sword of fire!”
Melisandre lifted her hands above her head. “Behold! A sign was promised, and now a sign is seen! Behold Lightbringer! Azor Ahai has come again! All hail the Warrior of Light! The Fist of Retribution! The Flame of Vengeance! All hail the Son of Fire!”
A ragged wave of shouts gave answer, just as Stannis’s glove began to smolder. Cursing, the king thrust the point of the sword into the damp earth and beat out the flames against his leg.
“Lord, cast your light upon us!” Melisandre called out. “For the night is dark and full of terrors,” Selyse and her queen’s men replied.
Should I speak the words as well? Davos wondered. Do I owe Stannis that much? Is this fiery god truly his own? His shortened fingers twitched. He turned his gaze to the three men around him. Maester Cressen was silent, shaking his head slowly. Eddard Stark’s gaze was on the king, with a cold hardness to his face. Andrei Yeltska stared at the Red Woman, and she smiled at him in return. None of them spoke the words.
Stannis peeled off the glove and let it fall to the ground. The ship in the pyre was scarcely recognizable anymore, resembling the carcass of some great beast burnt. The lion’s banner was a puff of ash and embers. Melisandre sang in the tongue of Asshai, her voice rising and falling like the tides of the sea. Stannis untied his singed leather cape and listened in silence. Thrust in the ground, Lightbringer still glowed ruddy hot, but the flames that clung to the sword were dwindling and dying.
By the time the song was done, only charwood remained of the Golden Light, and the king’s patience had run its course. He took the queen by the elbow and escorted her back into Dragonstone, leaving Lightbringer where it stood. The red woman remained a moment to watch as Devan knelt with Bryen Farring and rolled up the burnt and blackened sword in the king’s leather cloak. The Red Sword of Heroes looks a proper mess, thought Davos.
A few of the lords lingered to speak in quiet voices upwind of the fire. They fell silent when they saw Davos looking at them. Should Stannis fall, they will pull me down in an instant. Neither was he counted one of the queen’s men, that group of ambitious knights and minor lordlings who had given themselves to this Lord of Light and so won the favor and patronage of Lady— no, Queen, remember? —Selyse. Though that was not the sole reason they were named the Queen’s Men…
“Ser Davos,” Lord Stark cleared his throat. “I have been meaning to speak with you.”
“Lord Stark,” he bowed his head. Though he had scarcely seen the Lord of Winterfell before this, he found himself liking the man. He alone bore more power and weight than all of the Narrow Sea lords combined, and somehow, each of them was more pompous and haughty than the man who bore the blood of kings and legends.
“Your son, Dale,” Eddard nodded at his oldest, who bowed, “he does you proud. If not for him, I fear we might not have made it to Dragonstone. He, and you, have my formal thanks. An appropriate reward I shall give, when this is over.”
Davos could not stop the smile on his face from rising. “My son did his duty, Lord Eddard.” Pride bloomed in his heart, like a garden of summer flowers.
“He did,” Andrei rumbled. “Well.”
Eddard Stark nodded. “I can see where he learned his talents from. It would seem…” The lord of the north threw the Red Sword of Heroes a contemptuous look. “That there are few men of reason and sense on this foul island.”
“Ah,” Davos hesitated. “As you say, Lord Stark…”
“He speaks true,” Cressen huffed. “Look at those fools, praying to the flames. Abandoning the gods of their fathers at a whim to serve the Red Woman… Folly.”
Davos gave him a strained smile. The Maester shook his head. “Spare me the look, Davos. I am old, I have accepted that. What shall I have left to fear? Will the Red Woman feed me a seed of fire to punish me for my words?”
Andrei chuckled. “We call … drink… seed of fire.”
“That reminds me,” Davos looked at the warrior. “Your accent, I have not heard that in my lifetime. That is rare.”
Andrei smiled, an awkward stretching of his lips. “Far,” he said, glancing at Stark.
“I would not imagine a man with your past to have met the Mountain Clans much,” Eddard Stark said slowly.
“No,” he shook his head. “Northmen, yes. Wild men, less so.”
Lord Eddard smiled. “A wilder sort, you may be scarce to find outside of the north.”
Maester Cressen was silent, his eyes fixed upon Andrei with curiosity, but he did not speak. The Lord of Stark gave him a grim nod. “I do not like the words she whispers to the king,” Lord Eddard admitted. “How is it that she rose so quickly?”
“She came two years past,” he recalled. “She preached at the docks, to the servants and the sailors. Then, the queen took an interest in her. Before long, that interest was as bright as that fire. Men were not blind to that.”
“A foreign religion from the east,” Lord Stark was troubled. “The realm will not take easy to this.”
“They have never taken easy to him,” Cressen said solemnly. “This matter is folly. She will lead him to ruin, right into a pit of fire.”
“I must speak with the king,” Lord Eddard said, frowning. “We have been busy on matters of war … but this was farce and folly. Robert…” He shook his head. “I must return to the king’s side now,” Eddard Stark nodded at him. “Maester, shall I lend you Andrei’s arm?”
Cressen chuckled. “Yes, yes. I find it sturdier than a cane somedays.”
Davos smiled at the three men as they left; maester and lord and warrior. It would make for a song, he thought. The fire had started to dwindle by the time Melisandre and the squires departed with the precious sword. Davos and his sons joined the crowd making its way down to the shore and the waiting ships. “Devan acquitted himself well,” he said as they went.
“He fetched the glove without dropping it, yes,” said Dale, smiling.
Allard nodded. “That badge on Devan’s doublet, the fiery heart, what was that? The Baratheon sigil is a crowned stag.”
“A lord can choose more than one badge,” Davos said. Dale smiled. “A black ship and an onion, Father?”
Allard kicked at a stone. “The Others take our onion ... and that flaming heart. What happened at the sept. An ill thing. If Lord Stark had not intervened, they would have burnt it.”
“Would,” he reminded his son. “When did you grow so devout? What does a smuggler’s son know of the doings of gods?”
“I’m a knight’s son, Father. If you won’t remember, why should they?”
“A knight’s son, but not a knight,” said Davos. “Nor will you ever be, if you meddle in affairs that do not concern you. Stannis is our rightful king, it is not for us to question him. We sail his ships and do his bidding. That is all.”
The port was as crowded as Davos had ever known it. Every dock teemed with sailors loading provisions, and every inn was packed with soldiers dicing or drinking or looking for a whore ... a vain search, since Stannis permitted none on his island.
Ships lined the strand; war galleys and fishing vessels, stout carracks and fat-bottomed cogs. The best berths had been taken by the largest vessels: Stannis’s flagship Fury rocking between Lord Steffon and Stag of the Sea, Lord Velaryon’s silver-hulled Pride of Driftmark and her three sisters, Lord Celtigar’s ornate Red Claw, the ponderous Swordfish with her long iron prow. Out to sea at anchor rode Salladhor Saan’s great Valyrian amongst the striped hulls of two-dozen smaller Lysene galleys.
A weathered little inn sat on the end of the stone pier where Black Betha, Wraith, and Lady Marya shared mooring space with a half-dozen other galleys of one hundred oars or less. Davos had a thirst. He took his leave of his sons and turned his steps toward the inn. Out front squatted a waist-high gargoyle, so eroded by rain and salt that his features were all but obliterated. He and Davos were old friends, though. He gave a pat to the stone head as he went in. “Luck,” he murmured.
Across the noisy common room, Salladhor Saan sat eating grapes from a wooden bowl. When he spied Davos, he beckoned him closer. “Ser knight, come sit with me. Eat a grape. Eat two. They are marvelously sweet.” The Lyseni was a sleek, smiling man whose flamboyance was known on both sides of the Narrow Sea. Today he wore flashing cloth-of-silver, with dagged sleeves so long the ends of them pooled on the floor. His buttons were carved jade monkeys, and atop his wispy white curls perched a jaunty green cap decorated with a fan of peacock feathers.
Davos threaded his way through the tables to a chair. In the days before his knighthood, he had often bought cargoes from Salladhor Saan. The Lyseni was a smuggler himself, as well as a trader, a banker, a notorious pirate, and the self-styled Prince of the Narrow Sea. When a pirate grows rich enough, they make him a prince. It had been Davos who had made the journey to Lys to recruit the old rogue to Lord Stannis’s cause.
“You did not see the ship burn, my lord?” he asked.
“Ships burn all the time. More will burn soon, I wager. The red priests have a great temple on Lys. Always they are burning this and burning that, crying out to their R’hllor. They bore me with their fires. Soon they will bore King Stannis too, it is to be hoped.” He seemed utterly unconcerned that someone might overhear him, eating his grapes and dribbling the seeds out onto his lip, flicking them off with a finger.
“My Bird of a Thousand Colors came in yesterday, good ser. She is not a warship, no, but a trader, and she paid a call on King’s Landing. Are you sure you will not have a grape? Children go hungry in the city, it is said. A man should never refuse a grape … not when war is near.” He dangled the grapes before Davos and smiled.
“It’s ale I need, and news.”
“The men of Westeros are ever rushing,” complained Salladhor Saan. “What good is this, I ask you? He who hurries through life hurries to his grave.” He belched. “The Lord of Casterly Rock has sent his dwarf to see to King’s Landing. Perhaps he hopes that his ugly face will frighten off attackers, eh? Or that we will laugh ourselves dead when the Imp capers on the battlements, who can say? The dwarf has chased off the lout who ruled the gold cloaks and put in his place a knight with an iron hand.” He plucked a grape, and squeezed it between thumb and forefinger until the skin burst. Juice ran down between his fingers. “The dwarf has wild men from the mountains, and sellswords from the alleyways with him. Sweet Queen Cersei has levied a heavy tax on the merchants and good, hungry, folk of the city to fund their war. I have not seen a man to love the sound of the tax man’s footsteps… and the wolf lord’s disappearance has rippled the city. The queen has sent her gold men to many houses, you see. They found nothing, and took aplenty.”
He understood his meaning, and grimaced. A serving girl pushed her way through, swatting at the hands that groped her as she passed. Davos ordered a tankard of ale, turned back to Saan, and said, “How well is the city defended?”
The other shrugged. “The walls are high and strong, but who will man them? They are building scorpions and spitfires, oh, yes, but the men in the golden cloaks are too few and too green, and there are no others. A swift strike, like a hawk plummeting at a hare, and the great city will be ours. Grant us wind to fill our sails, and your king could sit upon his Iron Throne by evenfall on the morrow. We could dress the dwarf in motley and prick his little cheeks with the points of our spears to make him dance for us, and mayhaps your goodly king would make me a gift of the beautiful Queen Cersei to warm my bed for a night. I have been too long away from my wives, and all in his service.”
“Pirate,” said Davos. “You have no wives, only concubines, and you have been well paid for every day and every ship.”
“Only in promises,” said Salladhor Saan mournfully. “Good ser, it is gold I crave, not words on papers.” He popped a grape into his mouth.
“You’ll have your gold when we take the treasury in King’s Landing. No man in the Seven Kingdoms is more honorable than Stannis Baratheon and Eddard Stark. They will keep their word.” Even as Davos spoke, he thought, This world is twisted beyond hope, when lowborn smugglers must vouch for the honor of kings. Who am I to speak of honor? There was a man of honor on the island, Davos thought, there are still men like that.
“So he has said and said. And so I say, let us do this thing. Even these grapes could be no more ripe than that city, my old friend.”
The serving girl returned with his ale. Davos gave her a copper. “Might be we could take King’s Landing, as you say,” he said as he lifted the tankard, “but how long would we hold it? Tywin Lannister is known to be at Harrenhal with a great host, and Lord Renly ...”
Though the North and the Riverlands had declared for Stannis, Renly still held the greatest army in the realm. And Tywin Lannister was not a man to be disregarded. Davos had heard the song before.
“Ah, yes, the young brother,” said Salladhor Saan. “That part is not so good, my friend. King Renly bestirs himself. No, here he is Lord Renly, my pardons. So many kings, my tongue grows weary of the word. The brother Renly has left Highgarden with his fair young queen, his flowered lords and shining knights, and a mighty host of foot. He marches up your road of roses toward the very same great city we were speaking of.”
“He takes his bride?”
The other shrugged. “He did not tell me why. Perhaps he is loath to part with the warm burrow between her thighs, even for a night. Or perhaps he is that certain of his victory. Already, there are songs of victory I hear. King of the Forest.”
“The king must be told.”
“I have attended to it, good ser. Though His Grace frowns so whenever he does see me that I tremble to come before him. The wolf lord mislikes me a little less so. Do you think he would like me better if I wore a hair shirt and never smiled? Well, I will not do it. I am an honest man, he must suffer me in silk and samite. Or else I shall take my ships where I am better loved. That sword was not Lightbringer, my friend.”
The sudden shift in subject left Davos uneasy. “Sword?”
“A sword plucked from fire, yes. Men tell me things, it is my pleasant smile, I am adored for that. How shall a burnt sword serve Stannis?”
“A burning sword,” corrected Davos.
“Burnt,” said Salladhor Saan, “and be glad of that, my friend. Do you know the tale of the forging of Lightbringer?”
Davos nodded reluctantly. “She made sure to tell it to all.”
“So you see my meaning,” the pirate said. “Be glad that it is just a burnt sword that His Grace pulled from that fire. Too much light can hurt the eyes, my friend, and fire burns.” Salladhor Saan finished the last grape and smacked his lips. “When do you think the king will bid us sail, good ser?”
“Soon, I think,” said Davos, “if his god wills it.”
“His god, ser friend? Not yours? Where is the god of Ser Davos Seaworth, knight of the onion ship?”
Davos sipped his ale to give himself a moment. The inn is crowded, and you are not Salladhor Saan, he reminded himself. Be careful how you answer. “King Stannis is my god. He made me and blessed me with his trust.”
“I will remember.” Salladhor Saan got to his feet. “My pardons. These grapes have given me a hunger, and dinner awaits on my Valyrian. Minced lamb with pepper and roasted gull stuffed with mushrooms and fennel and onion. Soon we shall eat together in King’s Landing, yes? In the Red Keep we shall feast, while the dwarf sings us a jolly tune. When you speak to King Stannis, mention, if you would, that he will owe me another thirty thousand dragons come the black of the moon. He ought to have given that ship to me instead. Burn a ship! We must all surely need ships in the days to come.” The Lyseni clapped Davos on the back, and swaggered from the inn as if he owned it.
Ser Davos Seaworth lingered over his tankard for a good while, thinking. A year ago, he had been with Stannis in King’s Landing when King Robert staged a tourney for Prince Joffrey’s name day. He remembered the red priest Thoros of Myr, and the flaming sword he had wielded in the melee. The man had made for a colorful spectacle, his red robes flapping while his blade writhed with pale green flames, but everyone knew there was no true magic to it, and in the end his fire had guttered out and Bronze Yohn Royce had brained him with a common mace.
A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost ... When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her warm heart, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, the Onion Knight cared not to pay it.
Davos finished his ale, pushed away the tankard, and left the inn. On the way out he patted the gargoyle on the head and muttered, “Luck.” They would all need it.
It was well after dark when Devan came down to Black Betha, leading a snow-white palfrey. “My lord father,” he announced, “His Grace commands you to attend him in the Chamber of the Painted Table. You are to ride the horse and come at once.”
It was good to see Devan looking so splendid in his squire’s raiment, but the summons made Davos uneasy. Will he bid us sail? he wondered. Salladhor Saan was not the only captain who felt that King’s Landing was ripe for an attack, but a smuggler must learn patience. We have no hope of victory. I said as much to Maester Cressen, the day I returned to Dragonstone, and nothing has changed. Even Lord Stark knows it. We are too few, the foes too many. If we dip our oars, we die. Nonetheless, he climbed onto the horse.
When Davos arrived at the Stone Drum, a dozen highborn knights and great bannermen were just leaving. Lords Celtigar and Velaryon each gave him a curt nod and walked on while the others ignored him utterly, but Ser Axell Florent stopped for a word.
Queen Selyse’s uncle was a great keg of a man with thick arms and bandy legs. He had the prominent ears of a Florent, even larger than his niece’s. The coarse hair that sprouted from his did not stop him from hearing most of what went on in the castle. For ten years Ser Axell had served as castellan of Dragonstone while Stannis sat on Robert’s council in King’s Landing, but of late he had emerged as the foremost of the queen’s men. “Ser Davos, it is good to see you, as ever,” he said.
“And you, my lord.”
“I made note of you this morning as well. The lion’s ship burned with a merry light, did they not? A shame they did not roar for us.”
“It burned brightly.” Davos did not trust this man, for all his courtesy. House Florent had declared for Renly.
“The Lady Melisandre tells us that sometimes R’hllor permits his faithful servants to glimpse the future in flames. It seemed to me as I watched the fire this morning that I was looking at a dozen beautiful dancers, maidens garbed in yellow silk spinning and swirling before a great king. I think it was a true vision, ser. A glimpse of the glory that awaits His Grace after we take King’s Landing and the throne that is his by rights.”
Stannis has no taste for such dancing, Davos thought, but he dared not offend the queen’s uncle. “I saw only fire,” he said, “but the smoke was making my eyes water, like onions. You must pardon me, ser, the king awaits.” He pushed past, wondering why Ser Axell had troubled himself. He is a queen’s man and I am the king’s.
Stannis sat at his Painted Table with Maester Pylos at his shoulder, an untidy pile of papers before them. Lord Eddard sat to his right, Andrei standing behind him. “Ser,” the king said when Davos entered, “come have a look at this letter.”
Obediently, he selected a paper at random. “It looks handsome enough, Your Grace, but I fear I cannot read the words.” Davos could decipher maps and charts as well as any, but letters and other writings were beyond his powers. But my Devan has learned his letters, and young Steffon and Stannis as well.
“I’d forgotten.” A furrow of irritation showed between the king’s brows. “Pylos, read it to him.”
“Your Grace.” The maester took up one of the parchments and cleared his throat. “All men know me for the trueborn son of Steffon Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End, by his lady wife Cassana of House Estermont. With Lord Eddard of House Stark by my side as witness, having been unjustly accused of treason, I declare upon the honor of my House that my brother Robert, our beloved late king, left no trueborn issue of his body, the boy Joffrey, the boy Tommen, and the girl Myrcella being abominations born of incest between Cersei Lannister and her brother the Kingslayer.”
“This, I claim with proof and confession. Upon his honor, Lord Eddard Stark has sworn that Cersei Lannister has confessed her vile sin before the godswood of the Red Keep, rejecting his attempt at mercy. It is the work of the false queen, and the treason of the City Watch, that led to the slaughter of good men and true, and the departure of Lord Eddard from King’s Landing to Dragonstone where I received him. Further, my brother’s bastards are all black of hair and blue of eye, each and every. The seed is strong, Lord Jon Arryn’s last words were, before his murder. For proof, let all men lay their eyes upon the wicked spawns of Cersei Lannister, gold of hair and green of eyes each.”
“By right of birth and blood, I do this day lay claim to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Let all true men declare their loyalty. Done in the Light of the Lord, under the sign and seal of Stannis of House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.” The parchment rustled softly as Pylos laid it down.
“Make it Ser Jaime the Kingslayer henceforth,” Stannis said, frowning. “Whatever else the man may be, he remains a knight. I don’t know that we ought to call Robert my beloved brother either. He loved me no more than he had to, nor I him.”
“A false knight,” said Lord Stark, frowning. “And as for Robert…”
“A harmless courtesy, Your Grace,” Pylos said.
“A lie. Take it out.” Stannis turned to Davos. “The maester tells me that we have one hundred seventeen ravens on hand. I mean to use them all. One hundred seventeen ravens will carry one hundred seventeen copies of my letter to every corner of the realm, from the Arbor to the Wall. Perhaps a hundred will win through against storm and hawk and arrow. If so, a hundred maesters will read my words to as many lords in as many solars and bedchambers ... and then half of the letters will like as not be consigned to the fire, and lips pledged to silence. These great lords love Joffrey, or Renly. I am their rightful king, but they will deny me if they can. So I have need of you.”
“I am yours to command, my king. As ever.” Stannis nodded. “I mean for you to sail Black Betha north, to Gulltown, the Fingers, the Three Sisters, even White Harbor. Your son Dale will go south in Wraith, past Cape Wrath and the Broken Arm, all along the coast of Dorne as far as the Arbor. Each of you will carry a chest of letters, and you will deliver one to every port and holdfast and fishing village. Nail them to the doors of septs and inns for every man to read who can.”
Davos said, “That will be few enough.”
“Ser Davos speaks truly, Your Grace,” said Maester Pylos. “It would be better to have the letters read aloud.”
“Better, but more dangerous,” said Stannis. “These words will not be kindly received.”
“Give me knights to do the reading,” Davos said. “That will carry more weight than anything I might say.”
Stannis seemed well satisfied with that. “I can give you such men, yes. I have a hundred knights who would sooner read than fight. Be open where you can and stealthy where you must. Use every smuggler’s trick you know, the black sails, the hidden coves, whatever it requires. If you run short of letters, capture a few septons and set them to copying out more. Lord Stark has a letter for your hand as well, to the Lord of White Harbour. I mean to use your second son as well. He will take Lady Marya across the narrow sea, to Braavos and the other Free Cities, to deliver other letters to the men who rule there. The world will know of my claim, and of Cersei’s infamy.”
You can tell them, Davos thought, but will they believe? He glanced thoughtfully at Maester Pylos. The king caught the look. “Maester, perhaps you ought to get to your writing. We will need a great many letters, and soon.”
“As you will.” Pylos bowed, and took his leave. The king waited until he was gone before he said, “What is it you would not say in the presence of my maester, Davos?”
“My liege, Pylos is pleasant enough, but I cannot see the chain about his neck without wondering for Maester Cressen.”
“He is old,” said Stannis. “I would let him rest. He has few years left, I will hope that they are of ease and comfort. He has earned that much. Pylos serves ably.”
“Pylos is the least of it. The letter ... What did your lords make of it, I wonder?”
Stannis snorted. “Celtigar pronounced it admirable. If I showed him the contents of my privy, he would declare that admirable as well. The others bobbed their heads up and down like a flock of geese, all but Velaryon, who said that steel would decide the matter, not words on parchment. As if I had never suspected. Lord Eddard alone spoke true, that proof is needed for the realm to believe.”
“None now,” Davos nodded, “no more than you did a year ago.”
“Cersei Lannister told me the truth,” Eddard Stark said grimly. “In the godswood. She confessed to … her brother and her. That is why my son Bran fell from the tower. That is the truth that Jon Arryn died for.”
“And there is proof of a sort at Storm’s End. Robert’s bastard. The one he fathered on my wedding night, in the very bed they’d made up for me and my bride. Delena was a Florent, and a maiden when he took her, so Robert acknowledged the babe. Edric Storm, they call him. He is said to be the very image of my brother. If men were to see him, and then look again at Joffrey and Tommen, they could not help but wonder, I would think.”
“And more, in King’s Landing,” Eddard nodded.
“Yet how are men to see them, in Storm’s End, and King’s Landing?”
Stannis drummed his fingers on the Painted Table. “It is a difficulty. One of many.” He raised his eyes. “You have more to say about the letter. Well, get on with it. I did not make you a knight so you could learn to mouth empty courtesies. I have my lords for that. Say what you would say, Davos.”
Davos bowed his head. “There was a phrase at the end. How did it go? Done in the Light of the Lord ...”
“Yes.” The king’s jaw was clenched.
“Your people will mislike those words.”
“As you did?” said Stannis sharply.
“If you were to say instead, Done in the sight of gods and men, or By the grace of the gods old and new ...”
“Have you gone devout on me, smuggler?”
“That was to be my question for you, my liege.”
“Ser Davos speaks sense,” said Lord Eddard, looking at the two of them. “I stand here as a man of the North, of the old gods. Ser Davos stands in the light of the new. And there is this red light as well. Northmen and riverlords have proclaimed you king, Your Grace, and they are of the old and the new, not of the red. These men are fighting for you as we speak, my son, my wife. Thousands of them.”
Davos nodded his thanks to the Lord of Winterfell. “Your people will not love you if you take from them the gods they have always worshiped, and give them one whose very name sounds queer on their tongues.”
“They will not love me, you say? When have they ever loved me? How can I lose something I have never owned?” He moved to the south window to gaze out at the moonlit sea. “I stopped believing in gods the day I saw the Windproud break up across the bay. Any gods so monstrous as to drown my mother and father would never have my worship, I vowed. In King’s Landing, the High Septon would prattle at me of how all justice and goodness flowed from the Seven, but all I ever saw of either was made by men.”
“Your Grace,” Lord Stark spoke slowly, pained. “Your parents were drowned by the gods, and my lord father was burnt by a king. You say justice and goodness are made by men, and that may be true, but madness and cruelty come from men as well. Just as men are, the gods can be cruel or they can be good. Mine were. I know because I sit here, with my life.”
Stannis stared at the sea. “I have asked myself much as well. Why trouble with this new god? I know little and care less of gods, but the red priestess has power.”
Yes, but what sort of power? Davos frowned.
“Power, perhaps,” Lord Stark argued, “more than mortal men, even. Still, men fight for you. Here or in the Riverlands, men have called you king. Men whose gods were here before the Red Woman. The North keeps to our godswood, Your Grace, and my wife keeps to her Seven. A red god is foreign and terrifying.”
“Terror,” Stannis snorted. “Half my knights are afraid even to say her name, did you know?”
“That is no source of pride,” argued Davos. “Not if half the realm fears her too. Once that fear turns to hate and scorn, they will turn to kings and lords who can promise to protect their gods.”
“Tywin Lannister is cunning, and Tyrion Lannister is no fool,” Eddard Stark agreed. “He will spin the tale and half the realm will hear that you have burned men alive instead of ships. The High Septon in King’s Landing, he will speak as one with the Lannisters.”
“I cannot make them fear, you tell me,” Stannis said angrily, “nor can I make them love me. What will you have me do?”
“Not this,” Davos insisted.
Eddard Stark agreed. “Men and steel won Robert the throne, not fire.”
“Robert,” Stannis said angrily. “When I was a lad I found an injured goshawk and nursed her back to health. Proudwing, I named her. She would perch on my shoulder and flutter after me and take food from my hand, but she would not soar. Time and again I would take her hawking, but she never flew higher than the treetops. Robert called her Weakwing. He owned a gyrfalcon named Thunderclap who never missed her strike. Our great-uncle Ser Harbert told me to try a different bird. I was making a fool of myself with Proudwing, he said, and he was right.” Stannis Baratheon turned away from the window, and the ghosts who moved upon the southern sea. “The Seven have never brought me so much as a sparrow. Why should I not try another hawk? A red one.”
“Black and gold are the colors of your house,” Lord Eddard said tiredly. He frowned often when the king mentioned Robert Baratheon. “Red is cold. When men see red, they think of blood and fire. They think of terror. The lion’s banner is red as well. Red is no color for men to rally to, to swear to. Your Grace, I was in the capital during Robert’s last months. The people adored the black and gold of Baratheon.”
“You wanted to know why I fled,” Stannis narrowed his eyes, “is that it?”
“I do not accuse you of cowardice, your grace.”
“Jon Arryn had died, while we were investigating the matter,” Stannis ground out. “All Robert could think of was making you his Hand. He would not trust me, for he never bore any love for me. If I had told him that his wife was giving him horns with her own brother, he would have thrown wine in my face.”
“I never wanted to be Hand, your grace,” Lord Stark said tiredly. “It was an honor that your brother gave me to wear, heavier than plate.”
His king was not beyond reason. Davos had to speak now. “Lord Eddard spoke truly. Men might not love you now, but the red road will make them hate. The sailors will flee the ship if you fly the red flag.”
“The Vale, the Crownlands,” Eddard Stark pointed out quietly. “Many of those houses hold to the Seven proudly. It is not beyond hope that we can have their loyalty, and swords. Renly and Joffrey both will be crowned in the light and oils of the Seven. If you proclaim a god of fire, both of them will argue that yours is the path of fire, that you will burn men alive; men, and septs, and weirwoods.”
“Do you think me capable of that?” Stannis demanded.
“I do not,” Lord Eddard said, “I pray not. But men fear, and frightened men believe all manner of tales fed to them. War has come to the realm, your grace, and men will look to the king who they think can bring peace again. Safety.”
“The smallfolk in King’s Landing,” said Davos. “I would know. I grew up there. They will love a king who protects them. Not one who brings fire and foreign priestesses.”
“The lords of the north and river will whisper at the red god,” Eddard admitted. “They will fight loyally and true, but they will wonder at that, if you will make them surrender their gods and burn their septs and woods.”
“When men fight,” Andrei said suddenly. Davos had nearly forgotten he was there, silent as he was. “They… no surrender if they think they will burn.”
“Aye,” Eddard nodded. “Reachmen, Westermen, Stormlander, men of the Seven. The Red Woman might give you fire, but that is not worth the realm’s distrust.”
“So you tell me, my lord,” Stannis kept his iron gaze upon the Lord of Winterfell. “And so you tell me, my knight of onions.” Davos met his stare next.
“The hard truth, that is,” Stannis scowled. “Men will fear, they will whisper. Very well, I am not blind, nor deaf. I can see the sense in your words. In all of yours.”
Davos shared a look with Lord Eddard. Behind the lord, Andrei eyed his wineskin. Had they gotten through to this stubborn mule of a man?
“The Northmen and Riverlords are loyal and true,” Stannis said slowly. “Their loyalty is… appreciated, acknowledged, so are yours. The blood that they have shed and sacrificed to war against the Lannisters, I shall remember. The atrocities of the Lannister hosts, my brother’s treason, Cersei Lannister’s sin, Lord Tywin’s crimes in the Riverlands, those I shall remember as well. Your words, Lord Eddard, lend honor and credence to my claim. In this, the realm will know that you are alive and well, and here on Dragonstone.”
“I am aware,” Eddard Stark bowed his head. “Let all know.”
Stannis’ jaw twitched. “Well said,” the king nodded and turned his gaze to Davos. “Tell Pylos then, By the sight of men, and of the gods old and new and red.”
Ser Davos Seaworth smiled and bowed to his king. The war was not yet over, it had only just begun, but they had won a battle nonetheless. It was not one fought with swords and men, but with words within the hearts of kings; stubborn, angry kings who could still be reasoned with.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: ACOK, Davos I
Stannis is painfully stubborn and bitter, but not beyond reason, we hope. I can't wait to read the Battle of Ice, but more likely I will finish this fic before we get TWOW. Next up, Renly's camp!
Chapter 57: Omake: House Words
Summary:
The party discusses some House words. Comedy ensues.
Notes:
Don't think too hard about the logic and logistics of how and when they got together. This can be an AU where they spawned into Westeros together and have been wandering together since.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
At the Crossroad Inn, 297 AC
“On the crossroads between east and west,
the crossroads between north and south,
sits inn of truly good repute,
with food and drink the best.”
Across the trestle table, the bard was strumming his lute. Blonde locks hung loosely around the fair face, but the green eyes were closed in concentration. As ever, deft, pale fingers plucked the strings with ease and a voice as smooth as honey flowed from Lorenzo’s mouth.
“The heavy doors of ancient oak,
open to all folk,
nobleman of highest blood,
or the common rogue!”
The bard opened his eyes at that, glancing at him with amusement in those emerald orbs. Gunther scoffed, stabbing the mutton chop with one knife and sawing it with another. Next to the singer, Lucia was downing a wooden bowl of broth loudly while Andrei sat next to him, quaffing down his third mug of ale.
“Be you soldier, knight, or thief,
your visit won’t feel brief,
rules and orders don’t apply,
the strife will stay outside!”
A loud belch came from Andrei’s mouth, as he brought the tankard down on the table. Lucia hardly paid him any mind, nor did the bard falter in his singing. All around the Crossroads Inn, men were singing and cheering along, slamming tankards to the tune.
“The firelight dances through,
the coldest, longest nights,
don’t watch it through the window frames,
come get yourself inside!”
As the song came to an end, Lorenzo strummed a closing tune; warm and light and lively. A round of cheer came from the men; merchants and mercenaries, weary travellers all basking in the warmth of the hearthfire and the joy of the song. Masha Heddle came smiling a red smile, clapping the singer on the back with a boisterous laugh and a tray with four tankards foaming with ale.
That was how they had gotten the food at half the price, the singing that was. The first song had charmed the inn, its keeper, and the men within. The second made them sing along, and persuaded Heddle to only take half their coin when their food came. This third song brought them another round of ale, it seemed.
Lorenzo took his with a charming smile and a round of flattering words, though his own mug was still untouched. Lucia accepted it with a nod, while Andrei grunted something through his chewing. “Thanks,” Gunther said, when he took his.
They ate in a brief silence after, cutting and chewing, downing their meal with drink. The Inn at the Crossroads was one of the better inns in the land, he thought, though with such a good location, he wondered why it had not yet bustled into a settlement.
Inns, taverns, and little villages dotted the Empire as far as the eye could see. Even a city thief like him knew that the rivers and the roads brought the Empire its wealth. Countless coaching inns and fortified taverns could be found even within the dark gloom of the Reikwald Forest, promising a night’s rest in warmth and safety for coin. Along many a crossroad in the Reikland, villages had formed to find coin in passing travellers and merchants, and more often than not, those villages bloomed into towns, watered by the gold and silver of weary travellers.
It was just another sign of how poorly invested … everything was here, he supposed. The roads were dirty things of mud and dirt, unlike the paved cobblestone of the Reikland. The bridges were little flimsy wooden pathways, each one eager to be broken. The villages were miserable in their labor, that, he could see the similarities.
“These house words,” Lorenzo mused, sipping from the ale with a slight grimace, “they are interesting, are they not?”
“Not really,” Lucia said bluntly.
“Some of them are,” Gunther shrugged.
Andrei was silent, opting to raise an eyebrow, and reach over for a roast leg.
“Luccini has no words that the city’s princes are fond to declare or boast,” the bard went on, “though they love the title of Ancient. Banners, the proud cities of Tilea wave … and certain illustrious titles for each city-state to mark its glory or shame. The Ancient Principality of Luccini, the Mighty Principality of Miragliano, the Serene Republic of Verezzo, the Tormented Principality of Tobaro. No words for each city however, no proud boast or warning for their foes. I do not believe the Estalian Kingdoms, or the states of the Empire to have such customs?”
Lucia took a moment to think. “Not that I know of,” she frowned.
“Nuln is called the ‘Bastion of the South’,” Gunther boasted, “and the Jewel of the Empire … but no words.”
“I do not imagine the stanitsas of Kislev to possess such gaudy customs,” Lorenzo asked with a light smile, glancing at Andrei.
“No,” said the Kossar, though his eyes were furrowed. “But … ‘Winter is Coming’ … good words.”
“Why do you say so?” the singer’s eyes gleamed with green curiosity.
Andrei finished the rest of his drink, beckoning for a fifth. “It is always coming,” the Kislevite said plainly.
“No matter,” Lucia murmured, “the dawn always comes after.”
Autumn had fallen when they disappeared from Altdorf. Gunther had never spent a winter away from Nuln, and he had not been looking forward to spending the snowy days trekking through the roads. He wondered if the winters here were worse.
“Fascinating words,” Lorenzo nodded, “and fitting for a house whose lords were once the kings of winter.”
“Which one is your favorite?” Gunther broke in.
Lorenzo looked at him, bemused. “There are too many words to pick from, my friend.”
“Amongst the Great Houses.”
The singer stole a glance at the hearthfire. “I have a certain fondness for the House of Tyrell, I must admit. The verdant fields, the dazzling rivers, it brings to mind and sight the fairness of Tilea. Still, their words, though fitting, do not appeal to me. In truth, none of the eight do.”
“Not song-like enough?” Lucia snorted.
Lorenzo only smiled.
Gunther spared Andrei a glance, already knowing his response.
The Kossar grunted. “Winter is Coming.”
“Of course,” said Gunther, dryly. He was not surprised … and he would admit that the words bore a certain weight to them.
“The Dornish are worthy of respect,” Lucia shrugged, “especially their defiance of the dragons and the rest of the realm. Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken… those are strong words.”
“The sun and spear fluttering on their banners do not sway your judgement, I am sure,” Lorenzo said, smiling.
Lucia only glared.
“Still,” Lorenzo went on, “some of these words do leave much to be imagined and desired.”
“Like what?” Gunther was curious.
The singer paused to think. “Hear Me Roar,” he said flatly.
“Ah,” Gunther nodded. The lion flew on Nuln’s banners as well, proud symbol as it was, but even he would admit that that was overly gaudy.
“It is too … apparent,” Lorenzo critiqued. “The Starks do not say ‘Hear Us Howl', nor do the Martells proclaim ‘Hear Us Hiss’. There is a reason why many seem to believe that their unofficial motto, that of their debts, are their words.”
“Give them a better one then,” Lucia scoffed.
“Our Claws Shine Bright,” Lorenzo offered at once. “It alludes to the gold of their wealth, their leonine banners, and their propensity at war all at once.”
Gunther made a sound of approval. A bard for a reason. “What about the rest?”
“The rest?”
“The rest of the words,” Gunther flashed a playful smile. “You said none of them appeals to you.”
“Some are better than others,” Lorenzo admitted. “The Stark words, and those of the Martells, allude to their history well. The defiance of the desert, the ancient history of House Stark and the Kings of Winter. The words of Baratheon are certainly mighty, though taken from the Durrandons. Strong words for those who would call themselves Storm Kings. While I do not adore the words of Tyrell, it is certainly fitting for them. They have grown strong, blooming like flowers after the rain of dragonfire.”
The singer paused to sip at the ale, grimacing once more. “Yet, some of the other words are … limiting. Take House Tully’s words. Family, Duty, Honor. As of now, their family is scattered. I hear that the Blackfish holds no great love for his lordly brother, and that the Lady Lysa has not visited or written to her family. Duty, those loyal to the dragons might call Lord Hoster Tully a traitor to the throne. Those loyal to the rebellion frown upon him for only wedding his swords to the righteous duty of rebellion, after he wedded his daughters. And Honor. Limiting words, as I say. A promise that can not be lived up to. All it requires is a single Tully to fail his House’s words, and mockery follows. Arryn’s words are not too dissimilar, though the allusion to the height of its mountains is certainly amusing. Still, empty boasts, though it is not the worst.”
“What is, then?” Lucia asked.
A flash of disdain crossed over the bard’s face. “We Do Not Sow.”
“Ironborn,” Andrei muttered in disgust. “Just like Norscans … but weaker.”
“They proclaim the barrenness of their isles,” said the singer, “and their obdurate disbelief in progress, choosing instead to boast of their reaping. A reaping that has brought them defeat and disgrace aplenty.”
“How do those islands sustain so many anyways?” Lucia murmured.
“Food from the sea,” Andrei grunted, “loot from ships.”
“Ah.”
“And you, my friend?” Lorenzo looked at him.
“What?”
“Which of the words do you prefer the most?” the bard clarified.
Gunther tapped his fingers on the table, chewed on his lips, and finished his drink. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “None of them.”
“That is fair,” Lorenzo shrugged.
“There has to be one,” Lucia said, “or at least the word you dislike the least.”
“Winter is Coming,” Andrei urged, with a solemn nod.
“Look,” the thief sighed, “most of these words threaten or boast or promise honor. That’s just … not me. Fitting for a Myrmidian, or a Kossar, yeah. Not for a thief.”
“Fair,” Lucia scowled, though there was no malice in it.
“There are many houses in this land,” assured Lorenzo. “In truth, some of these minor houses have better words than some of the greater ones, though there are some that … are most curious.”
“Awake, awake,” Lucia mocked.
“Perhaps the words of House Bolton might appeal to you,” Lorenzo offered with a smile.
“What are they?” Unlike the bard, he had not taken the time to pore over tomes and books, preferring to keep his fingers busy in other, more profitable, ways.
“Our Blades Are Sharp.”
“Ah,” Gunther mused. “That’s not bad.”
“What words … you give Nuln?” Andrei asked suddenly, looking at them. “Or Luccini … or Magritta.”
The three of them took the Kossar’s question in silence, musing.
“Hear Our Guns Roar,” Gunther said.
“For The Eagle,” Lucia declared at the same time.
The look on Lorenzo’s face was of utter chagrin, a grimace of mortification blooming across his lips at once. “That is … that leaves much to be desired,” the singer admitted. “The first is rather similar to existing words, no? And the second…”
“I need time to think,” Gunther protested. Lucia rolled her eyes.
“What about you?” she said. “For Luccini.”
“In Perpetual, Prophesied,” the singer said smoothly. They sat in silence again.
“What does that mean?” Lucia asked. He was about to do so.
Lorenzo sighed. “Are you familiar with the tale of Lucan and Luccina?”
They shook their heads.
Lorenzo gave them a thin smile. “The legendary founders of Luccini. According to old tales, the twins became lost in the wilderness when they were but children, and took refuge in a cave on a great rock. The cave was the lair of a leopard, one with two heads and three tails. One head proclaimed prophecy, and the other offered warning. The majestic beast protected the twins as if they were her own, until shepherds found them, surrounded by the bones of beasts. It is said that one head of the leopard prophesied that Lucan and Luccina would found a great city on the rock and rule it as king and queen. The other head warned that the descendants of the twins would fight each other for the realm. After speaking, the leopard would never be seen again. From there, the Ancient Principality was born.”
“Too long,” Andrei grunted.
Lorenzo blinked. “Too long?”
“Too long,” the Kossar repeated. “Words … men shout them in battle. Your words too long to shout.”
Lucia snorted in amusement beside the bard, and Gunther’s lips twitched.
“Ah,” said the singer, resigned. “I suppose.”
“What would you give to …” Lucia trailed off. “To Kislev.”
Andrei eyed the empty mug in his hand, belched, and placed it down. He furrowed his brows, deep in thought, before speaking. “Iron From Ice.”
“That is already taken,” pointed out the bard, smiling like a cat. “By a House Forrester in the North, I believe.”
Andrei muttered a curse in Kislevarin. “Sun of Winter.”
“Taken as well,” supplied the singer, “by House Karstark.”
“Winter … comes.”
“That is horrible,” Lucia proclaimed at the same time as he did, while Lorenzo only shook his head, sighing.
Notes:
P.S
if you are wondering why Folke is not here:
1. I do struggle with his characterisation and dialogue.
2. I wanted a light-hearted piece, and having Warhammer Fantasy Punisher there is hard...
3. He has been away from the party for so long, since the player left, that it is difficult to insert him into the party dynamic.Folke will still have a presence in the main story moving forward, of course, and will take up a larger role in the next arc.
Still, I hope you enjoy the glimpse of what the party dynamic looks like. Next omake, I am thinking of doing something where the party members are actually Westerosi-born. Andrei Mormont for instance, who knows!
Chapter 58: Lucia I
Notes:
"Ambition should be made of sterner stuff," - Marc Antony (Julius Caesar)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“How long more?”
Lorenzo favored her with a wry smile. “Shall I ask the gods for you?”
“If the gods have an answer,” Lucia grunted.
Lorenzo only shook his head. “Perhaps they should rename the Rose Road to the Eternity Road. It certainly feels as such.”
“Does that king know he is at war?” Lucia wondered. She spoke in her quiet Estalian, but they were far away enough from the other sellswords to not worry. While she scorned the Bretonnians for their customs and everything, she could not deny that they knew how to fight, how to march, how to wage war; their cavalry charges were the stuff of legends. This…
“Some days, he seems to remember,” Lorenzo smiled, glancing at the campfire intently. She saw. She glanced at the crackling bacon in the pan, and chose to focus on that. “Three songs King Renly has commissioned for victory, each one promising glory and chivalry.”
“Summer promises to stay,” she said. “It always leaves.”
Lorenzo gave her a look of faux surprise. “How poetic, Lucia. Shall I lend you my lute?”
She reached for her helmet, resting against blades of green grass, and tossed it lightly at Lorenzo. He caught it with a wince and shot her a light glare. The bard tapped his fingers on her helm, humming a casual tune. “Three kings,” Lorenzo mused. “Three crowns. One throne.”
“Writing a song?”
“I already have,” he smiled. “War like this is … not familiar to me, you see. I have read about the Age of Three Emperors for Sigmar’s Empire, sure, but to see it play out like this?”
“I thought Tilea is oft divided?”
“Oft?” Lorenzo laughed cheerfully. “Eternally. But each city knows better than to burn the countryside, to bloody the menfolk. No, we have mercenaries for that. The princes of Tilea fight with ink and song and daggers in the dark.”
Those, Lucia knew. Tilea’s mercenaries were renowned across the breath of the Old World, as was her poisonous politics. Estalia was a different beast; a hound with too many clashing heads, each one snapping at the other violently and eternally. She wondered if the kingdoms of the desert back home were warring again. Lucia shook her head, tearing two chunks of bread. She stabbed the sizzling bacon from the pan and placed it between the chunks.
“An interesting thought,” Lorenzo sipped from a wooden mug. It was a strange sight, she thought. His fingers were made to clasp at golden goblets, not the carved mugs that men-at-arms slammed on tavern tables. “That bacon. It must have come from a pig somewhere in the Reach. That bread? Made with wheat and flour of the Reach.”
“Do you want me to give thanks?”
“Only if you want to,” he laughed. “It is fascinating, no? All across this camp, tens of thousands of men are feasting. They eat grapes and peaches, bread and bacon, wine and ale, all gathered from the bounty of the Reach. Why, even the whole of Tilea will struggle to match that. The king of the harvest is the king of men, Lucia.”
“How long more can that harvest feed these men?” She wondered. “Food in plenty, sure. But how many farm hands were needed? All the pigs turned into bacon, the grapes crushed to make wine. Hands were needed for that.”
“Hands that are now holding spears and bows,” Lorenzo agreed. “Their agricultural output is falling as we speak. And each day that this grand army… lingers, the more the harvest is chewed through. The Reach must gather a sizable amount of its income from exporting those produce too. But now…”
“I take it you have not mentioned this to them,” she said.
“Why, they hired a bard,” he laughed, “not an advisor.”
“I thought those were the same in Tilea.”
“In Tilea, yes,” Lorenzo’s smile was sly. “We are not in Tilea. If we were, perhaps this war would be over by now.”
She glanced at the twin-tailed comet in the sky. It had travelled far across the sky, burning its golden path across the heavens. Farther than we have, she thought in resigned amusement. Lorenzo saw her gaze, and followed its path skyward. “A curious sight,” he said softly.
“Curious?” She snorted. “Curious is the pace of this army. That,” she pointed at the golden blaze tearing across the sky with a metal finger. “That is divine.”
“One of them,” Lorenzo countered. “Already, men have given it as many names as there are constellations. The Golden Messenger, I hear. The Twin-Tailed Wanderer. Some say that it represents the union of Baratheon and Tyrell, of storm and flower.”
Lucia laughed. “The arrogance of men,” she scoffed. “To give name to an act from those beyond them.”
Lorenzo gave her a curious stare. “All manner of our faiths; the books, the tales, the portraits. Would you not say we do those back home as well?”
She found she had no response to that. That was not uncommon. Lucia shrugged. Lorenzo smiled pleasantly, shaking his head slightly. “In my dreams, I see black roses and golden coins plenty. White doves and white wolves,” he gave the comet a lingering look. “That will not be the last portent we see.”
“Will Myrmidia show her light?”
“Why, she does just that every dawn and dusk,” Lorenzo said playfully.
Lucia gave him an annoyed look. He chuckled lightly, closing his eyes. “You do have to admit, sunlight and eagles make for nebulous omens.”
“You’re cheery,” Lucia observed, ignoring his words.
“Am I?” his eyes glinted with amusement. “My dreams have been a well of insight as of late. And I find pleasant company in the waking world and the sleeping state.”
She decided not to ask further. “So, the war…”
Lorenzo took another slight sip from the mug. His face was thoughtful. “I confess, I am no general. Still, I can read a map and I learnt things from overhearing Lupo. The Rose Road will bring us to Bitterbridge and to King’s Landing from there. We will pass through the Kingswood where the army will forage into a desert no doubt. I do wonder how King Renly intends to float a hundred thousand men across the Blackwater Rush, but I shall leave that concern to men more suited to war than me.”
She rose, marching for her brown steed. From one of its leather saddlebags, she drew a rolled map of Westeros that had been a gift from the Red Viper. She unfurled it, pinning it to the ground with her dagger. She glared at the map like it had offended her. “They say Stannis Baratheon sits on this island,” she pressed her finger down.
“Dragonstone,” Lorenzo named it. She dragged her finger north, to the Riverlands.
“The Starks and the riverlords fight the Lannisters here.”
“Perhaps,” Lorenzo mused. “This is all deliberate. King Renly feasts his men and entertain them well while the other armies bloody each other most savagely.”
“He has eighty thousand men,” Lucia pointed out. “Caution with an army this massive is wasted. A cautious Ogre is one that wastes his time defending.”
“Well said,” Lorenzo acknowledged, nodding. “You are the Myrmidian. War is your virtue. What would you do?”
Lucia focused her stare on the map. “Eighty thousand men burn through food faster than a fire. He can take King’s Landing with half that amount. Gather timber and food from the Kingswood and seize the city in a brief assault. March the other forty thousand up the Ocean Road and invade the Westerlands.”
Lorenzo was thoughtful. “And should Tywin Lannister march onto King’s Landing?”
“The defending army always has the advantage; walls, towers,” she said. “I hear the people have no love for the lion. Although…” She looked at the map. “If Tywin Lannister sieges the city from the land, and Stannis Baratheon blocks it from the sea, then the city starves. Steel cannot defeat hunger and disease, no matter how strong the hand. And the other half of the army will be too far away to relieve the siege.”
The look in Lorenzo’s green eyes was intent, like an emerald flame frozen in time. “Renly Baratheon seems an ambitious man.”
“Ambition should be made of sterner steel,” she declared.
Lorenzo blinked, looking at her. She stared back, confused.
“What?”
“Was that a reference to a play?” Lorenzo asked, smiling brightly.
“No?”
“Never mind,” he shook his head. “We never did manage to finish that conversation about Valyrian Steel. What would you do with a blade of Valyrian steel?”
“What would I do with a sword?” Lucia snorted with derision. “Melt it down and make a mace maybe.” She glanced at her own.
Lorenzo laughed, a melodious chime of a sound. “A million men will gasp in horror at that. I hear that these blades are ancient heirlooms, the last shades of a dead empire and the treasured possessions of great houses.”
“Let them,” she said dismissively. Her annoyance rose at that. Already, men gaped and glared and gawked at her. One fool of a sellsword clinked coin together in her direction a few nights prior, asking “how much?". She smashed her fist against his face and left him unconscious in a puddle of his own blood. The next day, he returned with two others. She broke his nose fully then, and the wrists of the second man, and the knees of the third. They did not return after.
A young, fiery knight came to challenge her on the day after, having heard of her bouts with Garlan Tyrell at Highgarden. He was not the same. She clashed her mace with his sword thrice, and on the fourth clash, she crashed her shield against his chestplate. The young knight stumbled back, coughing, and froze at the sight of her mace inches away from his eyes. The next day, no one came to challenge her.
“How long do you suppose an army should stay at Bitterbridge then?” Lorenzo looked at her curiously.
“Should? No more than a week,” she said. “This army? Maybe three weeks will pass before we saddle our horses again.”
“Maybe I should rename The Lion’s Fall to The Lion’s Boredom.”
“Maybe you should,” she agreed. “Renly Baratheon takes the city. Then what?”
“We find the others, and wait for a dream.”
“What a plan,” she said drily, though she had no better one.
Lorenzo smiled at her and he rose. “Lady Margaery has expressed her curiosity about you, you know? A woman warrior from the east…”
“No,” she said before Lorenzo could ask.
“It will be interesting,” he protested lightly. “And it may be worthwhile to speak to her. You are a warrior, far better than most gathered here. This is a martial culture as much as it is a patriarchal one. If you impress them well enough, you just might shatter your way to a useful place.”
“That is what you do,” Lucia argued. “Not mine.”
“I sing, you fight,” he pointed out, “we both do those things in service of something far greater and more important than either of our desires.”
“What do you desire?” Lucia asked. She had asked that question before, and never received a proper answer.
Lorenzo only smiled. “What we all wish for.”
“Sure,” she scoffed. “Fine, she wants to know more of me, you say. What tales have you sung her? Have I slain a dragon with my mace in your tales?”
“Perhaps, in a few years,” Lorenzo’s eyes flickered with amusement. “I told her as much as she would have gathered from Ser Garlan. You are from the east, where exactly it does not matter. It would do you well to say that you do not know either.”
She sighed, rising. She returned the map to her saddlebags, gave her horse a light rub along the head, and took her helmet from Lorenzo. “Fine,” she said, placing her helmet upon her head. “Lead the way.”
“You are aware that we are not heading for a battle,” Lorenzo said, smiling.
“You are not,” she said plainly.
The royal tent was a sight of utter opulence, grand and excessive and a showcase of wealth. Green and gold were abundant, with golden threads dancing across silk and cloth to form flowers and stags. Two Tyrell guards stood stiffly by the tent’s entrance. They barely glanced at Lorenzo before waving them through. They know you well, she thought, glancing at him. A practised smile was carved onto his face.
They found the Queen in her robes of green and gold, with a cloak of autumn flowers, resting on a comfortable seat of emerald cloth and pillows of soft gold. A silver bowl of ripe grapes sat on the tablestand next to her, and Queen Margaery reached for another when she noticed their arrival. She is just a girl, Lucia thought, a child no older than sixteen. And one of the most beautiful women in Westeros, all men said. Lucia felt disgust roil in her. Margaery Tyrell smiled sweetly at them, her brown eyes locking with her own before she turned her honey gaze to Lorenzo.
“I see you have brought your companion,” Margaery said pleasantly. “Please, sit. There is wine, gold from the Arbor. Grapes as well. Ripe and sweet.” The Queen held her silver bowl out and Lucia reached for a swollen, purple grape. She chewed on the grape casually as they lounged into the two chairs across the Queen. Three chairs, Lucia thought, for a tent of two. She knew we were coming.
“The king must be attending to matters of state,” Lorenzo smiled.
“Of course,” the queen of roses said. “In council with his loyal men. A queen must not sully herself with affairs of war, I am told.”
“Only a fool would plant a rose on blood-soaked soil,” Lorenzo said, pouring the gold wine into three ornamented cups.
“Mayhaps blood is what is needed for red roses to grow,” Margaery said, eying Lucia. “I hear that you are from the east?”
Lucia nodded stiffly. “I have forgotten where I was born.”
“Sometimes, I wonder if my companion was born, clad in steel, with a mace in hand.”
Margaery giggled at that. “Westeros does not see many women in steel, Lady Lucia. The only one I have heard of is the Maid of Tarth, Lord Selwyn’s daughter.”
Garlan Tyrell had mentioned that name as well, she remembered. “I would like to meet her,” she said. And talk with steel.
“Westeros has tales of women warriors in the past, no?” Lorenzo wondered. “I hear that Visenya Targaryen was warrior and sorcerer in equal measure.”
“She was,” the queen said. “I see you have read The Conqueror’s Two Wives.”
“There is little else for a bard to do on march with a grand army,” said Lorenzo. For an army that has done nothing, Lucia could hear the unspoken words.
“Visenya had a black reputation,” Margaery offered.
“She did,” Lorenzo agreed. “What of the Scarlet Shadow? Jonquil Darke, Alysanne Blackwood… It would seem there are shadows of history held by women warriors.”
“You are right,” Margaery said. “But those were times of wonder, when dragons still soared and danced. Now the dragons are done and the age of wonder has ended.”
Dragons, Lucia thought. Dragons did not fly over the Old World much, not anymore, but there were other terrors to worry over; terrors that could fly, terrors that could swim, terrors that could march.
“A comet glimmered with gold light and now soars across the sky with two tails of gold fire,” Lorenzo pointed out. “War has come, and three kings fight for a throne of jagged iron. Perhaps, it is a time of wonder now.”
“I may believe you, singer,” Margaery said, “the men of Westeros may not.”
“Men willingly believe what they wish,” Lorenzo said, “until the truth stands before them plainly.”
“Until they are hit by a mace,” Margaery giggled, glancing at Lucia’s gilded mace. “What made you choose such a weapon?”
“An old warrior trained me,” Lucia said, uncomfortably. “We started with the mace.”
“A most brutal weapon,” Margaery noted. “Garlan tells me that it is a simple weapon to wield, but hard to wield with skill.”
“He is right,” she nodded. “The sword is the knight’s weapon. The mace is a good weapon for warriors.”
“How exactly did the two of you come to travel together?”
Lucia glanced at Lorenzo, who smiled. “In my youth, my ship docked at Myr for supplies and rest. I found a warrior, blood-soaked and weary, and sang her a song. We travelled together for some time and parted ways where needed.”
“It must be worthy of a song,” Margaery commented. “I must hear them someday.”
“Soon,” Lorenzo promised, sipping from the gold slowly. “My companion was wondering about the fighting, Queen Margaery. The Rainbow Guard shall protect the king well, I am sure, but…”
“The rainbow comes after the storm,” Margaery said, “and too much water may drown the rose.” Even their words are filled with flowers, Lucia thought.
“Perhaps a shield to guard the rose?”
“There is precedence,” Margaery hummed. “Sandoq the Shadow guarded Aegon the Third fiercely. Jonquil Darke was Queen Alysanne’s scarlet shadow. Yes, that idea is appealing. What say you, Lady Lucia? Will you be my gold shadow?”
Lucia struggled to hold the glare at bay. She gave Margaery a stiff nod.
“Splendid,” the queen smiled at her. “You shall ride by my side from now. The Rainbow Guard will guard my husband well. You shall do the same for me.”
“I shall write a song in honor of this,” Lorenzo said lightly.
“-a feast, a melee,” King Renly marched into the tent, Ser Loras by his side. The young king’s eyes lingered on Lorenzo and peered curiously at her. Lorenzo rose and she followed in his slight bow, reluctantly.
“I hear King of the Forest aplenty on my walk through the encampment,” Renly reached for a grape. “A good song.”
“A royal song,” Lorenzo responded, “fit for a king.”
“A new song will come,” Margaery announced. “In honor of my Jonquil.”
Renly raised a dark brow, glancing at the queen and her. “Ah,” the young king said, his eyes shining in amusement. “Well deserved, my queen.”
Lucia met Renly’s gaze. “Before he left, Ser Garlan praised your skill highly.”
Behind the king, she could see the sullen stare of the Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras Tyrell looked at her, and at the queen, before fixing his stare on the king.
“Jonquil Darke was not part of Jaeherys’ Kingsguard but Alysanne’s swornshield and protector,” Renly pondered. “Yes, I can hear the songs, already.” The king laughed cheerfully. “Let it be so then,” he declared with an easy smile. “Guard my queen and wife well, Lady Lucia.”
Lorenzo gave her a subtle smile, hidden behind the goblet. She bowed stiffly, cursing the bard in her head. “My shield will deflect all,” she said, instead.
“Come dawn,” Margaery took her armored hands, “come to me. Ride with me through the day, and you shall be given a tent near this one at night.”
Lucia nodded, tensely. “Come dawn.”
“By your leave, then?” Lorenzo said pleasantly. “My companion and I shall rest in preparation for the day to come.”
“Rest well,” Margaery gave them a smile as sweet as summer.
And when they returned to where her tent was, she resisted the urge to throttle the damned bard. “A guard,” she said in Estalian, drily, staring at Lorenzo.
“A Queen’s guard,” he raised his hands, switching to her tongue in an instant. “You will ride with her and listen in on the conversation of the ladies.”
Lucia glared at him, feeling her irritation rising. Guard work was not for her; standing stiffly outside of a tent, riding alongside courtly ladies…
“It would make our conversations much easier,” Lorenzo pointed out. “As the Queen’s shadow, you will hear things that even I will not know. Those might be useful. Rumors, reports, ravings. And surely it will be more enjoyable than riding with the sellswords and hedge knights?”
“It will,” she relented, sighing. “Fine. As far as queens go, she is not the worst. There are plenty more insufferable.”
“There are,” Lorenzo smiled. “She is a young queen after all.”
“Young,” she scoffed. “She is a child.”
Lorenzo gave her a strained smile. “That thought has crossed my mind. This land has a different understanding of adulthood, I have gathered. A man younger than either of us has been crowned king, his wife is a child by our lands’ standards. In King’s Landing, a boy king rules. A sordid song in all, in truth.”
Lucia spat. “If one more knight challenges me to a duel, I will greet him with my mace.”
“The queen’s shadow will be challenged less,” Lorenzo said, “perhaps more, now that I think about it. Men might envy you for the position and seek to gain it.”
Lucia only sighed.
They found her tent and horse as they had left it. “Will you name it?” Lorenzo asked casually. “The horse.”
“If he’s still here after a battle, maybe,” she shrugged.
“He has your color,” Lorenzo pointed out mirthfully. The brown mare was of a shade with her messy hair. “Maybe you should call it Eagle,” he offered.
“Maybe I will call it Bard.”
“A fine name,” he laughed. “Sleep well, my friend. I have a sense that dawn will bring change for you.”
“Saw that in a dream?” She asked. Lorenzo only smiled knowingly.
As night fell, she sat by the dwindling fire, peering into the flickering flames. The red and yellow dancers crackled and gleamed under her olive eyes. Above her, the night sky glimmered with a thousand starry eyes and the golden twin-tailed comet. She wondered if the fire would speak to her in the way that the world seemed to commune with Lorenzo. When she dreamt, she dreamt only of steel and battles, and of the streets of Magritta and the roads of Estalia.
Fire was not within Myrmidia’s domains, she thought. Scorched farmlands and burnt corpses of hovels, those were not the muses of mighty Myrmidia. Honorable warfare, Lucia thought, of civilisation and strategy. The Patronness of Battle stood not for barbaric savagery of the northern wolves, nor the fanatical zeal of the men of the comet. War here is… absurd.
Fire was Solkan’s domain; the Vengeful God of Law and Light.
She clenched her jaw tightly at the thought.
The three faces seemed to almost form in the fire. Sly, smirking Amador. He had been with her since the start, when they had been nothing more than a rowdy street gang of urchins and orphans. Cold, mocking Veronique, that her men whispered to be a former noble of Bretonnia or a huntress or a killer. And manic, frothing Jacomo, who all knew not to mention Sigmar around.
The last two had joined the Hounds late, long after the urchins and orphans fled Magritta, two of many strangers that joined a roving group of bitter, angry dogs to haunt the roads of Estalia. Black dye dripping into a pool of dirtied water, Lucia thought bitterly. We were stained to start and we just kept growing darker and darker.
On that broken day, Amador’s dagger plunged into her chest, Veronique’s arrow pierced her arm, and Jacomo’s mace crushed her ribs. And Lorenzo found her. From his lips came a song of Shallya’s mercy and where she should have died, she rose.
Enough musing, she thought. The fire was slain under a metal heel and she crawled into her tent. She never slept without at least half of her armor worn, and here, she wore all but her helm. Her mace was always placed on her right, and her dagger on the left. And when the sound of footsteps neared her tent, Lucia smiled.
She heard the opening of the tent’s flap, and a quiet conversation between two men. Voices she had heard before.
“There she is,” one voice sneered and slurred.
“Just gut her and be done with it,” another growled.
“I’ll get a feel first,” the first laughed.
She could almost feel the hand reaching for her. She opened her eyes, like a corpse rising once more, and seized the hand. She crushed the wrist and pulled the man close. With the other hand, she took the dagger from the ground by her left and slashed him across the throat. She could feel the scarlet dripping onto her breastplate. She pushed the dying man aside, rising to her full height. In the dark, she must have been a sight of cold dread. The man stumbled back, falling in fright, and crawled backwards, away from her in a pained panic.
She had shattered his wrist the other day, she remembered idly.
“Your friend, the third one, I broke his knees.”
He staggered to his feet. “Look, I-”
His words were silenced by the tip of her mace. Once again, she heard the satisfying crunch of broken bone. She brought the mace down on his shoulder, and the other, and smashed her steel boot against his knee. “Fuck you,” the man spat bloodily.
Show no mercy to the unrepentant enemies of humanity, one stricture reminded her.
Never kill an enemy who surrenders, demanded the other.
“If I were not wearing steel,” Lucia growled, and not me, “you would not be begging.”
“No,” the man slurred, “you will.”
Unrepentant, she told herself, and that marked his end.
Dawn found her beneath an oak tree, shovelling mud into two fresh graves.
“Had an interesting night?” Lorenzo asked, smiling from his horse as he watched.
“Better than yours,” said Lucia, tossing the shovel aside and mounting her own.
They rode in silence through waking rows of men; sellswords gathered around campfires, roasting sausages and chewing on bread, hedge knights polished their steel futilely, squires running with saddlebags and wineskins, knights mounting their barded steeds. They found the royal tent disassembled and the Queen mounted on an elegant white steed, servants rushing around her.
“Queen Margaery,” Lorenzo said pleasantly.
She smiled. “My shadows come. One of silk and one of steel.”
“The best queens wear both, I find,” Lorenzo bowed, “but I am just a bard.”
“Then, perhaps, I shall have to try on Lady Lucia’s garments,” Margaery wondered, eying Lucia with a sweet smile. Lucia could only smile stiffly, in the way a hound bared his fangs. As the army of Renly Baratheon rose, and rallied, and rode, they found themselves riding with Queen Margaery. Lucia steered her mount silently to the queen’s right while Lorenzo sang and chatted from her left. The king was somewhere, and Lucia did not mind. Soon, she settled into the routine of a royal shadow, trailing behind the queen, silent and watching while Lorenzo sang and smiled and laughed. It is not too terrible, Lucia decided reluctantly.
And when they camped that night, the shadow of Bitterbridge could be seen at last.
Notes:
Lorenzo, Lucia, and Gunther will each take on a more prominent role in this arc, equalling Andrei's role. Writing dialogue for the two of them is always quite fun. Will be gone for a week or so for a vacation, but a Tyrion chapter will come when I return!
Chapter 59: Tyrion II
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
All men know me for the trueborn son of Steffon Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End, by his lady wife Cassana of House Estermont. With Lord Eddard of House Stark by my side as witness, having been unjustly accused of treason, I declare upon the honor of my House that my brother Robert, our late king, left no trueborn issue of his body, the boy Joffrey, the boy Tommen, and the girl Myrcella being abominations born of incest between Cersei Lannister and her brother Ser Jaime the Kingslayer.
This, I claim with proof and confession. Upon his honor, Lord Eddard Stark has sworn that Cersei Lannister has confessed her vile sin before the godswood of the Red Keep, rejecting his attempt at mercy. It is the work of the false queen, and the treason of the City Watch, that led to the slaughter of good men and true, and the departure of Lord Eddard from King’s Landing to Dragonstone where I received him. Further, my brother’s bastards are all black of hair and blue of eye, each and every. The seed is strong, Lord Jon Arryn’s last words were, before his murder. For proof, let all men lay their eyes upon the wicked spawns of Cersei Lannister, gold of hair and green of eyes each.
By right of birth and blood, I do this day lay claim to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Let all true men declare their loyalty. By the sight of men, and of the gods old and new and red, under the sign and seal of Stannis of House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.
There were two copies, the words exactly alike, though they had been written by different hands. “Maester Frenken received the first missive at Castle Stokeworth,” Grand Maester Pycelle explained. “The second copy came through Lord Gyles.”
If Stannis bothered with them, Tyrion thought, every other lord in the Seven Kingdoms will know by now, from Dorne to the Wall.
“I want these letters burned, every one,” Cersei declared. “No hint of this must reach my son’s ears, or my father’s.”
“I imagine Father’s heard rather more than a hint by now,” Tyrion said dryly. “Doubtless Stannis sent a bird to Casterly Rock, and to Harrenhal. As for burning the letters, to what point? The song is sung, the tale woven.”
Cersei turned on him in green-eyed fury. “Are you utterly witless? Did you read what he says? The boy Joffrey, he calls him. And he dares to accuse me of incest, adultery, and treason! And this talk of Eddard Stark, lies, each one. His corpse might have washed ashore on Dragonstone perhaps. ”
It was astonishing to see how angry Cersei could wax over accusations she knew perfectly well to be true. If we lose the war, she should take up mummery, she has a gift for it. Tyrion waited until she was done and said, “Stannis must have some pretext to justify his rebellion. What did you expect him to write? ‘Joffrey is my brother’s trueborn son and heir, but I mean to take his throne for all that’? But this news of Eddard Stark is troubling. He must be alive and in Stannis’ council. Stannis is not so witless to parade a lordly corpse about. That is why the Starks and Tullys have declared for Stannis of all people.”
And that had been shattering. When word came truly that Robb Stark had led the northern lords and the rivermen to call Stannis their king, Cersei had gone pale, and then red. Tyrion wanted to laugh, but he knew his head would line the walls if he did. Renly to the south, Stannis to the east, the Starks and Tullys to the north. He did not envy his father much, Tyrion decided, but his own position was no more enviable.
“I will not suffer to be called a whore!”
Why, sister, he never claims Jaime paid you. Tyrion made a show of glancing over the writing again. There had been some queer phrase ... “Of the gods old and new and red,” he read. “A queer choice of words, that.”
Pycelle cleared his throat. “The god of the red priests,” he harrumphed.
Clever, Tyrion thought. “Not even the High Septon himself can claim that Stannis will not protect the faith. And the northmen will be pacified with Stark’s presence. I must wonder, how exactly did Eddard Stark make his way to Dragonstone? He fled the Red Keep, yes. And perhaps he and his man made it to the city. What then? Did they crew a ship to sail to Dragonstone? Did they swim?”
Cersei interrupted. “We must stop this filth from spreading further. The council must issue an edict. Any man heard speaking of incest or calling Joff a bastard should lose his tongue for it.” Not keen to linger long on your failure, Tyrion thought.
“A prudent measure,” said Grand Maester Pycelle, his chain of office clinking as he nodded. “Most prudent … a wise-”
“A folly,” sighed Tyrion. “When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
“So what would you have us do?” his sister demanded. “Nothing?”
A hard question. Few men will disprove the honor of Eddard Stark. The mention of Jon Arryn. This business with Robert’s bastards… “Fight fire with fire,” he offered. “Lord Stannis’ marriage with his wife has been most stormy. Her daughter…”
“An ugly beast,” she sniffed. “We pay him back in his own coin. Yes, I like this. Who can we name as Lady Selyse’s lover? She has two brothers, I believe. And one of her uncles has been with her on Dragonstone all this time ...”
“Ser Axell Florent is her castellan. The child has the Florent ears, I’m told.”
A fool’s errand, Tyrion knew, doomed to flounder and fail. Stannis’ claim bore the weight of the Lord of Winterfell, the benefit of immediacy, and Stannis Baratheon was not a man known to jape or lie. This lie bore Cersei’s seal well; all malice and scorn, with not a second of wit or true thought behind it.
“Varys,” Cersei said, frowning. “He will spin this web. Where is he?”
“I have been wondering about that myself, Your Grace.”
“The Spider spins his secret webs day and night,” Grand Maester Pycelle said ominously. “I mistrust that one, my lords.”
Tyrion’s mismatched stare met the old, doddering maester. A jape of a council. The Hand, a dwarf. The Queen, a whore. The Grand Maester, an old fool. And corpses and kings for the other seats. The seats for the Masters of Coin, Ships, and Law were empty as was that of the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Two kings, a corpse, and a knight in disgrace, Tyrion almost laughed. None knew what to do with Baelish’s body. The Silent Sisters had done as well as they could, for a corpse missing most of its head. Still, despite all the council’s cries of sorcery, he saw it for what it was. A sturdy mace or hammer, and a strong hand wielding it, can shatter a skull like that, Tyrion thought, and all the smoke and shouting must have clouded all eyes and minds most fiercely.
They had entertained the notion of sending it back to his keep in the Fingers but with a war waging, none cared a whiff. Eventually, a gravedigger was hired from the city to bury the corpse a league north of the city, beneath some old, rotting tree. Rest well, Lord Baelish, Tyrion thought mockingly. Rot well. You will not be missed.
“And he speaks so kindly of you.” Tyrion pushed himself off his chair. As it happened, he knew what the eunuch was about, but it was nothing the Smaller Council needed to hear. “Pray excuse me, my queen. Other business calls.”
Cersei was instantly suspicious. “King’s business?”
“Nothing you need trouble yourself about.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Would you spoil my surprise?” Tyrion said. “I’m having a gift made for our beloved king. A little chain. A writ larger than me.”
“What does he need with another chain? He has gold chains and silver, more than he can wear. If you think for a moment you can buy Joff’s love with gifts—”
“Why, surely I have the king’s love, as he has mine. And this chain I believe he may one day treasure above all others.” The little man bowed and waddled to the door.
Bronn was waiting outside the council chambers to escort him back to the Tower of the Hand. “The smiths are in your audience chamber, waiting your pleasure,” he said as they crossed the ward.
“Waiting my pleasure. I like that, Bronn. You almost sound a proper courtier, almost. Next you’ll be kneeling in white silks.”
“Fuck you, dwarf.”
“That’s Shae’s task. See that my litter is readied, I’ll be leaving the castle as soon as I’m done here.” Two of the Moon Brothers had the door guard. Tyrion greeted them pleasantly, and grimaced before starting up the stairs. The climb to his bedchamber made his legs ache. Not even Hands were invulnerable to those, not least dwarfs.
Within, he found a boy of twelve laying out clothing on the bed; his squire, such that he was. Podrick Payne was so shy he was furtive. Tyrion had never quite gotten over the suspicion that his father had inflicted the boy on him as yet another cruel barb. “Your garb, my lord,” the boy mumbled when Tyrion entered, staring down at his boots. Even when he worked up the courage to speak, Pod could never quite manage to look at you. “For the audience. And your chain. The Hand’s chain.”
“Very good. Help me dress.” The doublet was black velvet covered with golden studs in the shape of lions’ heads, the chain a loop of solid gold hands, the fingers of each clasping the wrist of the next. Pod brought him a cloak of crimson silk fringed in gold, cut to his height. On a normal man, it would be no more than a half-cape.
The Hand’s private audience chamber was not so large as the king’s, nor a patch on the vastness of the throne room, but Tyrion liked its Myrish rugs, wall hangings, and sense of intimacy. As he entered, his steward cried out, “Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the King.” He liked that too. The gaggle of smiths, armorers, and ironmongers that Bronn had collected fell to their knees.
He hoisted himself up into the high seat under the round golden window and bid them rise. “Goodmen, I know you are all busy, so I will be succinct. Pod, if you please.” The boy handed him a canvas sack. Tyrion yanked the drawstring and upended the bag. Its contents spilled onto the rug with a muffled thunk of metal on wool. “I had these made at the castle forge. I want a thousand more just like them.”
One of the smiths knelt to inspect the object: three immense steel links, twisted together. “A mighty chain.”
“Mighty, but short,” the dwarf replied. “Somewhat like me. I fancy one a good deal longer. Do you have a name?”
“They call me Ironbelly, m’lord.” The smith was squat and broad, plainly dressed in wool and leather, but his arms were as thick as a bull’s neck.
“I want every forge in King’s Landing turned to making these links and joining them. All other work is to be put aside. I want every man who knows the art of working metal set to this task, be he master, journeyman, or apprentice. When I ride up the Street of Steel, I want to hear hammers ringing, night or day. And I want a man, a strong man, to see that all this is done. Are you that man, Goodman Ironbelly?”
“Might be I am, m’lord. But what of the mail and swords the queen was wanting?”
Another smith spoke up. “Her Grace commanded us to make chain-mail and armor, swords and daggers and axes, all in great numbers. For arming her new gold cloaks, m’lord.”
“That work can wait,” Tyrion said. “The chain first.”
“M’lord, begging your pardon, Her Grace said those as didn’t meet their numbers would have their hands crushed,” the anxious Smith persisted. “Smashed on their own anvils, she said.”
Sweet Cersei, always striving to make the smallfolk love us. That nonsense with the tax as well. To fund the gold cloaks and the defences, taxes had been levied on the desperate flocking into the city, and on the merchants and bakers and tavernkeepers in the city. And that trouble with sweeping through the city to find Lord Eddard, how many men died on those nights? How many women raped? How much gold and food was stolen? And all for naught…
“No one will have their hands smashed. You have my word on it.”
“Iron is grown dear,” Ironbelly declared, “and this chain will be needing much of it, and coke beside, for the fires.” And gold, perhaps? He heard the smith saying.
“You shall have coin as you need it,” Tyrion promised. They sorely needed a new Master of Coin. But who? Half the realm would sooner bury a foot long of steel in their bellies than count coppers for the Lannisters. “I will command the City Watch to help you find iron. Melt down every horseshoe in this city if you must.”
An older man moved forward, richly dressed in a damask tunic with silver fastenings and a cloak lined with fox-fur. He knelt to examine the great steel links Tyrion had dumped on the floor. “My lord,” he announced gravely, “this is crude work at best. There is no art to it. Suitable labor for common smiths, no doubt, for men who bend horseshoes and hammer out kettles, but I am a master armorer, as it please my lord. This is no work for me, nor my fellow masters. We make swords as sharp as song, armor such as a god might wear. Not this.”
Tyrion tilted his head to the side and gave the man a dose of his mismatched eyes. “What is your name, master armorer?”
“Salloreon, as it please my lord. If the King’s Hand will permit, I should be most honored to forge him a suit of armor suitable to his House and high office.” Two of the others sniggered, but Salloreon plunged ahead, heedless. “Plate and scale, I think. The scales gilded bright as the sun, the plate enameled a deep Lannister crimson. I would suggest a demon’s head for a helm, crowned with tall golden horns. When you ride into battle, men will shrink away in fear.”
A demon’s head, Tyrion thought ruefully, now what does that say of me? “Master Salloreon, I plan to fight the rest of my battles from this chair. It’s links I need, not demon horns. So let me put it to you this way. You will make chains, or you will wear them. The choice is yours.”
“What of that business at Tobho Mott’s shop?” Ironbelly asked.
Tyrion grimaced. Four gold cloaks dead. He thought he knew well why they were there, but not how they died. Another of my sweet sister’s golden glories, each one more glorious than the other. “That shall not happen again, I assure you.” He rose, and took his leave with nary a backward glance.
Bronn was waiting by the gate with his litter and an escort of mounted Black Ears. “You know where we’re bound,” Tyrion told him. He accepted a hand up into the litter. He had done all he could to feed the hungry city; he’d set several hundred carpenters to building fishing boats in place of catapults, opened the kingswood to any hunter who dared to cross the river, even sent gold cloaks foraging to the west and south… yet he still saw accusing eyes everywhere he rode. My sister’s work again. That folly of closing the city. Tyrion shook his head. The litter’s curtains shielded him from hateful eyes and the glare of the sun, and besides gave him leisure to think.
As they wound their slow way down twisty Shadowblack Lane to the foot of Aegon’s High Hill, Tyrion reflected on the events of the morning. His sister’s ire had led her to overlook the true significance of Stannis Baratheon’s letter. What mattered was that he had named himself a king. And what will Renly make of that? They could not both sit the Iron Throne, no matter how amusing a sight that promised to be.
The North and the Riverlands will swing their steel for Stannis. The Reach and the Stormlands for Renly. Dorne and the Vale will watch, and we sit in the eye of the storm. Storms.
Idly, he pushed the curtain back a few inches to peer out at the streets. Black Ears rode on both sides of him, their grisly necklaces looped about their throats, while Bronn went in front to clear the way. He watched the passersbys watching him, and played a little game with himself, trying to sort the informers from the rest. The ones who look the most suspicious are likely innocent, he decided, I am surrounded by suspicious men. It’s the ones who look innocent I need to beware.
His destination was behind the hill of Rhaenys, and the streets were crowded. Almost an hour had passed before the litter swayed to a stop. Tyrion was dozing, but he woke abruptly when the motion ceased, rubbed the sand from his eyes, and accepted Bronn’s hand to climb down. The house was two stories tall, stone below and timber above. A round turret rose from one corner of the structure. Many of the windows were leaded. Over the door swung an ornate lamp, a globe of gilded metal and scarlet glass.
“A brothel,” Bronn said. “What do you mean to do here?”
“What does one usually do in a brothel?” They usually do not draw steel and spill blood. Twice now, the whores here have been witness to butchery. First, my brother’s men. Then, Allar Deem…
The sellsword laughed. “Shae’s not enough?”
“She was pretty enough for a camp follower, but I’m no longer in camp. Little men have big appetites, and I’m told the girls here are fit for a king.”
“Is the boy old enough?”
“Not Joffrey. Robert. This house was a great favorite of his.” Although Joffrey may indeed be old enough. An interesting notion, that. “If you and the Black Ears care to amuse yourselves, feel free, but Chataya’s girls are costly. You’ll find cheaper houses all along the street. Leave one man here who’ll know where to find the others when I wish to return.”
Bronn nodded. “As you say.” The Black Ears were all grins.
Inside the door, a tall woman in flowing silks was waiting for him. She had ebon skin and sandalwood eyes. “I am Chataya,” she announced, bowing deeply. “And you are—”
“Let us not get into the habit of names, my lady. Names are dangerous.” The air smelled of some exotic spice, and the floor beneath his feet displayed a mosaic of two women entwined in love. “You have a pleasant establishment.”
“I have labored long to make it so. I am glad the Hand is pleased.” Her voice was flowing amber, liquid with the accents of the distant Summer Isles.
“Titles can be as dangerous as names,” Tyrion warned. “Show me a few of your girls.”
“It will be my great delight. You will find that they are all as sweet as they are beautiful, and skilled in every art of love.” She swept off gracefully, leaving Tyrion to waddle after as best he could on legs half the length of hers. She knew why he was here, as did her daughter.
The girl met him at the foot of the stairs. Taller than Shae, though not so tall as her mother, she had to kneel before Tyrion could kiss her. “My name is Alayaya,” she said, with only the slightest hint of her mother’s accent. “Come, my lord.” She took him by the hand and drew him up two flights of stairs, then down a long hall. Gasps and shrieks of pleasure were coming from behind one of the closed doors, giggles and whispers from another. He followed Alayaya up another stair to the turret room. There was only one door. She led him through and closed it. Within the room was a great canopied bed, a tall wardrobe decorated with erotic carvings, and a narrow window of leaded glass in a pattern of diamonds.
“You are very beautiful, Alayaya,” Tyrion told her when they were alone. “From head to heels, every part of you is lovely. Yet just now the part that interests me most is your tongue.”
“My lord will find my tongue well schooled. When I was a girl I learned when to use it, and when not.”
“That pleases me.” Tyrion smiled. “So what shall we do now? Perchance you have some suggestion?”
“Yes,” she said. “If my lord will open the wardrobe, he will find what he seeks.”
Tyrion kissed her hand, and climbed inside the empty wardrobe. Alayaya closed it after him. He groped for the back panel, felt it slide under his fingers, and pushed it all the way aside. The hollow space behind the walls was pitch-black, but he fumbled until he felt metal. His hand closed around the rung of a ladder. He found a lower rung with his foot, and started down. Well below street level, the shaft opened onto a slanting earthen tunnel, where he found Varys waiting with candle in hand.
Varys did not look at all like himself. A scarred face and a stubble of dark beard showed under his spiked steel cap, and he wore mail over boiled leather, dirk and shortsword at his belt. “Was Chataya’s to your satisfaction, my lord?”
“Almost too much so,” admitted Tyrion. “You’re certain this woman can be relied on?”
“I am certain of nothing in this fickle and treacherous world, my lord. Chataya has no cause to love the queen, though. Shall we go?” He started down the tunnel.
Even his walk is different , Tyrion observed. The scent of sour wine and garlic clung to Varys instead of lavender. “I like this new garb of yours,” he offered as they went.
“The work I do does not permit me to travel the streets amid a colored column of knights. So when I leave the castle, I adopt more suitable guises, and thus live to serve you longer.”
“Leather becomes you. You ought to come like this to our next council session.”
“Your sister would not approve, my lord.”
“My sister would soil her smallclothes.” He smiled in the dark. “I saw no signs of any of her spies skulking after me.”
“I am pleased to hear it, my lord. Some of your sister’s hirelings are mine as well, unbeknownst to her. I should hate to think they had grown so sloppy as to be seen.”
“Well, I’d hate to think I was climbing through wardrobes and suffering the pangs of frustrated lust all for naught.”
“Scarcely for naught,” Varys assured him. “They know you are here. Whether any will be bold enough to enter Chataya’s in the guise of patrons I cannot say, but I find it best to err on the side of caution.”
“How is it a brothel happens to have a secret entrance?”
“The tunnel was dug for another King’s Hand, from another time, whose honor would not allow him to enter such a house openly. Chataya has closely guarded the knowledge of its existence.”
“And yet you knew of it.”
“Little birds fly through many a dark tunnel. Careful, the steps are steep.”
They emerged through a trap at the back of a stable, having come perhaps a distance of three blocks under Rhaenys’s Hill. A horse whickered in his stall when Tyrion let the door slam shut. Varys blew out the candle and set it on a beam and Tyrion gazed about.
“Which horse will you have?”
Tyrion shrugged. “This one will do well enough.”
“I shall saddle him for you.” Varys took tack and saddle down from a peg.
Tyrion adjusted the heavy cloak and paced restlessly. “You missed a lively council. Stannis has crowned himself, it seems, and Eddard Stark is with him, somehow. The North and the Riverlords are truly for Stannis now.”
“I know.”
“He accuses my brother and sister of incest. I wonder how he came by that suspicion.”
“Perhaps he read a book and looked at the color of a bastard’s hair, as Ned Stark did, and Jon Arryn before him. Or perhaps someone whispered it in his ear.” The eunuch’s laugh was not his usual giggle, but deeper and more throaty.
“Someone like you, perchance?”
“Am I suspected? It was not me.”
“If it had been, would you admit it?”
Varys tittered. “Honorable men admit to treason. Besides, most men have eyes. The bastards were there for all to see.”
Tyrion stared at him. “Robert’s bastards? What of them?”
“He fathered eight, to the best of my knowing,” Varys said as he wrestled with the saddle. “Their mothers were copper and honey, chestnut and butter, yet the babes were all black as ravens ... and as ill-omened, it would seem. So when Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen slid out between your sister’s thighs, each as golden as the sun, the truth was not hard to glimpse. And now the realm is reminded.”
Tyrion shook his head. If she had borne only one child for her husband, it would have been enough to disarm suspicion ... but then she would not have been Cersei. “If you were not this whisperer, who was?”
“Some traitor, doubtless.” Varys tightened the cinch.
“It seems half the realm are traitors nowadays.”
“So it is,” Varys smiled. “To one man or another.”
Tyrion let the eunuch help him mount. “Lord Varys,” he said from the saddle, “sometimes I feel as though you are the best friend I have in King’s Landing, and sometimes I feel you are my worst enemy.”
“How odd. I think quite the same of you.”
“Truly?” Tyrion wondered flatly. “What do you feel right now?”
“As a friend,” Varys tilted his head. “I would be most remiss to not offer my help once more. This trouble you have with finding this thief, Gaven, to hire…”
Bronn could not find the elusive young thief, no matter how he tried, and the man prowled the streets like a shadowcat. “You can help me, then.”
“I can,” Varys bowed. “Shall I arrange a meeting?”
“Have him come tomorrow, or the day after,” Tyrion waved.
“I shall leave you to your pleasure,” Varys gave him a sly smile.
My pleasure, Tyrion wondered. For how long more can there be pleasure?
“For the eyes of Doran Martell, Prince of Dorne.” Tyrion peeled the cracked shell away from his egg and took a bite. It wanted salt. “One letter, in two copies. Send your swiftest birds. The matter is of great import.”
“I shall dispatch them as soon as we have broken our fast.”
“Dispatch them now. Stewed plums will keep. The realm may not. Lord Renly is leading his host up the roseroad, and no one can say when Lord Stannis will sail from Dragonstone.”
Pycelle blinked. “If my lord prefers—”
“He does.”
“I am here to serve.”
Pycelle moved so slowly that Tyrion had time to finish his egg and taste the plums— overcooked and watery, to his taste—before the sound of wings prompted him to rise. He spied the raven, dark in the dawn sky, and turned briskly toward the maze of shelves at the far end of the room.
The maester’s medicines made an impressive display; dozens of pots sealed with wax, hundreds of stoppered vials, as many milkglass bottles, countless jars of dried herbs, each container neatly labeled in Pycelle’s precise hand. An orderly mind, Tyrion reflected, and indeed, once you puzzled out the arrangement, it was easy to see that every potion had its place. And such interesting things. He noted sweetsleep and nightshade, milk of the poppy, the tears of Lys, powdered greycap, wolfsbane and demon’s dance, basilisk venom, blindeye, widow’s blood.
Standing on his toes and straining upward, he managed to pull a small dusty bottle off the high shelf. When he read the label, he smiled and slipped it up his sleeve. He was back at the table peeling another egg when Grand Maester Pycelle came creeping down the stairs. “It is done, my lord.” The old man seated himself. “A matter like this ... best done promptly, indeed, indeed ... of great import, you say?”
“Oh, yes.” The porridge was too thick, Tyrion felt, and wanted butter and honey. To be sure, butter and honey were seldom seen in King’s Landing of late, though Lord Gyles kept them well supplied in the castle. Half of the food they ate these days came from his lands or Lady Tanda’s. Rosby and Stokeworth lay near the city to the north, and were yet untouched by war.
“The Prince of Dorne, himself. Might I ask ...”
“Best not.”
“Your most gracious sister, our Queen Regent, she ...”
“...bears a great weight upon those lovely white shoulders of hers. I have no wish to add to her burdens. Do you?” Tyrion cocked his head and gave the Grand Maester an inquiring stare.
Pycelle dropped his gaze back to his food. Something about Tyrion’s mismatched green-and-black eyes made men squirm; knowing that, he made good use of them. “Ah,” the old man muttered into his plums. “Doubtless you have the right of it, my lord. It is most considerate of you to ... spare her this ... burden.”
“That’s just the sort of fellow I am.” Tyrion returned to the unsatisfactory porridge. “Considerate. Cersei is my own sweet sister, after all.”
One.
He waddled out into the lower bailey; his stunted legs complained of the steps. The sun was well up now, and the castle was stirring. Guardsmen walked the walls, and knights and men-at-arms were training with blunted weapons. Nearby, Bronn sat on the lip of a well. A pair of comely serving girls sauntered past carrying a wicker basket of rushes between them, but the sellsword never looked. “Bronn, I despair of you.” Tyrion gestured at the wenches. “With sweet sights like that before you, all you see is a gaggle of louts raising a clangor.”
“There are a hundred whorehouses in this city where a clipped copper will buy me all the cunt I want,” Bronn answered, “but one day my life may hang on how close I’ve watched your louts.” He stood.
They set off across the bailey, Bronn matching his long stride to Tyrion’s short one. These days the sellsword was looking almost respectable. His dark hair was washed and brushed, he was freshly shaved, and he wore the black breastplate of an officer of the City Watch. From his shoulders trailed a cloak of Lannister crimson patterned with golden hands. Tyrion had made him a gift of it when he named him captain of his personal guard. “How many supplicants do we have today?” he inquired.
“Fourty-odd,” answered Bronn. “Most with complaints, or wanting something, as ever. A moneylender from Braavos, holding fancy papers and the like, requests to see the king about payment on some loan.”
“As if Joff could count past twenty.” If Littlefinger’s corpse could talk, he would have ordered the body to be dug up and placed in front of the man. “Let me think on it. What else?”
“A lordling down from the Trident, says your father’s men burned his keep, raped his wife, and killed all his peasants.”
“I believe they call that war.” Tyrion smelled Gregor Clegane’s work, or that of Ser Amory Lorch or his father’s other pet hellhound, the Qohorik. Lord Tywin had many monsters, each one darker than the other. “What does he want of Joffrey?”
“New peasants,” Bronn said. “He walked all this way to sing how loyal he is and beg for recompense.”
“I’ll make time for him on the morrow.” Whether truly loyal or merely desperate, a compliant river lord might have his uses. “See that he’s given a comfortable chamber and a hot meal. Send him a new pair of boots as well, good ones, courtesy of King Joffrey.” A show of generosity never hurt.
Bronn gave a curt nod. “There’s also a great gaggle of bakers, butchers, and greengrocers clamoring to be heard.”
“I told them last time, I have nothing to give them.” Only a thin trickle of food was coming into King’s Landing, most of it earmarked for castle and garrison. Prices had risen sickeningly high on greens, roots, flour, and fruit, and Tyrion did not want to think about what sorts of flesh might be going into the kettles of the pot-shops down in Flea Bottom. Fish, he hoped vainly. They had the river still, at least until Stannis came, but few ships came to port by sea now. And now he knew why.
“They want protection. Last night a baker was roasted in his own oven. The mob claimed he charged too much for bread.”
“Did he?”
“He won't deny it.”
“They didn’t eat him, did they?” Tyrion realised he did not want the answer, the moment the words left his mouth.
“Not that I’ve heard.”
“Next time they will,” Tyrion said grimly. “I give them what protection I can. The gold cloaks—”
“They claim there were gold cloaks in the mob,” Bronn said. “They’re demanding to speak to the king himself.”
“Fools.” Tyrion had sent them off with regrets; his nephew would send them off with whips and spears. He was half-tempted to allow it ... but no, he dare not. Between the hunger and the taxes and the idiocy of the gold cloaks, the city was soon to burn. Some mob had arrived at a noble’s manse, demanding food of all things. And when the man had refused, bravely and stupidly, the mob stormed his gates and ate his food and burnt the manse. Then, the gold cloaks came. Three men were killed with spear and cudgel, and twenty more were beaten bloody. In return, seven gold cloaks were bruised and bloodied. And the city tittered ever closer to the edge of doom.
Soon or late, some enemy would march on King’s Landing, and the last thing he wanted was willing traitors within the city walls. “Tell them King Joffrey shares their fears and will do all he can for them.”
“They want bread, not promises.”
“If I give them bread today, on the morrow I’ll have twice as many at the gates.” And were I to refuse… “Who else?”
“A black brother down from the Wall. The steward says he brought some rotted hand in a jar.”
Tyrion smiled wanly. “I’m surprised no one ate it. I suppose I ought to see him. It’s not Yoren, perchance?”
“No. Some knight. Thorne.”
“Ser Alliser Thorne?” Of all the black brothers he’d met on the Wall, Tyrion Lannister had liked Ser Alliser Thorne the least. A bitter, mean-spirited man with too great a sense of his own worth. “Come to think on it, I don’t believe I care to see Ser Alliser just now. Find him a snug cell where no one has changed the rushes in a year, and let his hand rot a little more. Tell the banker I shall see him.”
Bronn snorted laughter and went his way, while Tyrion struggled up the serpentine steps. As he limped across the outer yard, he heard the portcullis rattling up. His sister and a large party were waiting by the main gate.
Mounted on her white palfrey, Cersei towered high above him, a goddess all in green. “Brother,” she called out, not warmly. The queen had not been pleased by the way he’d dealt with Janos Slynt.
“Your Grace.” Tyrion bowed politely. “You look lovely this morning.” Her crown was gold, her cloak ermine. Her retinue sat their mounts behind her: Ser Boros Blount of the Kingsguard, wearing white scale and his favorite scowl, the bloody fool had finally recovered from his own sword; Ser Balon Swann, bow slung from his silver-inlay saddle; Lord Gyles Rosby, his wheezing cough worse than ever; Hallyne the Pyromancer of the Alchemists’ Guild; and the queen’s newest favorite, their cousin Ser Lancel Lannister, her late husband’s squire up-jumped to knight at his widow’s insistence. Vylarr and twenty guardsmen rode escort.
“Where are you bound this day, sister?” Tyrion asked.
“I’m making a round of the gates to inspect the new scorpions and spitfires. I would not have it thought that all of us are as indifferent to the city’s defense as you seem to be.” Cersei fixed him with those clear green eyes of hers, beautiful even in their contempt. “I am informed that Renly Baratheon has marched from Highgarden. He is making his way up the roseroad, with all his strength behind him.”
“Varys gave me the same report.”
“He could be here by the full moon.”
“Not at his present leisurely pace,” Tyrion assured her. “He feasts every night in a different castle, and holds court at every crossroads he passes.”
“And every day, more men rally to his banners. His host is now said to be a hundred thousand strong.”
“That seems rather high.”
“He has the power of Storm’s End and Highgarden behind him, you little fool,” Cersei snapped down at him. “All the Tyrell bannermen but for the Redwynes, and you have me to thank for that. So long as I hold those poxy twins of his, Lord Paxter will squat on the Arbor and count himself fortunate to be out of it.”
“A pity you let the Knight of Flowers slip through your pretty fingers. Still, Renly has other concerns besides us. Our father at Harrenhal, Robb Stark at Riverrun and Stannis awaiting on Dragonstone ... were I he, I would do much as he is doing. Make my progress, flaunt my power for the realm to see, watch, wait. He cannot wage the first battle against his brother, nor would he want to take King’s Landing. If he does, Stannis will come for him, and he will be forced to slay his brother. No, dear sister, Renly Baratheon will do as he is wont to do. Prance and laugh and fail at joust.”
Cersei was not appeased. “I want you to make Father bring his army to King’s Landing.”
Where it will serve no purpose but to make you feel safe. “When have I ever been able to make Father do anything?”
She ignored the question. “And when do you plan to free Jaime? He’s worth a hundred of you.”
Tyrion grinned crookedly. “Don’t tell Lady Stark, I beg you. We don’t have a hundred of me to trade.” Now that Riverrun is for Stannis, not even a thousand dwarfs and whores can persuade them to give Jaime away.
“Father must have been mad to send you. You’re worse than useless.” The queen jerked on her reins and wheeled her palfrey around. She rode out the gate at a brisk trot, ermine cloak streaming behind her. Her retinue hastened after.
In truth, Renly Baratheon did not frighten Tyrion half so much as his brother Stannis did. Renly was beloved of the commons, but he had never before led men in war. And the lords of the Reach were a fractious sort. The Redwyne Fleet was locked in port. Where Renly was a child playing at war, Stannis was otherwise: hard, cold, inexorable, and a proven commander. And Eddard Stark is with him, Tyrion remembered. And his bloody son has Jaime.
If only they had some way of knowing what was happening on Dragonstone ... but not one of the fisherfolk he had paid to spy out the island had ever returned, and even the informers the eunuch claimed to have placed in Stannis’s household had been ominously silent. The striped hulls of Lysene war galleys had been seen offshore, though, and Varys had reports from Myr of sellsail captains taking service with Dragonstone. If Stannis attacks by sea while his brother Renly storms the gates, they’ll soon be mounting Joffrey’s head on a spike. Worse, mine will be beside him. A depressing thought, that. He ought to make plans to get Shae safely out of the city, should the worst seem likely.
Podrick Payne stood at the door of his solar, studying the floor. “He’s inside,” he announced to Tyrion’s belt buckle. “Your solar. My lord. Sorry.”
Tyrion sighed. “Look at me, Pod. It unnerves me when you talk to my codpiece, especially when I’m not wearing one. Who is inside my solar?”
“The Braavosi.” Podrick managed a quick look at his face, then hastily dropped his eyes. “I meant, the Iron Bank. Augus Telares.”
“The whole of the Iron Bank is within my solar?” The boy hunched down as if struck, making Tyrion feel absurdly guilty.
The pale man stood by his window seat, elegant and silent in a black doublet and a dark purple satin cape, both hands clasped behind his back. He was a tall man; tall and thin and severe, with piercing dark eyes like clouds of black.
“You are dressed for mourning, my lord?”
“I am no lord,” said Augus softly. “I may yet mourn the hares.”
Tyrion had to stand on his toes to get a look. A dead hare lay on the ground below; another, long ears twitching, was about to expire from the bolt in his side. Spent quarrels lay strewn across the hard-packed earth like straws scattered by a storm. “Now!” Joff shouted. The gamesman released the hare he was holding, and he went bounding off. Joffrey jerked the trigger on the crossbow. The bolt missed by two feet. The hare stood on his hind legs and twitched his nose at the king. Cursing, Joff spun the wheel to winch back his string, but the animal was gone before he was loaded. “Another!” The gamesman reached into the hutch. This one made a brown streak against the stones, while Joffrey’s hurried shot almost took Ser Preston in the groin.
Tyrion could only smile. “The king is oft busy with practice.”
“As all leaders of men should,” Augus Telares bowed unblinkingly.
“Pod, leave us. Unless the good man would care for some refreshment?”
The envoy smiled thinly. “I seldom drink, Lord Tyrion.”
“A pity. Drink is one of the pillars of the world, I feel.”
“Customs may differ across the sea,” came the soft reply. Still, the man had yet to blink. Few men could look at his mismatched eyes well. This one made Tyrion look away. I was right to not send him away. This one is dangerous.
“I assume you are here to … inquire on the matter of debts,” Tyrion stated, sitting himself in a high chair piled with cushions.
“I am,” the pale man nodded. “The Iron Bank is most curious, you see. Three million we are owed, and not a dragon has come back to us.”
“Why, I hear that Braavos is loath to see the sight of dragons.”
Augus Telares tilted his head, a slight frown upon his face. “Those of flesh and fire, we scorn. Those of cold gold, we accept. We Braavosi are descended from those who fled the dragonlords, my lord. We do not jape of dragons.”
“Well said,” Tyrion nodded, apologetically. “Gold is oft lost in chaos, I fear. And what is the Seven Kingdoms now but chaos?”
“The war, I hear,” the envoy responded, “is to the north. And House Lannister is the wealthiest of all the thousand houses in this realm.”
Tyrion smiled at him. “Chaos without, chaos within. Our Master of Coin was slain recently, you see. A great tragedy. As such, until a worthy replacement is found, the king and his council have their hands tied. King Joffrey Baratheon shall not forget his friends of Braavos and the Iron Bank. When this war is over…”
If ever truly a man had armored himself in gold, it was Petyr Baelish, not that it saved him when the Stranger’s hand came for him. The tales all spoke a different hand, but Tyrion was adamant that he had been slain by steel. The smoke and the chaos may make men hallucinate. Still, he might have been useful here, Tyrion thought, trying to match the banker’s cold eyes.
“We understand,” said Telares. “Yet wars can be long. Oft, they bring change.”
If you do not pay us, Tyrion could hear the real words, either Renly or Stannis will sit the Iron Throne.
“Change is not always good, I fear,” Tyrion smiled coldly. Do you think to threaten me in my own solar?
“We of Braavos welcome change,” Augus Telares said. “I understand you have a god of seven faces in the west? In Braavos, a thousand different gods are honored; gods of fire and flowers, gods of the sea and storm, gods of horse and bird and mythical beasts from the east. Only gold is truly worshipped.”
We can support Stannis Baratheon, the man said without saying, or Renly. We can inflict pirates and cutthroats and raiders upon your shores.
“Maester Gyldayn’s writing,” Tyrion observed.
“His writing, our living,” Augus smiled without warmth. “Braavos is old, and the Iron Bank almost as old.”
We can wait, but not for very long, Tyrion understood. We are old and powerful.
“The Iron Bank will have its due, I hear,” Tyrion offered.
“Always.”
“Here in the west, men often say that a Lannister always pays his debt. Now, just because the king is only half Lannister does not detract his honor. The debt will be paid, good man, as soon as the war is won.”
Augus Telares rose slowly, his black eyes fixed upon Tyrion. “So you say,” he bowed slightly. “The Iron Bank shall await a victory.” From either of the kings.
When the man finally left, Tyrion allowed himself a goblet of gold. He took a breath and rose. He went up to his bedchamber to await Varys, who would soon be making an appearance. Evenfall, he guessed. Perhaps as late as moonrise, though he hoped not. He hoped to visit Shae tonight. He was pleasantly surprised when Galt of the Stone Crows informed him not an hour later that the powdered man was at his door, with a companion. “You are a cruel man, to make the Grand Maester squirm so,” the eunuch scolded. “The man cannot abide a secret.”
“Is that a crow I hear, calling the raven black? Or would you sooner not hear what I’ve proposed to Doran Martell?”
Varys giggled. “Perhaps my little birds have told me.”
“Have they, indeed?” He wanted to hear this. “Go on.”
“The Dornishmen thus far have held aloof from these wars. Doran Martell has called his banners, but no more. His hatred for House Lannister is well known, and it is commonly thought he will join Lord Renly. You wish to dissuade him.”
“All this is obvious,” said Tyrion.
“The only puzzle is what you might have offered for his allegiance. The prince is a sentimental man, and he still mourns his sister Elia and her sweet babe.”
“My father once told me that a lord never lets sentiment get in the way of ambition... and it happens we have an empty seat on the small council, now that Lord Janos has taken the black.”
“A council seat is not to be despised,” Varys admitted, “yet will it be enough to make a proud man forget his sister’s murder?”
“Why forget?” Tyrion smiled. “I’ve promised to deliver his sister’s killers, alive or dead, as he prefers. After the war is done, to be sure.”
Varys looked at him shrewdly. “My little birds tell me that Princess Elia cried a ... certain name ... when they came for her.”
“Is a secret still a secret if everyone knows it?” In Casterly Rock, it was common knowledge that Gregor Clegane had killed Elia and her babe. They said he had raped the princess with her son’s blood and brains still on his hands.
“This secret is your lord father’s sworn man.”
“My father would be the first to tell you that fifty thousand Dornishmen are worth one rabid dog.”
Varys stroked a powdered cheek. “And if Prince Doran demands the blood of the lord who gave the command as well as the knight who did the deed ...” Would that I could give them that, Tyrion thought. He did not know who would enjoy it more.
“Robert Baratheon led the rebellion. All commands came from him, in the end.”
“Robert was not at King’s Landing.”
“Neither was Doran Martell.”
“So. Blood for his pride, a chair for his ambition. Gold and land, that goes without saying. A sweet offer ... yet sweets can be poisoned. If I were the prince, something more would I require before I should reach for this honeycomb. Some token of good faith, some sure safeguard against betrayal.” Varys smiled his slimiest smile. “Which one will you give him, I wonder?”
Tyrion sighed. “You know, don’t you?”
Varys smiled. “In any case, Prince Doran will hardly be insensible of the great honor you do him. Very deftly done, I would say ... but for one small flaw.”
The dwarf laughed. “Named Cersei?”
“What avails statecraft against the love of a mother for the sweet fruit of her womb?”
“What Cersei does not know will never hurt me.”
“And if Her Grace were to discover your intentions before your plans are ripe?”
“Why,” he said, “then I would know the man who told her to be my certain enemy.” And when Varys giggled, he thought, two.
“It will not do to leave your companion waiting, will it?” Tyrion wondered.
“My companion?” Varys brushed a hand along his powdered cheek. “You misunderstand, my lord of Lannister.”
“Ah,” Tyrion remembered. “You vouch for his talent.”
Varys tittered. “When our dear friend Petyr perished, he left many of his properties and businesses unattended to. He left no will, you see. Why should he? A man in the prime of his life. The Master of Coin. Gold will ensure a long life.”
“Gold did not protect my brother well,” Tyrion raised an eyebrow. “A tragic lesson to learn for Lord Baelish. Speaking of, you must tell me how he perished.”
“I shall,” Varys promised. “Our new friend here has aided me well in the recuperation of poor Petyr’s holdings, you see. So many pieces of paper. So much parchment under lock and no key. Suddenly, we found a will.” Varys gasped, and giggled.
“How inconvenient for Littlefinger,” Tyrion laughed. “Send him in then.”
The young man that stood before them was pale, not as pale as Augus Telares had been, but a wan that spoke of being hidden from the sun. A messy mop of dark hair sat on his head, and shifty grey eyes, as cloudy as smog, watched him. He was clad in dark leathers, with a simple dagger at his hip and a crossbow hanging from a hook. He bowed slightly and rasped out. “Lord Tyrion.”
“Gaven, is it?”
“It is.”
“My friend here tells me you are a superb thief. That means you can count yourself as still more honest than most in this keep. Do you know why you are here?”
“You want a good thief.”
“I do. A good thief, you say. Show me. Steal a vial of wolfsbane from the Maester’s chamber. Actually, a vial of wolfsbane and a raven’s feather. Then, we will talk again.”
The thief bowed lowly with a smirk. “Wolf and raven shall be yours, my lord.”
Notes:
Chapter Reference: ACOK, Tyrion III
I am back!
There are plans in place to write novellas for the backstories of the party. They won't be ready for sometime, but I just thought I would mention that. Next chapter, we fly back to Sansa to see what she has been up to.
Chapter 60: Sansa II
Notes:
"O tiger's heart, wrapp'd in a woman's hide!" - Henry VI
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
She was in Winterfell.
She dreamt of the warm water, and her mother’s smile, just as warm. When she slept, her father was there, as were her brothers. Only here was she safe. She dreamt of watching Robb and Jon clashing with wooden swords in the yard, of reading the old tales to Bran and Rickon, of arguing with Arya over nothing and everything. She felt like a pale ghost, a shade watching the living past.
Some nights, her dreams turned cold. Her nightmares were filled with smoke and blood, and she cried at the sight of Winterfell burning, of skinless monsters cackling over the ruins of Wintertown. Some nights, Joffrey’s promises came true, and her father’s head watched her unblinkingly from a sharpened, bloodied pike. You killed me, his decayed eyes accused her.
Each time, the dove would soar through the sky and perch on her shoulder. That gave her strength, a warmth like she felt in Winterfell. And the dove would guide her to the godswood. It was serene there, and always night. The stars glimmered above her, constellations she faintly remembered Maester Luwin teaching her. She remembered some of them; the Crone’s Lantern, the Galley, the Ghost, the Moonmaid, the Shadowcat. There were others as well, ones she did not recognise.
Each night, the dove flew around the weirwood tree and a pale, elegant lady in white walked towards her with a gentle, loving smile. Sansa could never hear the words she whispered, and if she did, she could not recall them. That was where she woke each morning, at the start of a song. This one was different. There was a black cat by the side of the lady in white, and it rubbed itself against her robes playfully.
The last she remembered, as she woke, was the song; light and lifely, playful and fast, and its words sang and promised of freedom and fortune.
The midday sun was piercing through their windows. Sansa rubbed her eyes. Jeyne slumbered to her right, with a look of consternation on her face. She was pale, paler than she was, with a light sheen of sweat. Sansa placed the back of her palm against her forehead, and felt a warmth blazing. She grimaced.
“Jeyne,” she whispered. Jeyne Poole could only murmur something soft and weakly. Sansa ran her fingers through Jeyne’s dark hair, whispering calming words to her. It will be alright, she wanted to tell her friend but…
“I will get the Maester,” she promised.
“No, no,” Jeyne whispered frightfully, clutching at her hand.
Sansa frowned. “Very well. I will speak to him, and find some remedy. How are you feeling?” She almost regretted the question as it left her tongue.
Jeyne only whimpered. Sansa placed a comforting hand on her flushed cheek, rising and filling a cup of water for her. Jeyne sipped at it slowly and Sansa rubbed at her back comfortingly. “It will just be for a short while,” she promised.
She rubbed her stomach. The angry purple bruise Ser Meryn had given her had faded to a pale yellow, and the pain had faded as well. And it faded fast, as did all the other bruises the knight gave her. She found it strange but not unwelcome. His fist had been mailed when he hit her. Jeyne had cried out, and reached to hold Sansa. The knight struck her too. No, Sansa thought angrily. He is no knight. Ser Barristan was the last true knight in the city and Joffrey stripped him of his honor.
Except for Anna, she trusted not the servants to carry the message, and she did not like the wandering eyes of the Grand Maester. No, Jeyne has suffered enough.
She rose, then, and dressed herself in a simple gown of grey and silver. Plain for the south’s eyes, but she was of the North, she reminded herself. The north is cold and hard and without mercy, her father had said once, but its children need not be so merciless. Ice is cold and deadly, but it can cool a fever.
It was long past midday when she left her chamber in the holdfast. Much of the Red Keep was stirring, she noted, the servants especially. Do they sleep? Sansa thought. A thousand tasks and one.
Before, the queen had left guards by her door and gave her an escort everywhere she went in the keep. Now, the keep seemed to barely have enough men to guard it. The queen doubled her guards around the royal chambers, Anna told her, and they sent red cloaks into the city to help the gold. But still, Maegor’s Holdfast is kept tight under watch.
She knew well the path to the Maester’s chamber by now. Her thoughts were crowded as she walked. Often, she thought of Arya; fierce, wild Arya in the city. Often, she prayed for her sister, though she did not know which of the seven to pray to. The gods can be cruel, Sansa thought mournfully, we are so close and so far.
She prayed for her brothers as well, brave Robb who fought the Lannisters, and Bran and Rickon. They must be scared, and confused. Father left with us, then Mother, then Robb. She prayed to the Mother and the Crone for them. She prayed for Jon as well, alone and cold on the Wall. Her mother’s ice for him had taught Sansa to keep him at a distance, but she found herself missing him still.
As she approached the door, it opened from within.
A pale, young man in dark leathers looked at her, before bowing. “My lady,” he muttered before her. There was a small crossbow hanging from his belt strangely, and a dagger and a handful of leather pouches.
“You must be a new assistant for the Grand Maester?” She asked politely.
“Running a delivery,” he chuckled, lightly. She eyed the weapons at his belt but made no comment on it. A lady’s armor is courtesy.
“Is the Grand Maester within?”
“I am afraid not,” the young man told her. “He must be busy. Perhaps if you were to just take a seat within?”
“Then I shall do just that,” she smiled. “My thanks, good ser.”
She stepped into the empty room and a maze of shelves greeted her. She could see the stairs that led to the rookery on one end, and faintly heard the din of the black birds. She passed dozens of pots sealed with wax, hundreds of stoppered vials, as many milkglass bottles, countless jars of dried herbs, each container neatly labeled.
So many names, Sansa idly noted. Each one bore some dark dread to them; wolfsbane and demon dance, basilisk venom and widow’s blood. I just need something for a fever, she thought, not poison for an army.
She sat on a sturdy wooden bench, losing herself to the cacophony of the ravens.
Sansa glanced up. She wondered…
No, madness, she told herself. Treason. I…
She climbed the stairs, as silently as she could. The rookery was a place of shadow and sound, filled with the soft rustling of wings and the occasional sharp clack of a beak against wood. It smelled of old parchment, musty straw, and the faint, sour tang of droppings that no amount of cleaning could fully erase.
Wooden perches lined the space, some smooth with age, others rough where restless talons had scraped grooves into them. The ravens perched in clusters, their black eyes glittering with uncanny intelligence, their heads twitching to follow any movement within the chamber. A few dozed, feathers ruffling as they shifted in sleep, while others watched with keen interest, always waiting; for food, for a message, for the next hand to stretch toward them with a tied parchment.
A trick of light, she told herself, when she thought she saw one watching her with green eyes that shone like emeralds.
Scattered across a small, cluttered table were letters and thin leather cords, some still curled from recent use. A half-filled inkwell rested beside them, its surface crusted over, quills stained with black splayed around it like the broken limbs of dead birds. A single candle burned low, dripping wax onto a brass holder so thick with hardened drippings that it seemed more wax than metal.
Sansa dared to approach the table.
The newest was from Rosby and it read of wheat and flour and honey and eggs. The second came from Sow’s Horn, and read of a complaint against lions and manticores. And the third was the longest. It came from Duskendale. And when she read it, Sansa felt her heart freeze and bloom again.
All men know me for the trueborn son of Steffon Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End, by his lady wife Cassana of House Estermont. With Lord Eddard of House Stark by my side as witness, having been unjustly accused of treason, I declare upon the honor of my House that my brother Robert, our late king, left no trueborn issue of his body, the boy Joffrey, the boy Tommen, and the girl Myrcella being abominations born of incest between Cersei Lannister and her brother Ser Jaime the Kingslayer.
This, I claim with proof and confession. Upon his honor, Lord Eddard Stark has sworn that Cersei Lannister has confessed her vile sin before the godswood of the Red Keep, rejecting his attempt at mercy. It is the work of the false queen, and the treason of the City Watch, that led to the slaughter of good men and true, and the departure of Lord Eddard from King’s Landing to Dragonstone where I received him. Further, my brother’s bastards are all black of hair and blue of eye, each and every. The seed is strong, Lord Jon Arryn’s last words were, before his murder. For proof, let all men lay their eyes upon the wicked spawns of Cersei Lannister, gold of hair and green of eyes each.
By right of birth and blood, I do this day lay claim to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Let all true men declare their loyalty. By the sight of men, and of the gods old and new and red, under the sign and seal of Stannis of House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.
“Father,” Sansa whispered. This…
Her hands trembled. Treason, incest, murder.
She dropped the letter, like it was on fire, but her gaze remained on the words on it. From King’s Landing to Dragonstone, she read again. How?
Three kings there were now. Three Baratheon kings. Her father had found her way to one of them. That was why Meryn Trant had come in the night with a mailed fist for her. Joffrey had not even deigned to come to watch his knight beat her. Her brother had declared for him as well, Anna told her. Incest, her eyes flew over the inked words once more. She felt disgust and horror roil in her, like she was on a ship in a storm. She wanted to vomit.
He’s not the least bit like that old drunken king, she remembered herself screaming at Arya when her father was preparing to send them back to Winterfell. She did not know if she wanted to laugh or cry. I, I should…
If she had not told the queen, if she had not betrayed her father, if she had not lied about Nymeria, if she had not loved Joffrey. If I had not been such a blind fool!
A tear ran down her pale cheek. She felt like collapsing. There was nothing more she wanted to cry in her mother’s embrace, to beg forgiveness from her father.
The Seven-Pointed Star taught that the seven burning hells awaited sinners who did not repent their sins. Incest was amongst the worst, but what of treason to one’s blood? I will… will I burn with Joffrey and Cersei?
Her mother’s gods, she thought. What of her father’s? What of the Old Gods that Robb held to; the gods of tree and stone and wind. What would they make of her?
The sept, Sansa thought, her head pounding. The godswood.
She forced herself to walk steadily down the stairs, fearing that a misstep would send her falling to her death. What would happen after that? She feared that her nightmares would come to life.
She could not sit upon the bench and await the old maester patiently, not anymore.
Just across the maester’s room was another, lined with beds and wounded men, and Sansa slipped in, as quiet as a mouse. Anything, Sansa told herself, even Joffrey and the queen. She would prefer anything to silence. She did not want to think.
The chamber was empty but for two men.
The air in the room was thick with the scent of burnt flesh, the sharp tang of ointments failing to mask it. It clung to her throat, and made her stomach twist. She did not look away. Sandor Clegane slumbered in bed, half-shrouded in shadow, his massive frame barely contained by the tangled sheets. The stench of burnt flesh lingered despite the passage of time, a sickly mix of charred meat and the acrid bite of old smoke. His face, already ruined by fire once before, was now a grotesque landscape of fresh scars and festering wounds, the newer burns twisting over the old like a second, cruel branding. And it stretched across his body.
His breath was rough and uneven, rattling dryly in his throat as he shifted, every movement a fresh agony visible on his ruined face. The bandages wrapped around his body were stiff with dried blood and ointment, clinging to his skin like a second, unwanted hide of dirtied white. Beneath them, she saw festered burns, some healing into tight, puckered scars, others refusing to close, oozing where the flames had eaten too deep. She covered her gasp with both hands.
He is the enemy, a voice whispered in her head.
No one deserves this much agony, a softer voice said.
He killed good, loyal Northmen, the first voice argued. He would have slashed father from head to hip, if Joffrey commanded.
He is paying for his sins, Sansa thought.
And should he rise?
She turned away. Ser Arys Oakheart was motionless on his bead, as stiff as marble where the Hound stirred in his slumber like writhing shadows. A thick bandage was wrapped around his head, subduing his golden hair, its linen stained rust red. His face was pale and slack, boyish and resigned despite his handsome youth. His breath came slow and shallow, as if the body was only remembering how to do so. Every so often, a tremor flickered across his finger, or his jaw would twitch.
Of Joffrey’s seven, she thought he was the best of them. And here he lies, dangling from the Stranger’s fingers. She wondered why it was the youngest and most noble of the Kingsguard to be struck so low, to be brought so close to death’s door, and to be left lingering so horribly. The gods are cruel, Sansa thought once more.
The sound of shuffling steps, slow and doddering, woke her from her thoughts. He has come. At last. She wore a lady’s smile to meet the maester. A lady’s armor is courtesy. Her blade is sweetened words.
“Grand Maester,” she bowed, with a smile sweet as honey. She could feel his eyes.
“Oh, yes… Lady Sansa,” the old man blinked. “Is there… any matter of import I may help you with?”
“I feel troubled as of late, Grand Maester,” she said softly. “Pains in my head, and in my chest, and in my belly.”
“Troubling,” murmured the old maester, his eyes roaming from her head to her chest. “Yes, mayhaps the red flower is soon to come? Perhaps, an inspection…”
“I trust in your judgement,” she bowed, “as I do the queen’s.”
Pycelle blinked. “Yes, the queen… the queen is most wise… Mayhaps a salve to apply on the sides of the head to soothe the pain of the mind, and, and, I do believe I have an ointment for a turbulent belly.”
She waited patiently for the jars, for minutes. And when the maester came, she smiled and gave him a curtsey, and thanked him with all courtesy.
To Maegor’s Holdfast, she returned. And in the hallway, Lord Varys padded by on soft, velvet slippers. He gave her a sweet, cloying smile.
“Grey is truly your color, my lady,” the Master of Whisperers bowed.
“And purple, yours,” she bowed in return.
“Truly?” He tittered. “There are those in the east who would claim that purple is the color of royalty. I would never claim such arrogance of course.”
“We are not in the east, my lord,” she said, quizzically.
“No,” he agreed, smiling. “We are not. I seem to recognise the dreadful smell of medicinal herbs. Those must be from our wise Grand Maester.”
“They are,” she nodded. “For the pain of the mind, and the flesh.”
“For the mind, I can understand,” his smile grew pitying, “but for the flesh…”
She had to be careful, she knew. “It is only natural, my lord.”
“Natural,” Varys toyed with the word. “Indeed. Natural. It is natural for the bird to fly, for the fish to swim, and for the lion to bite.”
“Wolves bite too, my lord,” she dared to say.
Varys tittered. “So they do. Yet, I hear that they hunt best in packs?”
“They do.”
Varys offered her a soft, sad smile and silence as he left.
When she returned to her chambers, she found Jeyne asleep, a pillow held tightly between her arms. Sansa smiled, and placed the jars on the table. And…
Next to the white dove feather that she kept, she saw a folded sheet of parchment tucked away behind a jug of milk. She stared at it, as if it were a coiled snake. Tentatively, a hand reached to seize it. She wondered what it was. Some cruel trick of Joffrey’s? Would it speak of her brother’s loss, or her father’s capture?
No, Sansa told herself. If those were true, I would have heard it.
Be brave, she told herself. It is just ink. Be brave like Robb and Father, like Arya and Mother, like Bran and Rickon.
She opened the letter.
The ghost in the crypt can make bread. At ghost’s hour where you do not pray.
The note was unsigned, unsealed, and the hand unfamiliar, and there was a rough, crude sketch of a stitching needle. She crushed the parchment to her chest and whispered the words to herself.
“The ghost in the crypt,” Sansa almost wept. “Jon. Ghost’s hour. The hour of the wolf. The godswood. Needles… Arya.”
Suddenly, she remembered the crypts of Winterfell. Robb had taken them down, her and Arya and Bran. They’d only had one candle between them, and Bran’s eyes had gotten big as saucers as he stared at the stone faces of the Kings of Winte. Robb took them all the way down to the end, past Grandfather and Brandon and Lyanna, to show them their own tombs. When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran streaking for the stairs. Later, Arya laughed at her, that it was just Jon covered in flour.
Come to the godswood, at the hour of the wolf.
Sansa almost laughed. She read the letter again, and a third time. Who left this here? She could not help but to wonder. Who had snuck through the Red Keep to deliver Arya’s letter? Who?
Arya’s companion, she remembered. The one who had saved her and Anna. Can it be? But how? A crossbow…
When the door opened, she hurriedly stuffed the note under her sheet and sat on it. It was her newest bedmaid, the mousy one with the limp brown hair.
“What do you want?” Sansa demanded.
“Will milady be wanting a bath tonight?”
“A fire, I think ... I feel a chill.” She was shivering, though the day had been hot.
“As you wish.”
Sansa watched the girl suspiciously. Had she seen the note? Cersei had remembered to be cruel, and had her servants changed every fortnight, to make certain none of them befriended her. Since then, visits from Anna had been few and little, only occasionally bringing her a platter of food and whispers.
When a fire was blazing in the hearth, Sansa thanked the maid curtly and ordered her out. The girl was quick to obey, as ever, but Sansa decided there was something sly about her eyes. Doubtless, she was scurrying off to report to the queen, or maybe Varys. All her maids spied on her, she was certain. She dropped the note in the flames, watching the parchment curl and blacken.
“Sansa?” She heard Jeyne’s voice murmur.
“Jeyne,” she smiled, seizing one of the jars. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” Jeyne said softly. “What happened?”
“I-” Sansa remembered. She sat on the bed instead. “How is your belly?”
“Disturbed.”
“Here,” Sansa offered. She helped Jeyne remove her white dress. Her flesh was pale and soft, and she seemed even skinnier than before they had left the North. “Lie down,” Sansa giggled, dipping her hand into the white salve.
Jeyne sighed softly as Sansa rubbed her hand along her skin. Sansa leaned in to whisper in her ear. “There was a letter. Arya, I think.”
Jeyne’s brown eyes widened. Sansa continued. “Did the servant bring in any honey cakes?” She asked loudly.
“No,” Jeyne said. “No one came in.”
“I find myself troubled these days, Jeyne. Mayhaps, I must need pray in the godswood,” she sighed. Jeyne nodded knowingly.
“I’m glad,” Jeyne smiled at her tiredly.
Sansa could not sleep, and it seemed that her vigor rubbed onto Jeyne. They talked late into the night; tales of the North, tales that her brother Bran loved to hear. They sang too; the Bear and the Maiden Fair, The Night That Ended, and The Queen Took Off Her Sandal, the King Took Off His Crown. They spoke of northern food, and the Wolfswood, and White Harbour. They spoke of the North.
When Jeyne drifted off to sleep, Sansa wondered what her siblings were doing. Arya was in the city, Robb was waging war with Mother by his side, her brothers were in Winterfell, Jon at the Wall, and her father was at Dragonstone.
Gentle Mother, she prayed, show us mercy.
Brave Warrior, give Robb your strength.
Just Father, grant us justice.
Wise Crone, shine the light of wisdom for Arya.
Maiden, watch over me.
Then, she heard the shouting.
Distant at first, then growing louder. Many voices yelling together. She could not make out the words. And there were horses as well, and pounding feet, shouts of command. She crept to her window and saw men running on the walls, carrying spears and torches. The talk at the wells had all been of troubles in the city of late. People were crowding in, running from the war, and many had no way to live save by robbing and killing each other.
She looked at the drawbridge, and the white shadow guarding it was gone.
She could see the lights of many torches on the curtain walls. What had come? Had Stannis and Renly arrived? Had the city fallen?
Sansa threw a plain grey cloak over her shoulders and picked up the knife she used to cut her meat. She hid the blade under her cloak. She glanced at Jeyne, sleeping peacefully, and rubbed a hand along her cheek. “Sleep well,” she whispered.
A column of red-cloaked swordsmen ran past as she slipped out into the night. She waited until they were well past before she darted across the undefended drawbridge. In the yard, men were buckling on swordbelts and cinching the saddles of their horses. She glimpsed Ser Preston near the stables with three others of the Kingsguard, white cloaks bright as the moon as they helped Joffrey into his armor. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the king. Thankfully, he did not see her. He was shouting for his sword and crossbow.
The noise receded as she moved deeper into the castle, never daring to look back for fear that Joffrey might be watching... or worse, following. The serpentine steps twisted ahead, striped by bars of flickering light from the narrow windows. Sansa was panting by the time she reached the top. She ran down a shadowy colonnade and pressed herself against a wall to catch her breath. When something brushed against her leg, she almost jumped out of her skin, but it was only a cat, a ragged black tom with a chewed-off ear. The old creature looked at her carefully, then away.
By the time she reached the godswood, the noises had faded to a faint rattle of steel and a distant shouting. Sansa pulled her cloak tighter. The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes.
Sansa had favored her mother’s gods over her father’s. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night.
Help me, she prayed to her father’s gods.
She moved from tree to tree, feeling the roughness of the bark beneath her fingers. Leaves brushed at her cheeks. Had she come too late?
She clawed through the dark, through trees of elm, alder and black cottonwood whilst ravens cawed. The godswood of the Red Keep was small, quiet and empty. Dragon’s breath grew in these woods, she remembered reading, but in the dark, red was black. She found her way to the heart tree, a large brown oak with…
A bear snarled from the wood, royal and fierce and frozen in its pride. Eleven fangs jutted from the top, like a savage crown of oak. Sansa stared at the heart tree.
“Now I know what he meant,” a voice whispered to her.
In a fright, she drew her knife. In the dark, she saw no men.
“Easy there,” a voice said casually. A figure peeled itself from the shadows.
It was the same man she saw stepping out of the Grand Maester’s chambers, still clad in dark leathers. He offered her a strained smile.
“You are Arya’s companion,” she whispered.
“I am,” he said, faintly surprised.
“She told me, Anna,” Sansa said in a rush.
“The servant?” the stranger said, alarmed.
“Just me, and Jeyne,” Sansa told him.
“I hear the walls have ears here,” he pointed out.
“We were careful,” Sansa frowned.
“As you say,” he shrugged, insolently. “Your sister wants you to know that she is doing well.”
“Where is she?” Sansa asked, near breathless.
“Not here, of course,” the man gave her a lazy smile. He was around Theon’s age, Sansa noted, her eyes falling upon his grey eyes. “It was dangerous enough for me to come. In truth, ‘twas luck that got us here.”
“I thank you, good ser,” Sansa bowed. “Will you… will you free us?”
The young man frowned. “Your sister wants me to. If Andrei were here instead of me, he would take you and your friend, and cut his way out of the gates.”
“You are the friend he mentioned,” Sansa remembered. “The one that fought with him against Ser Jaime, with my father.”
“Fight,” he chuckled, “in a way.”
“Then, I have much to thank you for,” Sansa stepped closer, and dipped into a curtsy.
He seemed at a loss for words.
“I must have your name, good ser,” Sansa offered.
“Gunther,” he sniffed. “Here, your sister wanted me to give you this.”
She accepted the letter gratefully and unrolled it.
We are doing just fine. We robbed some merchant’s mansion, and I took a few candle stands of gold! I heard the talk. They say that father is with King Robert’s angry brother. They say Robb is winning. We will go back to Winterfell soon.
Sansa read the letter again, and a third time, and a fourth.
“You robbed a merchant’s mansion with my sister?” She asked politely.
“She insisted,” Gunther shrugged. “She’s as stubborn as an ox, that one.”
“Still,” she took a breath. “Again, I must thank you.”
Again, he offered her a casual shrug, tapping his feet.
He is Andrei’s companion, she thought, without a shadow of doubt. Both men, young and old, viewed the world with a certain ease and irreverence. Where Andrei was fierce, stout and unyielding like a bear, this one was languid and flowing like a shadowcat, light and eager on his feet and with his steel fangs.
From a pouch, he drew a small rolled parchment, a corked inkpot and a quill. “Here,” he offered. “Your sister will read it, that I can promise. Whether I can return with her reply is another matter. No promises there.”
She set the items on the grass. It was hard to write on the soft soil and in the dark, and she bent at an unnatural angle to scrawl an untidy, unladylike message.
And when she was done, she found Gunther hunched over, inspecting the bear.
“One of your gods?” He asked.
“Not that I am aware of,” she said politely, returning the quill, pot and letter to him.
He smiled at her cryptically. “Someone must have spent a long time carving this.”
“They must have,” she agreed. The work was exquisite. “Will you… will you return?”
“Where I can,” he said slowly. “The Spider found me, but he knows me by another name. Gaven. Just a talented thief from King’s Landing. That’s how Tyrion Lannister came to know me, and hired me by name. It was Varys that brought me in.”
Smiling, tittering Varys. Varys, the spymaster. Varys, the Spider. A certain terror seized her. “Does he know?” She said suddenly, her heart pounding.
“I do not know,” he admitted. “About Andrei and I. About your sister. About this. I do not know. But if he knows, why hasn’t he acted? I am not Andrei, I cannot fight my way through dozens to free you from here, you know.”
Not every man is a warrior, her father said once to an eager Robb. Some are meant to smith blades, some are meant to hunt, others are meant to write and sing.
“You are not,” Sansa whispered, “but you can do things that he cannot.”
Gunther looked at her, blinking. “Well, yes.”
“So you think Lord Varys…”
Gunther looked at the bear in the oak tree and tore his gaze to the fading twin-tailed comet in the sky. “I think I am lucky.”
“If you say so,” Sansa said reluctantly. “I will come here, to the godswood frequently. I imagine it will be easier for you?”
“No real difference,” the lithe man shrugged. “But here, only the trees are listening.”
“The godswood, then.”
“More nights you will spend alone than with company,” he warned her.
“There is peace here,” she told him. “I do not mind it.”
He shrugged again. I prayed for a hero, and the gods gave me not a knight or a warrior but a grey-hearted thief who led my sister to rob a merchant.
She found she did not mind. A golden knight slaughtered her father’s men. Knights slew stewards and septas, men and women who could not fight back. Knights laid their hands on little girls and stood by, looking away, while the innocent were trampled beneath steel boots. I do not want a knight, not anymore.
The rogue before her risked it all to deliver her sister’s letter. Jeyne, sweet, haunted Jeyne, was the only one brave enough to reach out to her while Ser Meryn Trant beat her with his mailed fists. Andrei and Jory, and so many of her father’s brave men, fought fiercely for her father, and none of them were knights.
Knights are of the summer, Sansa decided. She was Sansa Stark of Winterfell, she reminded herself. Her father was alive and well, and stood at the side of a king. Her mother was by the side of her victorious brother, who now waged war so fiercely that men called him the Young Wolf. Her sister, a child of nine, had escaped from the Red Keep, away from the lion’s golden paw. Her brothers were the Starks in Winterfell, and even now, Jon fought fiercely for the realms of men at the Wall. She was a Stark as well. She was of the North, and she would fear no more.
Ice is in my veins, she told herself. Knights are of the summer, and winter is coming.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: ACOK, Sansa II
Yes, I adore Sansa, how did you know?
I cannot remember if we ever got a proper interaction between Varys and Sansa in canon, but they just rolled off so well. Pycelle is a creep, the Hound is in agony, and old Gunty appears.
Also, giving a shout out to nulnvamp's Wizards vs Student Loans; an omnibus of the travels of three Imperial Journeymen Wizards throughout the Old World. It can be found on both AO3 and Spacebattles with that name. If you enjoy the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy, magic, or just a good story, then I would highly recommend. Go show some love, they made the art for this fic as well!
Next chapter ...
Andrei!
Chapter 61: Andrei I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“She’s Elenei, the daughter of the sea god and the goddess of the wind.”
“What is… names?” He asked, curious.
“Lost to history,” Shireen said, mournfully. “What are their names,” she corrected.
“If they had any to begin with,” Cressen reminded them. “Much of what we know of them comes from what we know of the tale of Durran Godsgrief.”
“Godsgrief?”
Cressen gave the excited Shireen an encouraging smile. “A distant ancestor of the Lady Shireen and King Stannis, if the tales are true.”
“He was the first of the Storm Kings,” Shireen said in a rush. “According to legend, Durran won the love of Elenei, during the Age of Heroes. Her divine parents forbade their love but they wed still. The gods’ wrath was terrible to behold, and destroyed his keep on his wedding night and brought the storm wind to all his family and guests. Durran alone survived and, enraged, he declared war on the gods.”
“War on … gods?”
Shireen Baratheon nodded grimly, as grimly as only a sad child could. “They hammered his kingdom with massive storms; gusts of sea wind, lightning from the sky. Each time he built a castle to face the sea, the gods destroyed it.”
In a way, Andrei thought, Kislev waged war against the gods as well, with every bitter battle. Each skirmish with the men of the north, each longship burnt and sunk, each Chaos incursion repelled. Every fort erected along the northern border, every stanitsa in the oblasts was an act of man’s defiance against four cruel gods.
“He kept building larger and greater castles, and it was the seventh that resisted the storms. And from that day, Durran’s Defiance was named Storm’s End.”
“Why castle stand?”
Shireen was thoughtful. “Some believe that the children of the forest took a hand in its construction. Others believe that Bran the Builder, the Stark who built the Wall with the aid of the giants, helped Durran.”
“Legends of the same age,” Cressen commented.
“They say Durran ruled for a thousand years,” Shireen said.
“Mayhaps so, mayhaps not,” Cressen said, smiling. “Remember now, though Durran was the Storm King, he was still just a king, just a man. No man can live a thousand years. Archmaester Glaive, a stormlander himself, proposed that the King of a Thousand Years was a succession of monarchs all bearing the same name. The Storm Kings of old named their firstborn and heir after Durran Godsgrief himself, you see, making the research of poor maesters most complicated.”
Shireen giggled. “Are you familiar with House Baratheon’s history, Andrei?”
He gave her a flat stare, sipping from the cup of water that the Maester handed him.
“I suppose not. When Aegon the Dragon came to Westeros’ shores, he came with his three dragons and two sisters, and Orys Baratheon. Some believe that he was Aegon’s bastard brother. At the time, Argilac the Arrogant was the Storm King. Orys defeated him at the Last Storm and after the battle, Argella Durrandon, his daughter, declared herself the Storm Queen. She held Storm’s End until her household turned against her, delivering her to Orys, naked and chained. He covered her with his cloak and treated her chivalrously. At the conquest’s end, Aegon rewarded Orys with the paramountship of the Stormlands. He took Argella to wife and to honor Argilac’s valour, he adopted the stag banner and words of the Durrandons.”
The little girl smiled at him. “Ours is the Fury.”
“And House Baratheon was truly born then,” the maester nodded.
Andrei found himself impressed. This Aegon reminded him of Miska. Men called her the Slaughterer but all Kislev named her the first khan-queen. The ruler of the Gospodars who led them west, and conquered the lands of the oblasts. It was she who paved the path for the rise of the tzars and tzarinas, under her daughter, Shoika. Though she carved her place into the nightmares of the Ungols of the time, she was still a figure of legend. What a woman, Andrei thought to himself.
“One day, you must tell the tales of the North,” Shireen urged.
“I try,” he promised her with a strained smile. He was a warrior from the frozen mountains of the North for now, he had agreed with Eddard. With a war blooming across the land, and two kings to fight, Eddard had told him plainly that the ramifications of a new land to the west was a thing that none could spare the time to ponder in horror. Stannis was the one man they told, just last night, of Andrei washing ashore on the western coast of the North, of a land beyond the Sunset Sea.
It was all a lie, of course. A part of Andrei felt a pang of guilt for lying to the wolf lord.
Yet, he knew not what to say, nor how to say it. Perhaps, Lorenzo could, the bard could convince a man that the sun was cold. Words were not his weapon, however, and so Andrei had remained silent. Stannis Baratheon received the news grimly.
“She told me as such,” the king told them.
Andrei found himself unsurprised. What he wondered at was the fact that the red woman had told the king that he was from a different land, and not a different world.
“If this Kislev is open to trade and diplomacy,” the king ground out, “then I shall pursue that route, after the war is ended.”
And that was the end of the matter.
Stannis Baratheon had received that news like Lord Eddard had told him that Dragonstone was dark. He wondered what else the Red Woman had told the king. If she comes to me one more time, Andrei told himself, I will drown myself in the sea.
“Patches worries me,” Shireen muttered quietly. The maester gave her a comforting smile, but Andrei could see the strain on his weary, weathered face.
“He will be fine, I believe,” Cressen assured.
The fool had taken to long walks along the shore, from dawn to dusk, even when the sky was black. Frightened women from the fishing village brought tales of Patchface singing to himself at night, collecting seashells and giggling to the sea. One shaken child spoke of how the fool knelt on the sand to pray to something, singing profusely of eyes beneath the depths. Twice-mad was the whisper floating about Dragonstone.
With Patchface occupied by madness and the Onion Knight sailing the Narrow Sea for his king, Shireen was a solemn, solitary sight, a ghost of a child haunting the black halls of the Drum Tower. Even Maester Cressen had less and less time for her, sitting on Stannis’ council and tending to the wounded; fools who had broken bones or torn flesh during their drills. Lord Eddard often found himself in the king’s chambers, and Andrei stood by him when the lord requested for his presence, but more oft than not, Andrei spent his time in the yard, the kitchens, or at the beach, watching quietly as the black waves crashed against the shore over and over.
Then, one day, he saw a somber Shireen Baratheon watching the world from a shadowy corner in the Drum Tower, staring mournfully at the sea against a window circled by stone dragons. A lonely child. A lonely princess now.
Since then, he made the time to ask her questions, clumsily and slowly. The child was a well of knowledge in her bright mind. She spoke of the history of the land; from the coming of the First Men to the Andals, to Valyria’s death and the arrival of the Conqueror. She told him excitedly of the many tales and myths she read; songs, poems, vague legends nearly lost to time, stories of brave heroes and fair maidens. She lectured him on the Houses of Westeros, the great and the lesser; their histories, their sigils, their prowess, their words, and to whom they swore their allegiance to. In truth, he could only remember half, at most, of what she told him.
Today, she spoke of Elenei and Durran Godsgrief, and the forging of Storm’s End. He wondered what she would speak of on the morrow.
The maester spared the sun a glance. “Perhaps, it is time for a meal, princess?”
“Oh,” Shireen blinked. “It is that late already?”
“It is,” Andrei intoned. “You must eat. You are young.”
She shook her head, despairing, as Cressen chuckled. “Not you as well, Andrei. I hear enough admonition from the maester. I eat enough!”
“Eat more,” Andrei said, rising. “Tomorrow… New tale?”
“I will ponder on which to share,” Shireen promised, closing the tome.
He gave them a stiff, awkward bow before leaving the chamber. When he exited, he saw the shimmer of red cloth before him, like an ominous greeting. The Red Woman gave him an expectant smile. Andrei stole a look at the blackstone window to his right, and the calm sea beyond.
“A storm is coming,” Melisandre said, smiling. “It may end.”
“Bad time to sail.”
“To the realm,” she corrected. “A storm of ice and swords, of fire and smoke. You, amongst others, will be in its spiralling heart. I have seen it.”
“You see … much.”
“There is much truth and wisdom to be gleaned from the flames, and the Lord guides me true,” her scarlet eyes burnt. “When I gaze into the flames, I can see through stone and earth, and find the truth within men's souls, truths of the world. I can speak to kings long dead and children not yet born, and watch the years and seasons flicker past, until the end of days. The end of times, if I must.”
He fixed her with a flat look. “And?”
“And,” she whispered, “when the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons from stone. This I knew, but the Lord deigned to show me more as of late. Dragons will wake, yes. Three of flesh, and three of wood and iron. You wield one of them.”
He stiffened. She continued fervently, uncaring.
“I saw,” she looked at him, “I know what the comet means.”
“Do you?”
“The red star, it should have been,” she leaned in, whispering. She smelled red, the way iron smelled when red-hot. “Now it burns gold. One tail, it should have had. Now, it soars with two. Even now, it blazes north. I need not the Lord to tell me that.”
“And you tell me… because…”
“Because you will have a role to play, man of the bear. Because from the smoke that came from the dragon in your hands, a song ended, and another was sung. Because I have seen your axe in the battles to come. Daggers, and mace, and lute too. Fear not, Andrei Yeltska, the lie you keep is safe with me. We are not foes, no matter what you may wish to believe.”
His jaw clenched. His hand hovered over his axe. “Why?” He asked simply.
“This is a land of knights, I hear,” Melisandre smiled at him. “I am a knight of sorts myself, a champion of light and life. So are you, no matter the snow I see you in.”
“What do you know?” He demanded. “How do we go back?”
“I know only what the Lord wants me to know,” she told him calmly.
Frustration bubbled and boiled within him, but she spoke again.
“I know not how you came, Andrei Yeltska. I have seen the ice kingdom and the land of the hammer, the marbled cities and the banner of the eagle. I know not how you shall return, but return you shall. I …”
“Tell me,” he growled. “Speak, woman of fire.”
“I see a shadow,” Melisandre admitted. “A face at the end of the world. An empty woman on an empty throne. Four must stand before her, and six will leave.”
“Six?”
“That is all I saw.”
“No,” he said. The fire in her crimson eyes did not burn so brightly there. There was doubt in them, he could see it. A slight flicker of the fervent fire within.
“Ursun,” he said, plainly. “I saw… his face. In tree. That comet? Not yours.”
“The red star-” she protested.
“Comet,” he grunted. “Two tails. That one… not yours, zhenshchina ognya.”
“As you say,” she turned away. “It matters not. The war has come. This war of kings is nothing. This fight of lion and wolf is nothing. Ice and fire will come soon. Soon comes the cold, and the night that never ends. You will fight for the dawn.”
Melisandre halted in her steps, though she did not turn to look at him. “The King has called for a private council, when the sun sets. You will be there.”
And the red woman was gone, with a billow of scarlet satin robes.
Andrei eyed the black sea again. He sighed.
He found Lord Eddard leaning against a black stone railing, one hand pressed against the maw of a snarling stone dragon, though he seemed not to notice. The cane, which had accompanied them since King’s Landing, leaned against the railing with its wielder, whose gaze was fixed on the looming volcano forlornly.
“Lord Eddard,” he greeted.
“Andrei,” Ned blinked and nodded, turning.
“How… King?”
The Lord of Winterfell grimaced. “I can see how he is Robert’s brother.”
Andrei offered him a faint smile, more a pained look than anything comforting.
“Just as I seem to haunt the king with advice, a red shadow seems to loom close to you, always,” Eddard pointed out, his lips rising into a curve.
“A red ghost,” said Andrei, tiredly. “Are we … ships … Storm’s End?”
“Sunset will tell us.”
On their solemn march for stew and ale, he kept a hand against Eddard’s back but the wolf lord seemed to not need it. He was walking faster now, steady too.
“Your leg,” Andrei noted. “Healing?”
“Well,” Ned said. “The maester promised that in a month or so, I may have the honor of limping without the cane. I may even miss it.”
Andrei snorted. The servants cleared a long table for them, bringing bread and stew and wine. Lord Eddard thanked them politely, and he gave them a nod. Andrei reached for a warm loaf without mercy, tearing it brutally and drowning the chunk in thick brown stew bubbling with meat. Across, Eddard ate quietly with poise.
“I… I have had dreams as of late,” the lord said slowly, hesitantly.
Andrei could only offer him an unblinking stare, pushing the jug closer to him.
“First, I dreamt of Winterfell, and my sons,” Eddard began. “Then, I … I saw an army on the march. Northmen, and Robb was leading them. It was just a dream, I told myself. But each dream grew more real. The kingsroad, Moat Cailin. Riverrun. In my dream, I saw them call Stannis king, the riverlords and the northmen.”
Andrei finally blinked. He gave Eddard a long, quiet stare.
“Magic?” He offered quietly, for that was the only answer.
“It cannot be,” Eddard said, his eyes far away. “Magic has died from this world.”
No, Lord Eddard, Andrei wanted to tell him. It has not.
“Red Woman,” he said instead, flatly.
The grimace on Ned’s face grew. “You believe that she holds real power?”
Andrei looked into his stew. Melisandre of Asshai saw the truth in the flames, or so she claimed and promised. He wondered if the Halflings of the Empire saw such visions in their bubbling brown pots of soup and stew. “Yes.”
“Asshai,” Ned muttered. “A dark place. Old beyond the world.”
“I hear… tales,” Andrei rumbled. “Old tales. Princess tell me. Bran Builder. Godsgrief. Men of old. From time of heroes and magic.”
“Such a time has ended,” Ned said but he could see the doubt in his eyes.
“The comet,” Andrei told him. “It … is change. What has ended can come again... like the sun.”
“What has the Red Woman claimed it to be?”
“Everything,” Andrei finished his stew, gesturing for a second bowl. “Dragons die, da? But they live once. This island, you tell me dragonfire built it? Magic too.”
“Old Nan told the tales of wargs to my children,” Eddard said slowly. “Those who… who can enter the mind of animals.”
“Then you are warg.”
Eddard looked at his half-empty cup, and drained it. He looked shakened, like a man whose world had just been shattered. He was silent even when a servant stepped forward timidly to fill their cups, and he was silent as he drained it once more.
Andrei said nothing, filling the cup again for him.
“This cannot leave this table,” Ned told him, wearily.
“I guard you, Lord Stark,” Andrei reminded him. “If I have … guard secrets, I do.”
“Thank you,” he said tiredly. “Then, I know that Cat and Robb received the letter.”
“How?”
“I saw her,” Ned said, rubbing his eyes. “Cat, and hundreds of riders.”
“They ride south,” Andrei said.
“They do,” whispered the Lord of Winterfell. “How shall I tell the king?”
That, Andrei realised, was a hard question. One that he found no answer for. Wisely, he kept silent instead and offered Eddard Stark another cup of ale. Ned shook his head solemnly. “I have to keep my head clear for the council.”
Andrei raised an eyebrow, and quaffed the ale. He finished the drink instead. The two sat in a comfortable silence, eating when they felt like, and Andrei sipped at the drink like water. The lord’s face was grim, and his brows furrowed. He seemed like a man awaiting the executioner’s cold blade, not the honored lord of a king.
“Who will be at… council?”
Eddard blinked. “The king and his queen. Myself and you. Maester Cressen, I believe, and young Pylos. The other lords will not be there, King Stannis… tires of them. And… her.”
Yes, Andrei thought, unsurprised.
And they sighed.
Sunset found them in the dark Chamber of the Painted Table. Carved and painted in the figure of the Seven Kingdoms, the long table stretched across the silent room, and Andrei’s eyes followed. King Stannis sat at the head, and his queen frowned from the seat to his left. The Red Woman smiled from the queen’s side. Across from them sat Lord Eddard, on the king’s honored right. Andrei stood behind him. Maester Cressen was to Ned’s right, and young Pylos sat by him, inked quill in hand.
“By now,” the king said brusquely, “Renly will have encamped at Bitterbridge.”
Stannis Baratheon’s iron gaze glared at the Painted Table, his eyes roaming across the fields and valleys, the rivers and mountains, and the woods and hills. “Tywin Lannister sits at Harrenhal, while his dogs burn and rape across the Riverlands. And from King’s Landing, Joffrey sits the Iron Throne.”
“The false king,” said Melisandre, smiling redly.
“He will burn,” promised the dour queen.
Maester Cressen looked ready to argue, but Eddard spoke first. “I would assume Lord Tywin to be the larger threat, Your Grace?”
“He has twenty thousand men, or near enough,” Stannis spat. “And Harrenhal lends him strength. He dares not sally forth to meet your son in battle and so he sits and haunts the land like a plague. My brother has a hundred thousand, or so they say.”
“And a pretender king,” came the singing voice of the red woman.
“Might we not call for a truce,” said Cressen, his face stiff. Covered in shadows, the old man looked ancient as the gargoyles of Dragonstone. “The Lannisters are the true treason and threat. Join the armies of the Reach and the Stormlands with the North and the Riverlands. Seize King’s Landing swiftly, while Lord Eddard’s son keeps Tywin Lannister busy.”
“There is sense in that,” nodded Eddard. The lines on his weary face seemed as deep as trenches.
“Must the true king defer to his younger brother for swords?” Queen Selyse demanded. “Must we call upon Renly like beggars? My husband, your king, is Robert’s true heir.”
“It is not the path of the beggar, my queen,” Cressen tried to say but the Red Woman rose. And when she did, the hearthfire rose with her, soaring with a hungry blaze and the candleflames burnt brighter. The room was silent as the grave.
“I have seen it in the flames, my king,” Melisandre promised. “I see two futures.”
“Speak,” Stannis demanded.
“Should you sail for King’s Landing, you will be defeated. Not by the men with the lion’s banner, but by your brother. Only Storm’s End will bring victory.”
“The waters of the Stormlands are treacherous, are they not?” Eddard said.
“They are,” Stannis said bluntly. “I know it well. I saw mine own mother and father die to them. Shipbreaker Bay has earned its bleak name.”
Eddard grimaced. The king continued regardless. “I am of the Stormlands, Lord Stark. And many of the sailors I have are as well. Those who are not have sailed aplenty. All men who know well the sea and the storm.”
“There will be no storms in the Narrow Sea these few days,” smiled Melisandre.
“As the fire says,” Lord Eddard said grimly. “What then? Storm’s End has declared for Renly. As have most of the Stormlands.”
“My brother’s treason,” said the king, coldly. “Good men and true fight for Joffrey, believing him to be the true king. But all of these men who have declared for Renly know him for a traitor and an usurper. We shall siege Storm’s End.”
Cressen’s eyes widened. The old man looked near a stroke. “Your Grace,” the maester said urgently. “Storm’s End has never fallen to a siege.”
Shireen’s voice rang in his head. And from that day, Durran’s Defiance was named Storm’s End. He wondered what manner of fortress it was.
“Do you think me a fool, old man?” Stannis frowned. “I know well the history of the castle. I was raised there. I was sieged there. You were too, if you recall. Renly as well, if he remembers. They say the gods could not siege Storm’s End as well. Mace Tyrell could not take it with tens of thousands of men. I have six thousand. A petty band, in truth. A paltry army of fisher knights and sellsails and squires.”
“What is man and steel to the fire of the Lord?” Melisandre smiled.
“Nothing,” hissed the Queen.
“The Lord of Light may not need armies,” Cressen frowned, “but kings do.”
They did, thought Andrei, ruminating over the map. Six thousand was a mighty force if wielded right, like a dagger… but quantity was a quality all in its own.
“Not our king,” she promised, with scarlet eyes that blazed. “He is the Prince That Was Promised. He is the Lord’s Chosen. These pretenders and usurpers will fall.”
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” Lord Eddard said wearily. “If Robb was here with his army, perhaps we can siege Storm’s End. Take it, even, with great blood spilled. Even so, even with, Renly’s army is…”
“My brother is a fool,” snorted Stannis. “He has marched through the Reach feasting and hosting tourneys, though he could have taken King’s Landing by now. His knights are young and untested, his lords old and foolish. Mine are too, I cannot deny, but they will do. When word of the siege reaches my brother…”
“He will ride with all the chivalry of the Reach,” Cressen said, softly.
“That is thousands of lances, armored knights on barded horses,” Eddard warned.
“They will ride,” Melisandre said. “Though they shall not charge. They will garb in steel, and their banners will flutter, but no blood shall adorn them.”
“You see that in … fire,” Andrei finally spoke. The king’s gaze was on him, as was the queen’s glare, but it was the red woman’s burning stare that he held.
“I did,” the scarlet witch assured. “I have seen many truths.”
“Truth,” Cressen nearly spat. “Will your truth see our king be branded kin-slayer?”
“He will not.” Melisandre’s smile was wide, and her eyes red. “I have seen it.”
“You speak in riddles,” Eddard Stark said.
“The Lord reveals that he deigns to show,” Melisandre turned to Ned. “The flickering flame is not as clear as the wolf’s eye, I fear.”
Andrei’s jaw clenched, as did Eddard Stark. The Red Woman only smiled.
If Stannis noticed, he did not regard them. “We sail at dawn.”
“We sail to victory,” the red woman promised.
“As you say, Your Grace,” Lord Eddard said grimly. “What then?”
“My brother will be defeated. And we shall march on King’s Landing. When we have taken the city, then we shall meet Lord Tywin in battle and end Lannister power for good. Then, we shall have justice for the realm.”
“Justice,” said the queen, “all men will receive what they deserve.”
“The true war has only just begun,” Melisandre said. He could feel the heat of her gaze on him, and he turned to meet her crimson stare. “The Lannisters,” she said. “They are merely the first. The lion is only the first foe, Your Grace. Soon comes the blood of war, and the black crows that follow after. Soon comes the cold, and the night that never ends. We must be ready. For the Long Night.”
“So you say,” Stannis glanced at her, and met her gaze.
Eddard Stark looked at her as well, troubled. “The Long Night, you say. The night that never ends. I executed a man, a deserter from the Night’s Watch.”
“He spoke to you, did he not, Lord Eddard Stark?” Melisandre’s eyes burnt with unholy fire. “He saw them.”
“The Others,” Ned said plainly. Andrei stirred at that. He had heard the tales. “They are as dead as the children of the forest, and the dragons.”
“And giants?” She wondered, smiling knowingly. “And shadowbinders? And aeromancers, spellsingers, and warlocks? Wizards, alchemists, and moonsingers, Asshai bore them each like her own. Red priests, black alchemists, wargs.”
“Enough,” the king said, frowning. Ned was tense in his seat. “This talk of magic and myths does us no good for now. Now is the time for ships and swords.”
“As you say,” Melisandre bowed, “Azor Ahai.”
“The captains all know their duty,” Stannis declared. “At dawn, we sail for Storm’s End. Old man, you will stay here. A ship is no place for you, nor a battlefield. I will not have you break your hip once more. My queen will remain as well, and my daughter. Lord Eddard, you will accompany me, and sit at my right. And you, Yeltska, I will have your axe on the front. I will hear no more of this squabble. Come dawn, we sail for Storm’s End.”
Maester Cressen rose, frowning and huffing, leaving the chambers muttering while Pylos followed quietly. As Eddard Stark rose, the queen whispered in Stannis’ ear, and the king only shook his head. Melisandre of Asshai sat still and silent, the ruby at her neck glowing faintly as she met his cold gaze. And the red woman smiled.
As he left the chamber, it occurred to him that he would not hear Shireen’s new tale on the morrow. A shame, he thought, thinking of the lonely princess. Tomorrow’s tale would be the sea’s song, the steel song. He did not know when it would end.
To Storm’s End, Andrei thought, and another battle. Another war.
Notes:
Andrei is back! Melisandre 'snitches get stitches'. Ned 'man what, warg?' Stark. Cressen 'i am too old for this'.
I know Melisandre is a controversial character, not aided by how the show made her burn Shireen, but her POV chapter in Dance actually propelled her to one of my favorite characters. I guess I just have a soft spot for Knight Templar characters; Mel, Saltzpyre etc
Fun fact, it is my headcanon that if Andrei had remained with the Kossars for a few more years, he would have been elevated to one of the Tzar Guards. Of course, since I am the DM, my head's canon is kind of canon. So, while he's no super soldier or Golden Knight, he actually is not the average Kossar. "Beware the old(er) man in a profession where men die young," right?
Second fun fact, Andrei's player adores using 'firebombs' (read: molotovs) against monstrous enemies when we encounter them in our campaign, which I thought was just absolutely fitting for Andrei as a character, which gave me the idea for the throne room fight.
Chapter 62: The Red Priest
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The Lord works in mysterious, mystifying ways.
Beric Dondarrion leaned against the stump, staring intently at the map as the scout continued to sing his tale. He did not look like a man who had died twice.
“Twenty or thirty,” Dennett continued. “In mail and half-helms. Some of them are cut up bad, and one’s dying, from the sound of him. With all the noise he was making, I got right up close. They got spears and shields, but only one horse, and that’s lame. I think they been there awhile, from the stink of the place.”
“The wolves must have got them,” Folke muttered, sharpening his axe.
Which kind? Thoros wondered. The ones with fur and fang, or the ones in steel? Though after what had happened at High Heart, he knew not which ones were more savage. If their foes had not been Westermen, Thoros might have felt pity.
“Did you see a banner?” The lightning lord asked.
“A spotted treecat, yellow and black, on a mud-brown field.”
“House Myatt,” Tom said at once, tuning his lute. “Westerlander.”
“Are they closer to twenty or thirty?” Folke pressed.
“Thirty,” their scout admitted. “Though, at least six were wounded.”
“At least a score of them that can use those spears and shields,” Beric said. “We have thirteen here.”
Thirteen, Thoros thought. A lucky number. Beric, Eiser and he led the men. Tom sat humming from the stump while Dennett accepted a drink from a grim-faced Harwin. Notch and Likely Luke poked at the fire with long sticks, while Mudge and Pello muttered over their wineskins. Swampy Meg, Melly and Merrit were the last three, each one sharpening their swords. Anguy and Lem Lemoncloak led the other half of their numbers, skirmishing near the Stoney Sept.
“Thirteen against twice that number,” muttered Harwin. He had come with them from King’s Landing. All but one of them did. Men of Winterfell and men of Darry, men of Blackhaven, Mallery men and Wylde men. Knights and squires and men-at-arms, lords and commanders bound together with a single purpose. Six scores of brave men determined to bring the king’s justice to Gregor Clegane, a man determined to prove the monster from the tales.
Then, more than four scores died, as did the king they fought for.
Yet, they fought on. Though the king was dead and the royal banner they bore was lost and trampled at the Mummer’s Ford, they fought on. King’s men, realm’s men. Thoros of Myr, men called him, and here he fought nonetheless.
“It can be done,” Folke said plainly.
He was the only one who had not come from King’s Landing. Word was, he had already been fighting the raiders of the West before they arrived. Thoros could believe that. Twice, in the past months, Thoros had thought himself doomed.
The first was at the Mummer’s Ford, when the Mountain’s butchers fell upon them from their rear. He saw Raymun Darry fall beneath the steel-clad bulk of the Mountain, the lord and his horse perishing before a single blow from the giant. There were lions on every side, and he had thought himself doomed. Then, brave Alyn shouted commands and restored what order he could, and all those still ahorse rallied around himself and they cut their way free. Six score they had been that morning, and by nightfall, no more than two score were left.
Alyn died from the sword he took to the chest, and Lord Beric was gravely wounded. He drew a foot of lance from the Lightning Lord’s chest that night, and poured boiling wine into the hole it left. And when his poor town chest had stopped moving, he gave him the red kiss to send him on his way. And on that bloody grass in the grove of ash, with a hole in his chest, Beric Dondarrion was born again.
The second had been when he saw Ser Burton Crakehall smash his mace against the side of Beric’s head. The boar’s men had chased them fierce, like hounds nipping at shadows. And the boar found them. Thoros had thought them doomed. He remembered that fierce ride through the dark forest, and how the arrows came soaring through the wild air. One more had found its way through Crakehall’s open mouth. And another through a spearman, and a third through Crakehall’s young squire. From the woods came a grim-faced hunter, peeling himself from the shadows.
The man fought like a vengeful wraith. A dark steel helm obscured much of his face, Thoros remembered the sight, leaving only piercing black eyes that were cold, merciless and hateful. The rest of his armour was a padded vest with chainmail, steel shoulderplates and boots and greaves and spiked gloves. He fought with bow and arrow, and axe and knife. He saw him seize a spear from the ground and run a man through with it, before stealing the knight’s sword and slaying another. Thoros had lit his sword aflame then, and together, they rallied victory from the boar’s maw.
After, Thoros prayed to the fires again and with a red kiss, Beric Dondarrion came to life once more.
“We take six men with bows and fire at them from one side,” Folke pressed on, carving lines along the soil. “These men are hungry and angry. They will rise and charge at the sight of a weaker foe. We have seven horses. Seven riders, we put far behind their camp. The archers will lead them away on a meaningless chase, and the horsemen can take them from behind.” His voice was cold.
The man was an enigma at times. He fought and talked like a veteran, but seemed only a decade older than the lighting lord, who could not have been more than two-and-twenty. He must have fought in Robert’s War, Thoros mused to himself, and the kraken’s uprising, and maybe in the east. His accent was strange too, not quite a Riverlander’s, and certainly not from the east. Thoros never made to ask. Every man has his secrets, and the tales they preferred to keep silent.
“A good plan,” Beric agreed. “Will you lead the bowmen?’
Folke nodded stiffly. It was settled then. Tom, Dennett, Likely Luke, Notch, and Meg would join him while the others would ride.
“If you perish again,” Thoros said to the scarecrow knight, “you might have to pay me to bring you back.”
The smile on Beric’s face was pale. “You might have to pay me to bring me back.”
Eiser spared them a silent nod, as he led the bowmen on a jog away from their camp. Thoros tended to his steed in silence. It was a brave beast, having ridden with him since King’s Landing and through the Mummer’s Ford. Stay with me through this one, he thought, and I just may give you a name.
“I look into the flames sometimes,” he told Beric. “I have glimpsed his face.”
“I would have thought his helm,” the lord of Blackhaven told him.
Thoros chuckled. “I see five shadows, and one peeling away. That shadow came to a land of rivers, and grew to haunt men with smoke in its hand. And those other four? I thought I recognised one of them. It was a bear .”
“A bear?”
“A crowned bear,” said Thoros.
Beric’s eyes were on him. “The one you lost to at the melee.”
“The same man,” he winced. “Never before had a man charged at me while I bore a burning blade.” That was not something he hoped to see again.
“And the other three?”
“It is hard to tell,” he admitted. “Flames do not make good faces.”
“Keep trying,” Beric encouraged. “Tell me if you see more.”
And then it was silence, broken by quiet muttering on their ride east. They crested a low hill, and he squinted at the camp on the other end of the field. From where they watched, Thoros could faintly make out tents and campfire smoke. Further east was a dark copse of wood, and there he knew Eiser would come from.
An hour later, he could see the faint commotion; of men strapping on their armor and rushing out of their tents with swords and spears while arrows fell on them.
“Ready,” Beric ordered. In lieu of lances, each of them bore a spear.
They started slow, a simple trot along the soil. “I always thought cavalry charges were supposed to be glorious,” Thoros laughed.
“Why,” Beric chuckled with him, “there is glory plenty in this.”
Then, it grew into a canter, and the sound of hooves grew into a low, rolling thunder, steady and measured like the drumbeat of an oncoming storm. They could see the fallen men now, littered across the field in ones and twos, with arrows in their eyes or mouth or throat. They glimpsed the camp as they thundered past, with wounded and feverish men abandoned on their bedrolls. “Ready!” Beric roared.
They galloped in a tight wedge, clad in dust and steel and duty, Beric Dondarrion at the tip. Seven riders, seven spears. Ahead, the Myatt men wavered, turning to spy the wedge of horseflesh and steel charging at them. Then, arrows fell on them again, as the archers they had been pursuing turned to loose steel-tipped kisses on them. Caught between arrows and spear, the men of the spotted cat were frozen in fright.
And all seven spears struck true.
Thoros grimaced and grinned as his spear punched through the throat of the unlucky man. His horse trampled over him, and Thoros drew his blade. It sang through the air, and gave a second man a beautiful red smile. By the time he slashed through a third man’s swordarm, the battle was over. As quickly as it started.
They lost not a single man, nor did they take even a single glancing wound.
Only the armless man was left, clutching at his bleeding stump. He would not live to see the sun set, Thoros thought.
And Folke seemed to agree, raising his axe grimly.
Beric gave him a grim nod, and the axe fell.
“Thoros, Harwin, with me,” the twice-risen knight said, pointing at the camp they had ridden past. “Eiser, Tom, lead the men in stripping them of their arms and armor.”
Folke gave them a stern nod, while Tom ‘o Seven only grinned.
A quick canter brought them to the camp, and a more pitiful sight Thoros had never seen. There were eight men bleeding and sweating on bedrolls, pale and dying. Half of them were not even conscious, and one seemed dead. Only one man seemed to take note of them as they dismounted and approached, his eyes following them.
“Hail friends,” Thoros greeted.
“Fuck off,” the dying man tried to spit. Harwin sighed, and drew his steel but Beric raised a hand.
“No need for this discourtesy,” he said softly. “You may get to go easily yet.”
“I don’t have anything to tell you, corpse knight,” the man said. “I know’s nothing.”
“Where is your lord?” Beric asked politely.
The dying man nodded at the pale, unmoving body three bedrolls away. “Wolves got him,” he hacked a bloody cough.
“Which kind?” Harwin glanced at the camp.
“What?” The man-at-arms looked bewildered in his pain. Thoros almost laughed. “Wolves, they came at us while we were foraging in the woods. Scores of them. Silent as shadows. A dozen men are still in the woods. What’s left of them.”
“Why are you here?” Thoros mused. “So far from the frontlines.”
“Damned if I know,” came the bloody cough. “I wager… that old Tywin just forgot about us.” His eyes were closing now. Talking was enough to slay him, it seemed. Would that we can do that for all of them.
“What is your name?” Beric asked.
“Lambert,” the man said weakly. “I… I worked a farm not too far from Cornfield.”
“Lambert,” Beric nodded, drawing his steel. “I offer you a swift death.”
“I.. I accept it.”
“Then go in peace, Lambert of the Westerlands.”
The man gurgled his last as Beric Dondarrion drove his longsword through his heart.
Thoros sighed, reaching for a bottle of wine that was half-empty. Something told him that it was used to clean bloody wounds. He took a swig from him nonetheless. Behind him, Harwin and Beric ended seven more lives. Seven more this day, Thoros wondered, and how many thousands more will follow?
When the others came, they ransacked the camp like wolves. They added the one horse that the Myatt men had to their seven. “Mayhaps that is a sign,” Tom said playfully. “Adding the Lannisters’ horse swelled seven, a holy number, to eight.”
“Mayhaps we should leave it behind then,” Beric told him, smiling. “And you with it.”
Coin they found little of, and food scarcely more. Good steel they stole; arrows and spears and shields, mail shirts, steel helms and boots. They left the camp burning.
A day later, they spied a red glow against the evening sky.
Thoros climbed a rise to get a better look. “Fire,” he announced to the dozen behind him. “We ride,” Beric said grimly. All followed in silence.
As the world darkened, the fire seemed to grow brighter and brighter, until it looked as though the whole north was ablaze. The wind held steady, keeping the smoke away from them. And when they rode close, they could see a dozen horsemen laughing and hollering, riding down farmhands and women across a field.
“Ride!” Beric roared. And ride they did.
Eight horses they had, and eight rode on ahead, leaving five to jog behind.
Beric led from the front, as he always did. From his black steed, Folke loosed an arrow and Thoros tracked it with his eyes. He whistled when it pierced through the throat of a rider in red, as he raised his axe. The man dropped the axe, clutching at his throat, and the steed thundered past the fleeing one-handed woman.
It was a scene from the hells, Thoros thought grimly. The fields were watered with blood and aflame. The houses sagged and screamed under the weight of red fire. Butchered animals dotted the ground, amidst hordes of running, crying smallfolk.
Deeper within, smoke drifted from inside the holdfast. Its timber palisade looked strong from afar, but had not proved strong enough. Too many, Thoros despaired. There must have been at least half a hundred of them. He could see dozens of them not even bothering with the slaughter. Knights dragged screaming, weeping women from their burning houses, tearing their clothes with blood-stained hands. Men-at-arms tossed children into the fire and forced old folk onto stakes. All around, the air was thick with smoke, blood, and death.
We have no chance, thought Thoros, raising his blade. It caught the evening sun, and the light grew into a red fire. He almost cursed in shock. No chance, he thought grimly, slashing his burning blade through the smoke-filled air, and no choice.
“Winterfell!” Harwin roared, plunging his steel through a man’s throat while his steed smashed its hooves against a second. The woman on the ground watched with tears that seemed to glisten in the firelight. He is a good rider, Thoros thought numbly, bringing his blade to clash against a spear.
“Blackhaven!” came Beric’s roar from further ahead. Too far ahead, Thoros thought with urgency, trying to steer his horse towards the knight. Too far, too fast. The spear came at him again and he deflected it. The arc of fire soared through the burning air, and kissed his foe across his throat, leaving a line that burnt and wept with red.
Folke was ahorse, bow in hand. He could hear the arrows ringing through the air, amidst the cries and the shouting. One, two, three. Not enough.
The men on foot had joined them as well; five brave fools in mail with swords and spears. But the foe was stirring as well. Men turned away from their butchery, and their raping, and their looting, to draw steel and face them.
Somewhere ahead, he thought he saw Beric falling from his mare, swords rising and falling with a red rain. Then, Tom was brought low. His horse collapsed, with a spear in its eye. A snarling knight marched forward, a battleaxe in hand.
“No,” Thoros growled, but two men rushed for him.
The night was thick with damp and shadow, it was dark and full of terrors. The air was heavy with the stink of sweat and steel, and amidst the firelight dancing from the sword, and the war cries of men carrying to the heavens, he heard the world shatter.
It sounded like the crack of thunder, but the only storm he saw was the one of swords and fire around him. The breath of the gods must have recoiled. Amidst the din of clashing steel, crackling fire, and crying men, he heard a death cry, a sharp, swift call. It was there and gone, the sound devoured in an instant, leaving only a crack of sound so sharp it seemed to split the world itself.
Thoros felt it in his bones, in the hollow space between heartbeats.
The fire on his blade had flickered when the roar came, and he thought that the Lord had spoken. The knight fell, his battleaxe falling from his fingers, a hole rend open in the center of his plate, and a red wound blooming where he had been kissed by death. Thoros found himself whispering a prayer. The fire had come from Folke, standing as still as a corpse. In his hand was a smoking stick, of wood and steel, and curved near the end. Smoke had belched from its iron maw, and it spewed death for the knight. Fire, Thoros breathed. The knight was slain with an invisible fire, a fire that did not belong to the Lord of Light. Smoke in his hand…
The burning village was silent, bar the crackling of the flames.
Then came the howling of hungry wolves.
The sound of howling must have haunted these men for days. Weeks perhaps, Thoros thought, watching the pale fear in their eyes. Men, who had been ready to butcher and burn, dropped their steel. Half of them turned to run, the other half were frozen, like statues amidst a field of fire. Thoros raised his burning blade.
“Kill them!” He roared, and the men around him followed.
They were not alone. Furred shadows came leaping through the smoke and burning houses, snarling demons of fang and flesh. There was a ring of them, circling the burning hell. Thoros did not mind them. Howling and biting, the wolves came charging; great beasts of grey and black that ignored him and his.
Thoros quenched his flaming sword in the heart of a dying knight and watched. He watched as Harwin threw a spear through the knee of a fleeing man, and two wolves leapt to savage the man’s throat. He watched as Tom limped towards a wounded man-at-arms on the ground, bringing his woodcutter’s axe down. He watched as the largest of the wolves, with grey fur and gold eyes, pounced on a fleeing squire, making his head its new meal. As it ate, its eyes met his. Thoros tried to smile.
He found Beric on the ashen ground, with four dead knights around him. His glassy eyes peered at the smoke sky with a sorrow that only a corpse possessed.
“The Lord was with us today,” the red priest told the dead man. “He has woken in my heart. Many old powers long asleep are waking, my friend. I saw the smoke in his hand. There are things moving in this land, and beyond. I saw them, Beric. I saw them, in the fires of the burning houses. In each flame, I saw them.”
Thoros knelt solemnly and spoke the words once more, and when he gave the red kiss, Beric Dondarrion rose for the third time.
Notes:
Thoros is a really cool character, and here's your answer for what Folke has been up to!
These bonus chapters are actually really fun to write, though it does take some time to get into the head of 'new' characters.
Chapter 63: Gunther II
Notes:
What do you get when you set a rogue loose in a city?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“It’s not poisonous,” he told her.
“I know,” Arya said, her eyes wide and unblinking and upon the letter in her hands.
“Read it already,” Len said, impatiently.
“Why do you care?” Arya scowled, tearing her eyes away from the rolled parchment.
“You’ve been holding the letter for minutes,” Len squinted at her. “No gold is going to come from it, you know. Just read it already.”
Gunther reached for a waterskin. “He has a point.”
“Read it out,” urged a curious Len.
Reluctantly, Arya unfurled the letter. “To my sister,” she read. “I am told you have occupied your time well. I am harkened? I am heartened to hear of your safety. Jeyne is with me. I have seen the letter that King Stannis has sent to the realm. Father is with him, if you did not already know. Robb is winning in the Riverlands. I miss you. I miss mother. I miss Winterfell.”
And if that Lord Stark is with this king, Gunther thought, Andrei is there too.
Arya sat numbly, reading the letter a second time. “You did it.”
“I did,” he said casually. “It was not too hard.”
“How?”
“I met the Spider to hand him the paperwork for that brothel near Riverrow,” he reminded her. “He told me that Lord Tyrion might want to see me. Funny, Lord Varys seems to have a fondness for thieves. I walked through the gates. The only man, the Master of Coin, who could have recognised me is dead.”
“How?” Arya repeated. “How would he have recognised you?”
“Oh,” Gunther remembered. “I never told you. I stole from him, or a warehouse of his. I found him, and he thought I were a cutthroat. I took his gold and left him there. Anyways, Lord Varys brought me to speak with Lord Tyrion.”
“What did the Imp want with you?” Len interrupted curiously.
“Why would you hire a thief?” Gunther raised an eyebrow, drinking. “I stole a vial of wolfsbane and a raven’s feather from the Grand Maester’s chambers. Of course, I took something for myself,” he reached into his pouch, drawing three vials of thin glass. One bore a vicious black concoction, the second was white, and the other was red like blood. “Blindeye, sweetsleep, and demon’s dance. Might come in useful.”
“And Sansa?” Arya pressed.
“When I left the chamber, your sister was there,” he told her. “She thought me the old maester’s new assistant.” He chuckled at that. “After that, I returned to Lord Tyrion. He was most pleased and gave me a task. From there, it was an easy task to find your sister’s chamber. There was another lass in her room, sleeping in the bed. This Jeyne, I suppose. I left your letter there, and I hid in the godswood. She came at midnight and we spoke. Right, remember the servant girl you chased?”
Arya nodded, blinking.
“Apparently, she spoke to your sister. Told her and her only that you are alive and in the city.”
Arya’s mouth was agape. “Why would she do that?”
“Must not love the Lannisters,” he shrugged. “Your sister asked if I could free her, the same words you used. I told her the truth.”
She looked forlorn at that. “But…”
“Do you want me to throw her over the wall, and cushion her fall with my body?” Gunther shook his head. “The Godswood is not so guarded but the walls and the gates are. There may be other paths but I do not know them yet. If Andrei were here, he might set the Keep aflame and cut his way out, but I am not him. I told your sister. She agreed with me. Your sister is the more reasonable, I think. She told me that she will spend more time in the godswood. If you want to write her a second letter, go ahead. Once I do what the Spider and the Imp want, I will return to the Red Keep. No promises, though.”
“What do they want?” Len chewed on cold bread. He was growing taller, Gunther noted. His skin was not so pale. It was a wonder what proper food and the constant running about the city could do.
“Different things,” Gunther said, shrugging. “The Spider heard about some street gang forming in Brown Alley. He wants to know if they might be useful. If not,” he nodded at the letters on the table. “Words of treason. I will have to plant them in their hideout and let the gold cloaks handle it.”
Something about working with the hideously corrupt and incompetent City Watch rankled at him. Oh, bribing watchmen was not new. The Schatzenheimer Family did it plenty. Since when do thieves sell out other criminals to the man in charge?
“Then, Lord Tyrion wants me to do something similar. A merchant, with a manse near the Hook. There are whispers of him making japes about the king, they say. Treason is a step away from that, or so they tell me. More like no one will complain if he disappears and the crown takes his gold. For the poor bugger, he doesn’t even get the choice. The second letter’s meant for him. Falsely written, of course, and expertly forged. Something about him sending coin to Stannis’ cause or opening the gates. They want me to leave it in his solar.”
“You’re working for them now,” Arya said, her eyes narrowing.
“And it is this work that puts that letter in your hand,” he pointed out, prickled. “Do you think I love them?”
She looked away. He rubbed his face tiredly, sighing. “Think about it, Arya. Now, I can walk in and out of that keep with nary a raised eyebrow. Now, I can speak to your sister for you. Now, I can listen in on the conversation of the court. Lannister gold is paying for that.” He laughed.
Arya’s lips twitched slightly, then a snort, and she laughed. He offered her a wry smile, glancing at the dragonsteel dagger on the table. He had left it behind before striding through the Red Keep. It did not seem wise to be seen with that knife considering what Andrei had told him. He mused over the risks of carrying it with him to meet the Brown Alley Bastards, as they had crudely named themselves.
On one hand, Gunther wondered, it’s a strong image. On another, they might see it as a threat or an insult.
Just the usual daggers, he decided, and the crossbow. And the flintlock hidden under his cloak, and the three throwing knives strapped to his chest, across the leather strap. He took the letters and shoved them into one of his many pouches.
“Stay in,” he told them, with a look of warning.
“Sure,” Len said, tossing a knife at the wall. He was getting better. Arya looked distracted, gazing at the inkpot and quill.
He left them there, stepping out into the now familiar stench of Flea Bottom. Brown Alley was not far away, a few blocks south from where the slums met the Street of Sisters. Word on the street was that a bastard by the name of Owen had gathered a vicious gang of brutes and urchins and bastards, forcing their way into a bakery and making off with bread and flour, melting away into the night after.
Half the bread was sold for cheap amongst the poor, and Owen was a name that had grown to be loved. Where the gold cloaks went, they found no such bastards, only hungry, hateful eyes that watched them through the streets.
“Resourceful,” Lord Varys had tittered. “I know not where they reside. I require a brave man to speak with them. See if they may be … willing to work.”
“To do what?” he had asked.
“Whatever necessary,” the Spider told him. “It may be that… masses of men may be needed. It may be that violent arms may be needed. Some nights, a deft hand is required. Some nights, a dagger in the dark, or a score of hefty cudgels. Of course, in the good king’s name. And if they prove disloyal to our graceful monarch, then our just men of the City Watch must be noticed and alerted, yes?”
He knew where the Brown Alley was, but not where the bastards sat exactly. He knew not who they were, who loved them and who hated them. Every gang, the clever ones at least, knew to find love amongst the streets; from the whores and the thieves, and the bridgekeeper and the gate guard, to the courier and the urchins. If not love, then less scorn than for those above, certainly.
He knew just the woman to ask.
There was a grimness to Chataya’s brothel, for his own eyes at least. No doubt, the whores still moaned, and screamed, and laughed, and simpered for the men who came with coin. But no gold could wash the blood of a child from the velvet floors, no silver could clean the tears of the mother. He clenched his teeth so hard he thought they would shatter. It was not Mhaegen that laid across the floor cold and unmoving with a red smile, it was Viola; poor, sweet Viola who moaned, and screamed, and laughed, and simpered, and cried quietly in another brothel, in another world.
Not now, he told himself. Not now.
He passed under the ornate lamp of gilded metal and scarlet glass, his shadow sprawling over the floor, stretching and contorting. He could smell the incense, rich and sweet and cloying. He could hear the moans, loud and sweet and false. Behind the ornate Myrish screen carved with flowers and maidens, he found Chataya by the leaded, colored glass window where golden sunlight spilled through.
He took a seat across her, accepting the golden goblet of red gratefully.
“The shadow comes,” Chataya said, her voice like a song.
“It will leave soon,” he told her, his eyes fixed upon a single spot.
“It does not have to,” she told him, smiling sadly. “My girls and I are most grateful for what you did. You can enjoy our courtesy, for free of course.”
He met her ebon stare. “What did I do?”
“You delivered,” she whispered, pouring the red from a familiar bottle. “You delivered this. You delivered steel and justice for women who could not wield either.”
“I delivered wine,” Gunther shook his head. “Nothing more.”
“As you say,” she relented, with a smoky look in her sharp eyes. “Allar Deem shall be missed. You did not come here to enjoy this red, or my girls.”
“No,” he told her, all business. “Brown Alley, what do you know of them?”
“Depends,” Chataya reclined, dignified and elegant as ever.
“On?”
“On who is asking,” she said, smoothly, her accent singing. “On who is asking the asker. On what he wants to do.”
Gunther frowned. He gestured at the colored window with the gold cup in his hand.
“That looks like a web to me,” he said.
“Ah,” Chataya nodded slowly. She pursed her lips, staring at him with those curious dark eyes, toying with the green feathers on her emerald gown. “Once a man stands on a web, he dances on strings, like those delightful puppets of Myr.”
“And women too?”
“Women always dance,” she told him, shaking her head. “They dance to songs and barks, to merry tunes and bitter commands. More bitter are those in this land.”
“This land,” Gunther said, relenting to his curiosity. “Not yours?”
“My people are of the isles of summer. We hold that there is no shame to be found in the pillow house. Those who are skilled at giving pleasure are greatly esteemed. Many highborn youths and maidens serve for a few years after their flowerings, to honor the gods. The most skilled and dedicated become priests and priestesses.”
He found himself listening, entranced. “These summer isles, they sound like paradise. Why did you leave?”
“Why would any man or woman leave home?” She asked instead. “Have you heard of Thoros of Myr?”
“What?”
“A red priest,” she continued smoothly. “A man of the faith of fire. A drunk in the old stag king’s court. They say he was sent to this city to convince the king before the stag, the mad dragon, but he failed. He failed again, for the stag was more inclined for red wine than red fire. I like to think that I have succeeded where Thoros of Myr failed. I have brought the faith of the isles of summer to the sunset kingdoms.”
“Whorehouses were here before you came,” he pointed out.
“They were,” she agreed. “And now when all men think of pillowhouses in King’s Landing, they think the name Chataya. And when I am old and grey and shivering in my silks, they will think Alayaya.”
“Tell me more of those isles,” Gunther asked, curious.
“There are more than fifty,” she said, smiling. “The three largest are Walano, Omboru, and Jhala. There are rainforests and towering mountains; spotted panthers and red wolves, monkeys and crocodiles. The most beautiful flowers in the world.”
“Flowers of flesh?”
“Pink flowers, and red, and purple, and blue, and yellow,” Chataya laughed. “Flowers aplenty, and peace too. We are not a people of war. If there must be, it happens on days and times chosen by the priests. Wars end in a day, on battlefields chosen and consecrated, and the loser leaves in exile. We do not shed blood wantonly and burn farm fields in the way that the Westerosi are fond of doing. There is much beauty in the world, I think, and it is a shame to veil it with only red. Parrot feathers are well-loved by all, did you know? A yellow one, you should wear, it would fit you well.”
“If I find one,” he told her, “then I shall remember your words. Do you … miss home?”
“Always.”
“Then, why…”
“Why stay in this city that smells of filth and feces?” She smiled sweetly at him. “Why does the knight wear plate and wield steel? Why does the singer strum his lute and sing? I come from Walano, young shadow, from the port of lotus. There and all across the isles, we favor a goddess of love, fertility, and beauty. Look around, beauty you see plenty. Fertility, once. Love, little. You must wonder, for I seem to make a poor pilgrim for my lady of love, and perhaps I do. I cannot explain to you, for I know not how to tell it to myself as well, but I do this because I wish to, because I see it as the knight’s sword and the singer’s lute, it is mine.”
“And you do it well,” Gunther bowed his head.
“I do,” Chataya’s voice flowed like liquid amber, like a sweet song. “Very well, I shall tell you what I know of these boys of the Brown Alley.”
“Just like that?”
“There is power in words,” she raised an eyebrow. “Most men who step under that gilded lamp come in with demands. Some with threats. Most throw their gold and spend the night grunting. I cannot remember the last time I was asked a question that was not ‘how much?’. And your questions have brought old, fond memories back to life, you see. I think I shall dream tonight of home.”
“As will I,” said Gunther, thinking of smoke and smog.
“This Owen,” she sighed. “I hear he is not much older than you are. A young man of some talent and wit, and will. Elusive as he may be, even he cannot be veiled from the spider, I understand. He feeds the poor cheaply. I find that fascinating. He does not give it to them freely, like a hero of tale. Nor does he hold the bread and price high, like the merchants who will be torn by the mob. A thief with a heart, I think, a brute with a mind. It does remind me of someone.”
“I pray the first,” he said drily.
She chuckled lightly at that. “There is a shopfront, not too far from the street they call Smoke Shanty.”
“Just across Brown Alley,” Gunther murmured. “Far enough to be safe, close enough to watch. Smart.”
“How many men there are, I cannot tell you. What are their weapons, and how quickly their hands shall leap to them, I cannot tell you. I know little of man’s blood, you see. This Owen, mayhaps your words might be gold wine to him, mayhaps they will be purple poison. I hope for your sake, he sips it slowly and finds it a delight.”
I hope so too. “Thank you.”
“No, young shadow,” Chataya rose. “We thank you. They thank you”
He could not smile at that, and so he bowed his head.
Brown Alley was not far, and he found it to be drowning with unfriendly faces. Lean faces gaunt with hunger and hate, hard eyes weathered and watching. He saw beggars and urchins sitting quietly along street corners and broken steps, dark eyes lingering on him. He saw men, young and old, with crude clubs and kitchen knives. This was a kingdom all in its own squalid right, with watchers and warriors.
He placed one hand on a dagger hilt, and kept his back straight as steel. When surrounded by wolves and vultures, only a fool acted like the doe.
He met their gaze with a sureness to his swagger, with a glint of black in his eyes. The other hand hovered over his loaded crossbow. A brute with a bald head and yellowed teeth eyed him from boot to hood and rose from the barrel he sat on.
“You here for work?”
“Offering,” he said lazily.
“Offering,” the man laughed. “Who from?”
Gunther gave him a tight, thin smile. “You Owen?”
“Aye, I may be,” came the bold-faced, ugly lie.
“I heard Owen’s young,” Gunther met his eyes. “You could be his father.”
The man parted his lips, revealing reddened teeth. “Asked around, have you?”
He did not bother replying, only staring at the brute.
“Come on in then,” sniffed the man. “Owen would want to hear this.”
He was led down the street and up faded stone stairs, and through an opened door of some shanty hovel that once was a shop. Inside, he saw at least a dozen surly young men in rags and filthy clothes but with strong arms and a club or a knife closeby. And they watched him. The man led him up a flock of creaking rustic stairs and knocked loudly on a wooden door. “Boss, someone’s here to meet you. Said they’re offering work!” He snorted a laugh at that.
There was silence from within. “Let him in!” came the shout.
The brute opened the door for him and as Gunther stepped through, a stench and a whisper came from his mouth. “Keep your hands to yourself. We’ll be watching.”
“Watch away,” Gunther told him.
Owen was a young man, no more than two years older than him, Gunther would wager gold on it. The Bastard of Brown Alley sat behind a fine table, toying with a wicked dagger. Dark, messy hair sat upon his head, and Owen watched him with flinty black eyes. His skin was kissed by the sun, and his arms were strong from hard labor. His mud-encrusted boots were placed irreverently on the table, and he wore a simple sweat-stained tunic, though he could spy spots of dried blood.
“You got work for me, you say?” Owen raised an eyebrow.
“I am just the messenger.”
“Then who gave you the message?”
“You do not need to know the name, now,” Gunther said, coolly. “ They want to know if you are open to work. Easy as.”
“What sort of work?” Owen ran a finger along the cold blade.
“Honest work, for honest men,” Gunther shrugged. “Strong men, with clubs.”
“Bastards,” Owen reminded. “We are bastards all.”
“They may be for the better.”
“Ha!” The bastard laughed. “What is your employer paying?”
“Whatever you may want,” Gunther tilted his head. “Gold, food, whatever.”
“A lord, then,” Owen narrowed his eyes. “And if I refuse?”
“I am just the messenger,” Gunther reminded him, eying the open window behind the bastard. One second to shoot him through the throat, one to cross the distance, one to leap over the table, and one to leap out, if necessary.
The Bastard of Brown Alley planted his dagger on the table. From the many stab wounds that the exquisite wood bore, that was not the first. “If I accept?”
Gunther shrugged. “Then a message will come to you, one way or another.”
He snorted, slowly removing his dirty feet from the table. The bastard rose, and he stood near a head taller than Gunther. Owen moved to stand across him, and their eyes met darkly. The air was silent and tense and still, like the world had gone away around them. And then Owen extended a strong, sinewy hand. He took it, with his gloved right, and they shook firmly, glaring at each other.
“Why do they call you a bastard?” He asked curiously when he stepped back.
“Why do you think?” came the blithe reply.
Bastards were given a name in accordance to where they were born, Gunther knew. Snow and Hill and Stone, Sand and Flowers and Storm. Yet, this bastard bore no such name, not Waters nor Rivers. “So, they just call you Owen?”
“Now, they do.”
Gunther relented. “They say you feed the poor cheaply.”
“Aye, I do. What of it?”
“Why’s that?”
“Why not?” Owen shrugged, lounging back in his seat. “My boys and I relieve some of the fat bakers and merchants of their wares. ‘Tis only fair. We sell them cheaply to the poor. It makes them like us, and we earn a cut. Plenty of sense in that.”
“Until the watch comes,” Gunther raised a brow.
“Oh, they come,” the bastard laughed. “And all they find are beggars and whores and poor folk chewing on bread quietly. What can they do? Rip the bread from their hands, crusted with dirt and mud as it is, and return it to the bakers? If they do, they will be torn apart by the mob faster than a loaf of hot bread, I tell you.”
“The bakers, the merchants,” Gunther wondered. “You’re not worried that they will run to the lords?”
“I hear there’s a war coming,” Owen drew his dagger from the table. “Three kings. So many armies. I think the lords and ladies are more worried about that.”
When Tamurkhan came for Nuln, the street gangs all pulled their men and businesses underground. With the Witch Hunters prowling the street for even a sliver of corruption, and wizards and knights about, there was no sense in continuing their operations. The Families made a fortune nonetheless, quietly selling bread and wine at high prices. Some things never change. People die and vultures come.
“Smart,” Gunther offered, turning.
“What’s your name?” Owen asked curiously.
“Gaven,” he told him, with nary a glance back.
As he stepped down the creaking stairs, the brute from before watched him with a leering smile. “Good business, then?” He called out.
“Better than blood,” Gunther muttered, walking past him.
He was glad to be out of the squalid den of sweat. He wondered if those men knew what water was. Most likely not, he sniffed.
Sunset found him embraced by the shadows beneath the hill of the sept. As the sun fell, he chewed on the hot pie he bought, and watched the small manse with pitying eyes. It sat by the bend of the Hook, where it met the Muddy Way. The walls were so low that a child could leap across, and he spied cracks along its surface. One bored guard stood leaning against his spear. The man looked near asleep on his feet, only stepping to attention to open the rusted iron gates for the merchant and his family.
The man was a balding, affable fellow with tired eyes and a brown beard, in a simple doublet of black. A plump woman in a grey ghostly gown had her arms locked with him, smiling, and two children chatted loudly. A boy and a girl, each no older than six, and each wore cheery, innocent smiles. Harlan, Gunther recalled the name of the merchant, watched his children fondly as they rushed ahead into their house.
The Imp’s letter would condemn the man to death.
He knew what he had to do. It was simple, a task he had done aplenty back in Nuln. Often, the Schatzenheimers tasked him to steal. Some nights, he stole priceless heirlooms; golden necklaces, jewelled rings, porcelain plates, silver bands. Some nights, he stole letters and journals, worth their weight in gold. Some nights, instead of stealing, he gifted solars and chambers with incriminating letters. This was no different. It should not be different, he told himself, but the memory came regardless.
He still remembered the day his father limped through the door with horrifying stumps weeping with blood where once sat strong, firm hands. The light had gone out of his eyes that day, and from their lives; darkened under the heavy smoke of the city, shadowed by the lies of theft. Some dark nights, he wanted to laugh at the bitter irony of it all. From the false accusation of his father’s theft grew a thief, sprouting like a rose from concrete, drowning in the smog but defiant. A cruel joke.
He sighed, drawing his mask and hood.
The moon was his sole witness as he scaled the wall, and snuck past the snoring guard, and stepped in through the unlocked door. Were he a cutthroat, each and every soul in here would have already been smiling a red smile. The stairs did not creak as he climbed them, and he pressed himself against a shadowy corner at the sound of giggling. He could hear a man’s voice, regaling a grand tale.
It was a tale of some fool falling in love with a maiden. And when the tale ended, he heard the snoring of children. There was the rustling of bedsheets, and footsteps on the floorboards. Harlan left the room, closing it behind him. Then, he froze.
Gunther watched him with pitying grey eyes, the crossbow held casually in his left hand. He pressed a black finger to his lips, and the man nodded, shivering. Slowly, he moved the finger to the stairs, and the man obeyed, marching stiffly. Gunther kept the merchant in front of him, and the two sat across from each other.
“How is your wife?” Gunther asked after him, his voice muffled behind the cloth.
“Asleep,” Harlan said stiffly. “My children…”
“Calm yourself,” he told the man, placing the crossbow on the table. “I’m not here to kill you.” He reached for the letter in his pouch and tossed it at the merchant.
“Read it,” he told him tiredly.
With trembling hands, Harlan unfurled the yellowed parchment. As he read, his eyes widened. “This is… I never wrote this!”
“Be quiet,” Gunther said softly. “Your wife and children do not need to know.”
Things might get messy if they do, were the real words and Harlan understood.
“I am being framed,” the innocent merchant realised. “By who?”
“You were heard, at the First Moon Inn,” Gunther told him. “A bad joke.”
“It was only a jest,” Harlan protested lightly.
“Words kill,” whispered Gunther, shaking his head. “That letter. I was meant to leave it behind, and you were never meant to see me. Come dawn, men of the watch will storm your house. They will discover your treason, your plan to bribe the gate guards to open the gates for Stannis. You will be disappeared, your manse and gold will belong to the crown, who knows what will happen to your family.”
The merchant was pale and trembling, from fear and anger. “Joffrey the Illborn,” he spat bitterly. “The Lannisters …”
“I was meant to leave this letter here,” Gunther interrupted him, tapping his fingers on the table. “That is my role in this miserable affair. Nothing more.”
“Oh,” the man realised.
“If you are still here by dawn,” Gunther said, sighing, “you will die.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Why?” He wondered. “Who knows?”
Harlan swallowed thickly. “My wife and children…”
“Take them with you,” Gunther rapped his fingers on the table. “You all are not here of course. When I came to leave the letter, I found the manse already abandoned.”
“Of course,” Harlan nodded quickly. “Of course.”
“The gates are closed,” he warned him.
“I know,” Harlan said. “I have friends. People who can take us in.”
“That guard, is he reliable?”
“A sellsword,” Harlan said, hesitantly. “The previous one was a loyal friend, but he died from a sickness.”
“The man is likely to sell you out,” Gunther told him. “Cut his throat.”
“Ah, I-I…”
“Do it or don’t,” he sighed, “it’s no business of mine. Remember that the gold cloaks come at dawn. If it is clear that you have fled with aid, you will be hunted fiercely. If there is a bloody struggle, then they may think you were already slain by some wicked killer or a rival of yours. Again, do as you want.”
“He is a warrior,” Harlan said, troubled.
“He is asleep,” Gunther pointed out. The merchant closed his eyes. “Now, I will leave this letter on your table. You do what you will. Which way is your room?”
“Down the hall, first on the right,” he said, defeated.
And when Gunther came down the stairs again, relieved of the letter that now rested mockingly on Harlan’s table, he saw the merchant with a bloodied knife.
He bloodied his hands to protect his family, Gunther thought. His own had lost his hands, and lived life as a broken, drunk husk, drinking pitifully from cheap beer bought on a washerwoman’s wage, as well as he could with stumps for arms.
“Good man,” Gunther told him. “If luck is on your side, we will never meet again.”
“My friends,” Harlan said slowly. “We are… disgruntled by certain actions of the crown. I must confess… That jest was not the only treasonous thought I have had as of late, nor am I the only one to think as such.”
“Don’t bring me into this,” Gunther complained.
“Pardon me, friend,” the merchant bowed his head. “But…”
I have already tied myself to this, he knew.
“The smiths are poorer as of late, losing coin,” Harlan said. “The Imp has stolen them from their work, and demanded they make a great chain for him. Unpaid of course, in the defence of the city from Stannis.” He spat. “Let Stannis take them, I say. The Imp, the Queen, the Illborn King, Tywin Lannister, all of them.”
“Get to the point,” Gunther frowned.
“The smiths are unhappy, as are the bakers, and the wine merchants, and the silk sellers, and the cheesemongers, and plenty more. We have been… talking.”
“The letter is not so much a lie, then,” he said drily.
Harlan gave him a strained smile. “Just words on the wind, friend. Harmless talk. So harmless that mayhaps you can join in? If you would like, go to the Street of Steel and speak to a man whose belly is iron. He will ask a question and when he does, you must respond so...” The merchant leaned in to whisper in his ear.
Gunther snorted at the words. He did not bother to respond, turning to leave instead. The quiet corpse of the guard slumped against the table, blood pooling on the ground as scarlet droplets dripped, and dripped, and dripped.
“Thank you!” Harlan shouted.
Gunther raised a hand casually, and vanished into the black of night.
He crept through the blackened streets and alleyways, stalking through the maze of winding paths that he had grown uncomfortably familiar with. The brats were asleep by now, he knew, and so he scaled the side of the wall, climbing along the holes they had stabbed into its surface, and entering through the hole in the rooftop. It was past the hour of the wolf when he found his bedroll, and he collapsed into it.
And when he woke, he saw two curious faces watching him.
Arya hovered over him, hugging the ginger cat. She scrunched her face. “You smell horrible. What time did you come back?”
“Late,” he croaked dryly. Len handed him a cup of water. He drank it greedily.
“How did it go?” Arya asked carefully.
Gunther glanced out the window. It was several hours past dawn. “If he’s smart, he’s hiding somewhere by now, with his family.”
Arya’s face split with a wide grin. There was approval in her eyes. He did not know why it gave him a warm feeling inside. Len looked curious.
“What about the bastard?”
Gunther shrugged. “A bastard, for sure, but there are worse men.”
He broke his fast quietly, but ravenously. A pot of fish stew sat over the small fire they dared to light inside, and he tore a chunk of bread to dip. “Who made this?”
“We did,” they shrugged. Len poked at Emmanuelle’s belly, and she meowed.
“Maybe you should be cooks rather than thieves,” he said.
He spent the last of the morning drilling them on the fundamentals of knife throwing, and tasked them to make another pot of fish stew by the time he came back at sunset. When he found himself at the Street of Steel again, he told himself that he simply needed a few more steel bolts. As he followed the winding path up the long hill, he passed blacksmiths toiling and sweating at open forges, fire and heat soaring through the air that shimmered. It felt like Nuln, with its many foundries and factories.
He passed freeriders and knights haggling over shirts of mail and swords and lances, and grizzled ironmongers boasting their wares of metal like it were silk. When he saw a silent, stout man, with arms as thick as a bull’s neck, Gunther stepped forth. The smith was squat and broad, plainly dressed in wool and leather.
“You making crossbow bolts?” Gunther asked.
“Aye, I do.”
Then, he asked the second question. “You Ironbelly?”
“Aye, I am. Who’s asking.”
“Harlan’s friend.”
“Ah,” Ironbelly peered at him with hard eyes. “I heard about that. Sudden travel.”
“Sudden,” Gunther agreed.
“I heard from him that a man told him to travel.”
“It was a good time,” Gunther nodded.
“Why?”
“We all have families,” he shrugged.
“We do,” Ironbelly grunted. “And a man feeds his family.”
“Can’t feed them, if you’re not making gold, right?”
Ironbelly growled, glaring at the great steel link before him. It was massive, and once connected with a thousand others, it would be a chain that could block a giant’s path.
“I hear you work with dwarfs,” the smith narrowed his eyes.
“And from that work, I knew what time it was best to travel,” Gunther pointed out.
The smith sniffed, shrugged, and nodded. “This bloody chain,” he spat. “We were promised pig iron for it. Aye, we got some, but most of it came from us. Iron we melt to make this. And not a single gold we get for it. I cannot feed my family with iron.”
“And this tax…” Gunther said slowly. The Queen had imposed a tax upon the merchants and traders, the bakers and the smiths.
“Bleeding our iron and gold,” Ironbelly spat upon the chain.
“I can see why people are … unhappy.”
“Unhappy people there are plenty,” the smith grunted. “Unhappy bakers and smiths. Unhappy sailors and winesellers. Unhappy tailors and dyers. The large man leaned in to whisper to him. “What manner of man are you?”
Gunther was silent, remembering Harlan’s words to him. He sighed once more, remembering Arya’s eyes and Andrei, now on Dragonstone. “Antler Men.”
Notes:
Unironically, this is one of my favorite chapters so far. Very proud of it, hope you all enjoy!
Gunther is a great character to explore the 'street' level characters and scenarios, and writing him in King's Landing has been a blast. Varys and Tyrion in the background with their 'big' politics contrasted with the 'on the ground' aspect of Chataya (who I quite like), Owen (an OC), and Ironbelly (canon but minor) was fun to explore.
Cool fact, just had a DND session today with the party where they had to deal with a doppelganger loose in Altdorf, fun times.
Chapter 64: Asha I: The Kraken's Daughter
Summary:
A new player enters the game ...
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The Horn of the Sea cleaved through the waters like a sharp spear.
Around them were near forty longships, part of the full muster of Great Wyk. Each beast of the sea was long, narrow and light, designed for speed and swift raids. Double-ended, the bow and stern allowed the ship to reverse where needed, gliding along the edges of icebergs and ice sheets where needed. She would know, the Black Wind was one such beauty of wood and iron and black sail.
The shore was all sharp rocks and glowering cliffs, and the castle seemed one with the rest, its towers and walls and bridges quarried from the same grey-black stone, wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen, speckled by the droppings of the same seabirds. The point of land on which the Greyjoys had raised their fortress had once thrust like a sword into the bowels of the ocean, but the waves had hammered at it day and night until the land shattered, thousands of years past. All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god’s temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them.
Drear, dark, forbidding, Pyke stood atop those islands and pillars, as grim and cold as them, its curtain wall closing off the headland around the foot of the great stone bridge that leapt from the cliff-top to the largest islet, dominated by the massive bulk of the Great Keep. Farther out were the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep, each on its own island. Towers and outbuildings clung to the stacks beyond, linked to each other by covered archways when the pillars stood close, by long swaying walks of wood and rope when they did not. She wondered why they still had those.
The Sea Tower rose from the outmost island at the point of the broken sword, the oldest part of the castle, round and tall, the sheer-sided pillar on which it stood half-eaten through by the endless battering of the waves. The base was white from centuries of salt spray, the upper stories green from the lichen that crawled over it like a thick blanket, the jagged crown black with soot from its nightly watchfire.
In the sky behind the castle, the fine golden tails of the comet were visible through thin, scuttling clouds. Not for the first time, she found her gaze upon that glimmering sky wanderer. It sails through the heavens like a ship of the sky, Asha wondered.
“My maester tells me it is a sign,” Lord Gormond Goodbrother muttered by her side. He had requested the honor of her presence on his ship and she had allowed it. She found the man made for good conversation, and he was not hard on the eyes. Twelve daughters and three sons, Asha laughed to herself. “Though he would not tell me what it meant.”
“No man can agree on what it means,” Asha told him. “Every bastard with a sword seems to think it burns for his victory.”
“Do you think it burns for you?” Goodbrother asked, a wry smile on his lips.
“I am of the sea,” she chuckled. “What need do I have for fire?”
“Plenty,” the Lord of Hammerhorn said. “Fire cooks and fire cleans. Fire warms.”
Great Wyk was so large that some of its holdfasts were inland, Hammerhorn included. The mountains of the isle showered it with lead, tin and iron, and so the Lord Captains of Great Wyk were the richest, even more so than Pyke.
“Few flames burn on a longship out at sea,” she reminded him. The only flames that follow us are the burnings of ports, it would seem, in old, miserable tales.
No longer did they ride the wind with fire and sword. No longer did they write their names in fire and blood and song. Aegon the Dragon had destroyed the Old Way when he burned Black Harren, gave Harren’s kingdom back to the rivermen, and reduced the Iron Islands to an insignificant backwater of a much greater realm. Yet the old red tales were still told around driftwood fires and smoky hearths all across the islands, even behind the high stone halls of Pyke. Asha’s father numbered among his titles the style of Lord Reaper, and the Greyjoy words boasted that We Do Not Sow. She threw a glance around the longships, each cutting through the waves.
Nor does he intend to, she wondered. No one gathers these many ships to bring peace and bread to the realm.
It had been to bring back the Old Way more than for the empty vanity of a crown that Lord Balon had staged his great rebellion. Robert Baratheon had written a bloody end to that hope, with the help of his friend Eddard Stark, but the first was dead now and the second was said to fight for one of the three Baratheon kings. The realm that Aegon the Conqueror had forged was smashed and sundered. Three kings, Asha thought, where there was one just half a year ago. Soon, they will know four.
The Old Ways, Asha had long wondered on that whilst on the salty seas. What ways were that? Over the world, she had sailed; from Fair Isle to the Arbor, to the Stepstones and Tyrosh once. And everywhere she went, she saw wisdom and work. The men of the Westerlands mined their hills and crags, and from there, gold and silver flowed. The Reachmen tilled their farms and fields, and from there, bread and wine came. Men of Oldtown and Myr sat and put their mind to work, and from there, the world took strides forward. The men of the Iron Islands called that weakness.
She would call them fools.
Lordsport was aswarm with ships. A Tyroshi trading galley off-loading beside a lumbering Ibbenese cog with her black-tarred hull. A great number of longships, fifty or sixty at the least, stood out to sea or lay beached on the pebbled shore to the north. She saw the blood moon of Wynch, and the silver scythe of Harlaw. Her lips curved into a pleased smile at that. The Great Kraken was there as well, her bow ornamented with a grey iron ram in the shape of its vicious namesake.
Shorehands rolled casks of wine off the Tyroshi trader, fisherfolk cried the day’s catch, children ran and played, a slattern leaned out a window in the inn, calling out to some passing Ibbenese sailors. Pyke in all its glory.
“I shall drink with you at the feast, my lord,” she told Gormond Goodbrother.
“I shall await that,” he tilted his head at her.
She found Qarl slashing at a ripe peach while the men of the Black Wind made their way to shore. He leaned against a tall, wooden post, and smiled his sweet, sly smile for her when she came. His straight, sandy hair brushed against his shoulder, and when he bit into the pink fruit, juice spilled against his pink cheek.
“Get the men sorted,” she told him. “My father will feast tonight with all the captains.”
“And you by his side, at the high seat of honor?”
“Who else?” She smirked at him. When he strutted away, her gaze lingered and lowered slowly and with longing.
Goodbrother’s men brought her a stallion, black and bitter as night. A courser, if she remembered the name. It snorted angrily at her, but relented, bowing. The path she rode wound up and up, into bare and stony hills. Soon she was out of sight of the sea, though the smell of salt still hung sharp in the damp air. She kept a steady plodding pace, past a shepherd’s croft and the abandoned workings of a mine.
Of course it is abandoned, she scoffed to herself. No men of iron would mine, that was thrall’s work. Of course, that meant little iron to go around.
She busied herself with her thoughts on the ride to Pyke. War had come to the realm, with three kings clashing their great blades of fire and fury across the land. It did not take a wise man to tell what her father’s plan was. She thought the wisest path was to raid against the West, in truth. The North and the Riverlands fought for Stannis Baratheon, who had crushed the Iron Fleet a decade ago. The Reach and the Stormlands for Renly. The West stood alone for the boy king on the throne, and the Kingslayer was defeated by the wild warrior they called the Young Wolf. Not since the burning of Lannisport was Lannister power so weak and tenious.
Either Stannis or Renly was the choice to make. Both kings had fleets and armies. Renly wielded the larger army, and gold, and harvest, but he was an untested boy. Stern, dour Stannis only had the barren North and the fractious lands of the river but with Eddard Stark and his prodigal son, that seemed a dangerous enough army.
The West is weak, Asha thought. Tywin Lannister is surrounded. We side with either of the Baratheon kings, and take Lannisport. Once the West falls, we strike at the last of the three kings. That is the only path to victory. That is the only way the Ironborn can be king again and… Stannis will not suffer a Greyjoy King. It must be Renly, then. Yes, the ships of the Reach and Iron Islands.
Yet… what would her uncles counsel?
The Damphair would rave of the Drowned God, without a shadow of doubt, and preach of the Old Ways. Victarion would nod and obey whatever her father commanded. And she did not want to think of what the Crow’s Eye would say.
Kings and wars and ships weighed on her mind, and it seemed scarcely any time at all before the great curtain wall of Pyke loomed up before her. The gates were open.
She found her father in his solar, seated beside a burning brazier, beneath a robe of musty sealskins that covered foot to chin. At the sound of boots on stone, the Lord of the Iron Islands lifted his eyes to behold her. Balon Greyjoy had always been thin and cold, but now he looked as though the gods had put him in a cauldron and boiled every spare ounce of flesh from his bones, until nothing remained but hair and skin. Bone-thin and bone-hard he was, with a face that might have been chipped from flint. His eyes were flinty too, black and sharp, but the years and the salt winds had turned his hair the grey of a winter sea, flecked with whitecaps. Unbound, it hung past the small of the back. The Lord Reaper, her father.
“Father,” she greeted, as warmly as a seawind could be.
“Asha,” he grunted. “Great Wyk?”
“I came with Goodbrother’s ships. Farwynd and Merlyn are a few days behind.”
“No matter, they are the smallest of Great Wyk.”
“As you say,” she bowed her head. “Most of the lords are gathered then.”
“They are.”
“What for?”
“Do not act the fool, Asha,” Lord Balon shook his head. “The rest you shall know this night, when my brothers have come.”
“As you say,” she repeated. “What of my brother?”
“Which one,” the Lord Reaper of Pyke stared at her hardly.
“The living one.”
Balon’s face was as cold as the sea wind at night. “What of him?”
That told her all she needed to know. Damn you. She smiled instead. “Nothing. The Black Wind is ready to sail at your command, father.”
Balon Greyjoy gave her a grave nod. “The feast shall be held soon. Do not be late.”
“I never am,” she said.
The thralls brought her a basin of cool, tepid seawater. She did not mind it. It served to wash the dust and sweat of the long ride from her face and hair and hands. A bath followed, and she chose soft blue wool, the color of the sea. It was simply cut, the fabric clinging to the slender lines of her body. For the feast, she wore a dirk, though it would only sip grease and soup and stew this night.
Her father would feast hundreds of captains this night, and dozens of lords, great and petty alike. Thousands of men must have been mustered, each one bringing with them steel on their hoary ships. An army, Asha thought, a fleet.
Where will we sail to?
Already, men were dancing the finger dance and drinking dark ale when she entered the smoky hall, though the feast had not yet begun. Lord Balon occupied the Seastone Chair, carved in the shape of a great kraken from an immense block of oily black stone. Legend said that the First Men had found it standing on the shore of Old Wyk when they came to the Iron Islands. To the left of the high seat were the Damphair and Victarion Greyjoy, as grim and fierce as ever.
“Nuncles,” she greeted, tilting her head.
“Asha,” Victarion nodded. Aeron only tightened his lips.
She took her seat at her father’s right hand, in the place of honor. Where the heir sits, she thought. So he has given Theon up for dead.
The tales from the traders from Seagard brought along with their ale and cloth were that the young kraken had fought alongside the Young Wolf in the Battle of the Whispering Wood, then for Riverrun’s liberation. Though she knew her father found that foul, Asha could not help but to smile for her brother. She sipped at the ale, and promised to give a toast for her foolish, little brother now fighting in a war.
The lords and captains soon crowded in, all four hundred of them.
Dagmer Cleftjaw had not yet returned from Old Wyk with the Stonehouses and Drumms, but most were there—Harlaws from Harlaw, Blacktydes from Blacktyde, Goodbrothers from Great Wyk, Saltcliffes and Sunderlies from Saltcliffe, and Botleys and Wynches from the other side of Pyke. The thralls were pouring ale and serving meat, and there was music, fiddles and skins and drums. Three burly men were doing the finger dance, spinning short-hafted axes at each other.
The Reader was not present, though his captains were. She felt a frown grow. Of all her uncles, he was her favorite. Damphair is mad, Victarion is as thick as a stump, and Rodrik Harlaw prefers books to blood. A grave sin here.
The feast was a meager enough thing, a succession of fish stews, black bread, and spiceless goat. The tastiest thing she found to eat was an onion pie. Ale and wine continued to flow well after the last of the courses had been cleared away.
Fish, the thralls found. All else was traded for. For all the bluster of the Iron Price, she knew that most of the feast was paid by the gold. The onions in her pie, the ale she sipped at, the bread, the goat. Could they not have paid for some spices?
Lord Balon Greyjoy rose from the Seastone Chair. “Have done with your drink and come to my solar,” he commanded his companions on the dais. “We have plans to lay.” He left them with no other word, as warm as ever, flanked by two of his guards. His brothers followed in short order, silently. As ever.
She was in no rush to follow. Asha raised her drinking horn and beckoned for more ale. Her father had waited for blood and iron and vengeance for years, a few more minutes would do him no harm, she thought. When the smoke of the hall and the din of the men grew too much for her, Asha left.
Rain was falling by the time she reached the swaying bridge out to the Sea Tower, like the weeping of some god. The stormy sea was more dangerous, though she was careful to not underestimate it. She gripped the rope tightly as she made her way across. The solar was as damp and drafty as ever. Buried under his sealskin robes, her father sat before the brazier with his brothers on either side of him. Victarion was talking of tides and winds when she entered, but Lord Balon waved him silent.
“I have made my plans. It is time to speak of them.”
She took a seat quietly, watching the three men before her.
“Aeron will take twenty longships north to harry the Stony Shore, raiding the fishing villages and sinking what meager ships the North has. It may be that some of the northern lords will be drawn out from behind their stone walls.”
She grimaced at that. War with the North, and the Riverlands, and Stannis Baratheon. Eddard Stark was still alive, though the fat stag was not. What will they do with Theon? It seemed she was the only one who remembered him.
Her father did not sense her displeasure. If he did, he did not care.
“We have had a bird from Old Wyk. Dagmer is bringing the Drumms and Stonehouses. If the god grants us good winds, we will sail when they arrive.”
“May the Drowned God bless our swords,” the priest said. Tall and thin, with fierce black eyes and a beak of a nose, Aeron Damphair was garbed in mottled robes of green and grey and blue, the swirling colors of the Drowned God. A waterskin hung under his arm on a leather strap, and ropes of dried seaweed were braided through his waist-long black hair and untrimmed beard.
“Asha my daughter,” Lord Balon went on, “you shall take thirty longships of picked men round Sea Dragon Point. Land upon the tidal flats north of Deepwood Motte. March quickly, and the castle may fall before they even know you are upon them.”
She gave him a false smile. “I’ve always wanted a castle,” she said sweetly.
“Then take one.”
What could the North boast of besides snow and forest? If her father intended to side with Renly, the West was still a richer fruit, or Seagard…
“Victarion,” Lord Balon said to his hulking brother, “the main thrust shall fall to you. When all have struck their blows, Winterfell must respond. You should meet small opposition as you sail up Saltspear and the Fever River. At the headwaters, you will be less than twenty miles from Moat Cailin. The Neck is the key to the kingdom. Already we command the western seas. Once we hold Moat Cailin, the pup will not be able to win back to the north ... and if he is fool enough to try, his enemies will seal the south end of the causeway behind him, and Robb the boy will find himself caught like a rat in a bottle. I hear he has declared for Stannis Baratheon. Let the northmen die in the riverlands, then, fighting against Tywin Lannister. The lords are gone south with the pup. Those who remained behind are the cravens, old men, and green boys. They will yield or fall, one by one.”
“So we shall make common cause with Renly?” Asha said slowly.
Balon’s face was cold. “Have you taken leave of your wits, daughter of mine?”
I have not, she thought angrily. You might have.
“I am the Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke, King of Salt and Rock, Son of the Sea Wind, and no man gives me a crown. Not the Baratheons. I pay the iron price. I will take my crown, as Urron Redhand did five thousand years ago.”
Neither Renly nor Stannis will care to hear this. No matter who wins, the victor will come for the fool perched off his shore with an iron crown on his head.
“First, we take the North,” King Balon told her. “We seize Moat Cailin and the Northmen will be cut from their homes. We will plunder from Barrowton to Bear Island. It may be that we can take Winterfell. And once that is done, I shall turn my eyes south, for riper fruits. Whilst the Northmen fight and die in the Riverlands, their homes will burn. The pup will lose, be it to the Old Lion or the Reach, though I imagine he will give them a bleeding. Stannis Baratheon will lose as well. He has no men to take King’s Landing, nor fight against his own younger brother. While these fools continue to slay each other, we take the North. And once we have done so, we sail for the Arbor. Redwyne’s fleet is kept in port, or so I hear, for his sons are hostages in the Red Keep. We will burn them. Stannis’ fleet will be nothing by then. We burn the Redwyne Fleet and take the Arbor. Once we do, no man or king can sail against us. Not Tywin Lannister, nor Stannis or Renly Baratheon, nor Stark. The Iron Islands will hold dominion from Bear Island to the Arbor.”
Aeron Damphair raised his arms. “And the waters of wrath will rise high, and the Drowned God will spread his dominion across the green lands!”
“What is dead can never die,” Victarion intoned.
A cunning plan, she thought with venom. To make enemies of all three kings.
“What is dead can never die,” she echoed. “I presume you wish me to take Bear Island after the Motte?”
“Reap the Wolfswood for timber,” the Iron King nodded. “Put the thralls to labor crafting new longships. For that, you shall join with Aeron’s ships. They say the Mormont women sleep with bears. Show them what it means to sleep with krakens.”
“So I shall,” she said. And then it was done.
Folly, she thought, but choice was seldom offered by fathers and kings.
She did not linger long, nor did she desire to. She had never loved Pyke, not with its dreary towers and wind-swept bridges, and the bitter men within. No, she had spent her childhood in the Ten Towers of Harlaw, racing amongst its walks and spending time in Rodrik Harlaw’s library. Those were the fond memories she had, not the pitiful months when she was called a princess. And now my father has crowned himself once more, and once more, I am a princess. She shook her head bitterly.
Picked men she was given; strong sailers and thirsty killers. She recognised the Goodbrother men, and knew some of the sailors by name; Bluetongue and Styke and Jorbyorn. Good captains all, her father had not given her weak men.
“Ready your men and ships,” she told her thirty captains. “Sail for Ten Towers on the morrow. I shall await you there.”
“Ten Towers?” Bluetongue wondered. This one will be trouble.
“I have spoken to my father, the king,” she smiled, “now I must speak to my mother.” And the Reader too, no doubt he will have thoughts about this.
That night, the Black Wind was blown to Harlaw, and she spent it in passion and heat with Qarl, and when they were finished and the dreams came, Asha Greyjoy dreamt of the sea. Again, she dreamt of a swordfish piercing through the waves. Upon it was a woman, whose legs were scaled and twisted into a grotesque fan of spined flesh below the knee. She saw her, numbed by rum and with teeth gritted, slash those legs away with a wicked cutlass and nary a whimper, and bounding to them the jagged blades of sawfish. With salt water, she cleaned her wounds.
What a woman, Asha thought faintly, impressed.
The warm dawn found her on the prow, her hands pressed against the railing, her eyes glaring ahead. Before her, she saw ten towers, each shaped differently and connected by stone wallwalks and covered bridges. Why does Pyke not have those?
“Check the sails and riggings,” she told Qarl, who only smiled.
“And the hull and deck, yes,” he nodded sagely, “and stock on fresh water and salted meat and hardtack too. Do you think this is my first time at sea?”
She laughed, playfully swatting at his peach-pink cheek. As the Maid barked orders in his soft, sweet voice, Asha made her way onto Harlaw’s shores.
Harlaw was second in size to only Great Wyk; and the wealthiest and the most densely populated. Already, she could see the shaggy, snorting ponies that gave Harlaw its renown, and she borrowed one from a waiting guard holding its leather reins, the silver scythes crossed across the black surcoat he wore proudly.
“My nuncle saw me coming, did he?”
“Lord Rodrik sees the sea well from his seat by the window.”
“That he does,” Asha smiled. “When he tears his eyes from the pages.”
She needed no guide to lead her to the Reader. She had ridden this route countless times and could do it with her eyes closed. The air was pleasant; salty from the sea rather than unwashed bodies of thralls and sailors. A waft of warm pie even reached her nostrils, floating lazily from some smoky, lively tavern. Pyke is a stone dragon, Asha decided, cold and grim and uninviting. That makes our joy grey.
The Book Tower was made of large, grey blocks of stone, and octagonal in shape. It was the fattest of the ten stone fingers that jutted pleasantly from the soil, like a plump thumb from a pair of calm, embracing hands. The spiralling stairway was enclosed within the thick stone walls, and her footsteps rang in the silence.
The fifth story of the Book Tower was the Reader’s reading room, and she found him reading at a table by the bright window, with the aid of beeswax candles in ornate iron holders. Lord Rodrik Harlaw did not allow food or drink in his library, she knew well. Said library seemed older and larger since the last she had come, with a set of five tomes on the table still tied by a thick rope. Rodrik the Reader wore a calm face, with brown hair and eyes, and a short, neat beard that had gone grey.
“Nuncle,” she greeted. “Still reading?”
“As I have not become one of your other uncles over night,” he said drily. “Yes.”
“They have their skills,” she said lightly.
He gave her a wry smile. “I would agree. Any man can hold an axe or preach. Few do it as well as Victarion and Aeron Greyjoy.”
A mindless warrior and a mad fanatic, he was saying.
“What are you reading?”
He raised the leather-bound tome for her to read. History of the Kings-Beyond-the-Wall. “A transcript of a song.”
“Wildlings?” She scrunched her face in confusion.
“I have finished the books I have on the history of the North,” he told her. “I figured if your father wants to call the North his kingdom, we should know of its past.”
“The past is past,” Asha said. “History has come alive again, no? A comet bleeds red, and burns gold. Kings wage war across the land.”
“I prefer my history dead,” the Reader muttered. “Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood. And it seems we are soon to add iron blood to the cauldron.”
“We are,” she sighed. “I thought that father would take the gold of the west.”
“Instead, he wants blood and snow.” Rodrik Harlaw closed his book. “He wants the cobblestones, pinecones, and turnips of the frigid North.”
“There are three kings,” Asha murmured. “Any one of them, bar Stannis, might have welcomed our ships and axes.”
“That would be charting a path to wisdom. A journey your father and his brothers rarely undertake, I find. The first time he rose as a king, the isles wept with blood, and he knelt at the end, over the bones and bodies of thousands who had died for nothing.” His sons died at Fair Isle, she knew all too well.
“And you are right. Stannis is a hard man. If Balon were to reach a hand across the realm, not that he would, offering our ships in favor for a crown upon his head, Stannis Baratheon will take the ships and his head. Tywin Lannister is caught between rocks to starboard and a storm to port. Mayhaps he may be the sort of captain to find a third course, for safety and victory. Mayhaps he is not. And aye, Renly might have shaken your father’s hand, if he offered it, but I presume…”
“Father wants the Reach as well. Not now, of course. But once we take the North, he wants the Arbor. We can control the seas by burning the Redwyne Fleet at port, he tells us. And in response, the Damphair preached and Victarion grunted.”
“They do little else, I would think,” Rodrik Harlaw brought a hand to his tired eyes.
“You have been reading too much, Nuncle,” she chided.
“A man can never read too much. See those books on the table bounded by rope? From Oldtown, I paid a hefty price for it. See the first one?”
She did. Winter’s Kings, or the Legends and Lineages of the Starks of Winterfell. It was thick and old and ponderous, well deserving of the price, she thought.
“The Starks of Winterfell ruled for thousands of years. The Barrow Kings, the Marsh Kings, the Flints, the Umbers, the Lockes, Glovers, the Red Kings… It would seem the Starks have war in their blood, if the tales of this Young Wolf rings true. Do you know how the Greyjoys came to be the Kings of the Iron Islands?”
“Vaguely,” she said to her disapproving uncle. “It was the Conqueror who…”
“In the immediate history yes,” he chided. “In antiquity, each island was ruled by two kings; a rock king who ruled the land and a salt king who led that island’s ships, and each was chosen in the kingsmoot. Galon Whitestaff called for a true moot, for the unification of the isles into one kingdom. So, first came the Greyirons. Centuries after, a Greyiron slaughtered priests and petty kings at yet another kingsmoot, and made the throne hereditary. Then, they fell, when the Andals came. And so rose the House of Hoare. You know well what happened to them.”
“Aegon.”
“Aegon,” Harlaw nodded. “And his dragons. That was not the end. Qhorin Volmark claimed the throne through his blood ties to House Hoare. The Drowned Priests crowned another king at Old Wyk. Then another, and a fourth, and a fifth. And all died when the dragons came. It was only then did the ironborn chose Vickon Greyjoy as the new Lord of the Iron Islands, as Aegon allowed them.”
Her father never made to mention that, nor her other uncles. She was not surprised. No man gives him a crown, he says, Asha shook her head.
“You have not asked after your lady mother.”
“How is she?”
“Stronger, she may yet outlive us all,” Rodrik Harlaw smiled wanly. “She eats more than she did when she first came here, and oft sleeps through the night.”
That is good, Asha thought. “I will visit her before I leave.”
“When is that?”
“The ships and men my father gave me will come by midday,” she told him. “There and then, I will sail for Deepwood Motte.”
“Take care, Asha,” the Reader placed a hand against her shoulder. “Two knives have been buried in her heart with the names of Rodrik and Maron. Do not give her a third stab. And speaking of… Theon, your father…”
“Seems to have forgotten that he has a son,” she said tiredly.
The Reader could only give her a tight, thin smile.
The Widow’s Tower was so named for the Lady Gwynesse, who was seven years older than Lord Rodrik, and was wont to remind him of such. Just as the Reader had lost two sons at Fair Isle, the Lady Gwynesse lost her husband there, and still mourned. And it was here that her mother remained a ghost that was alive.
She found Lady Alannys in a window seat huddled beneath a pile of furs, staring out at the sea. Alannys Harlaw never had the sort of beauty that bards cherished, but her daughter had loved her fierce strong face and the laughter in her eyes. There was little fierce strength she saw now, and she saw only sorrow in her eyes.
“Mother,” Asha said, her throat drying.
Her mother turned slowly, blinking rapidly. Alannys looked like she was seeing a miracle before her eyes. “Asha,” she whispered, “My daughter…”
“I am,” she told her mother, with a rend heart. “Your daughter.”
“Did you bring my baby boy?”
“He is fighting,” Asha said. “He is fighting well.”
The cold winds of time had worn the proud woman away, leaving behind a sorrowful husk behind. It was Alannys Harlaw that had raised Asha to be bold, and bold she did not feel now. Once, when her mother still haunted Pyke, she had returned from a sea journey to find her roaming the halls of Pyke in search of her lost sons, the two ghosts and the living one lost to her. She had walked the rope bridge to the Sea Tower barefoot, and the maester had to draw the splinters from her bleeding heels.
“Good, good,” Alannys nodded distractedly. “I miss him. Tell him, Asha, will you? Tell him his mother misses him. When the battles are over, will he come see me?”
“I will tell him,” Asha promised, with a shattered heart. Not for the first time, she cursed her father. Once again, he had placed a driftwood crown on his head, and raised her to princess, trusting her with men and ships. Yet, Asha thought not of gold or glory, but the promise she wondered if she could keep to her sorrowful mother.
She was solemn when she bid her nuncle farewell, and she was somber when she received her captains at port, and she was silent when her thirty ships sailed north. That night, Asha Greyjoy dreamt of a great, gaping maw in the sea, a grim graveyard of galleons, and in its heart, a king with a crown of storms watched her sternly.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Theon I and II, ACOK
Asha was one of those characters that really grew on me. By Dance, she was definitely up there in terms of favorite characters.
And so, we have a new POV arriving, as well as a new champion of the gods. Asha's morality is better than most Ironborn, but still grey (heh) and fickle as the sea. Something that Manaan, the God of the Sea, well adores. Few other characters fit the theme as well as her and hence, Manaan's favor goes to her.
And yes, that was Aranessa and the Galleon's Graveyard she saw.
She won't be the only 'antagonist' POV to appear for this arc either, the other one may be surprising. Any guesses?
Chapter 65: Art: The Gilded Cage
Notes:
Another amazing piece of art by the multi-talented nulnvamp, who is one of the players on the table and has their own Warhammer Fantasy fics here. Go show them some love on their instagram account or their fics :)
Direct quote from them: ‘the art style is different because i wanted to try something new. might be a bit off-putting but that was on purpose. or so i will keep insisting’
This is a portrayal of Lorenzo as he is (was?) in the prequel that we are working on for his backstory. Agewise, he is almost twenty. So if you want to visualise how he is at this point of the main campaign/this story, then age him up by about three years or so.
Before anyone comes for the piano; one, it's cool and, two, harpsichords (the precursor to the piano) exists in Warhammer Fantasy so just allow it.
All in all, I thought that this art perfectly encapsulates Lorenzo; finery, beauty, with an air of otherworldly detachment that is vaguely ominous.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
And for a close-up:
Notes:
Other titles that we considered: Hymm for the Night
And yes, we are working on prequels for the characters but those will take quite some time.
Chapter 66: Tyrion III
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The wildfire oozed slowly toward the lip of the jar when Tyrion tilted it to peer inside. The color would be a murky green, he knew, but the poor light made that impossible to confirm. “Thick,” he observed, raising it for Gaven to peer at. He found the young thief to be a companionable sort, a more subtle escort than the Burned Men, and Bronn was otherwise occupied. And he wanted a professional eye to peek at the doors and locks of the Guildhall of the Alchemist.
The thief sniffed uncomfortably, pale skin hidden behind dark leathers and a fur cloak that he had found somewhere. He kept silent, eying the jar with a dark look.
“That is from the cold, my lord,” said Hallyne, a pallid man with soft damp hands and an obsequious manner. “As it warms, the substance will flow more easily, like lamp oil.”
The substance was the pyromancers’ own term for wildfire. They called each other wisdom as well, which Tyrion found almost as grating as their custom of hinting at the vast secret stores of knowledge that they wanted him to think they possessed. Once theirs had been a powerful guild, but in recent centuries the maesters of the Citadel had supplanted the alchemists almost everywhere. Now only a few of the older order remained, and they no longer even pretended to transmute metals …
... but they could make wildfire. “Water will not quench it, I am told.”
“That is so. Once it takes fire, the substance will burn fiercely until it is no more. More, it will seep into cloth, wood, leather, even steel, so they take fire as well.”
Tyrion remembered the red priest Thoros of Myr and his flaming sword. Even a thin coating of wildfire could burn for an hour. Thoros always needed a new sword after a melee, but Robert had been fond of the man and ever glad to provide one. “Why doesn’t it seep into the clay as well?”
“Oh, but it does,” said Hallyne. “There is a vault below this one where we store the older pots. Those from King Aerys’s day. It was his fancy to have the jars made in the shapes of fruits. Very perilous fruits indeed, my lord Hand, and, hmmm, riper now than ever, if you take my meaning. We have sealed them with wax and pumped the lower vault full of water, but even so ... by rights they ought to have been destroyed, but so many of our masters were murdered during the Sack of King’s Landing…”
“These, ah, fruits of the late King Aerys, can they still be used?” Tyrion placed the jar he’d been holding back among its fellows. They covered the table, standing in orderly rows of four and marching away into the subterranean dimness. And there were other tables beyond, many other tables.
“Oh, yes, most certainly ... but carefully, my lord, ever so carefully. As it ages, the substance grows ever more, hmmmm, fickle , let us say. Any flame will set it afire. Any spark. Too much heat and jars will blaze up of their own accord. It is not wise to let them sit in sunlight, even for a short time. Once the fire begins within, the heat causes the substance to expand violently, and the jars shortly fly to pieces. If other jars should happen to be stored in the same vicinity, those go up as well, and so—”
“How many jars do you have at present?”
“This morning, we counted seven thousand eight hundred and forty. That count includes four thousand jars from King Aerys’s day, to be sure. Wisdom Malliard believes we shall be able to provide a full ten thousand jars, as was promised the queen. I concur.” The pyromancer looked indecently pleased with that prospect.
Assuming our enemies give you the time. The pyromancers kept their recipe for wildfire a closely guarded secret, but Tyrion knew that it was a lengthy, dangerous, and time-consuming process. He had assumed the promise of ten thousand jars was a wild boast, like that of the bannerman who vows to marshal ten thousand swords for his lord and shows up on the day of battle with a hundred and two. If they can truly give us ten thousand …
He did not know whether he ought to be delighted or terrified. Perhaps a smidge of both. “I trust that your guild brothers are not engaging in any unseemly haste, Wisdom. We do not want ten thousand jars of defective wildfire, nor even one ... and we most certainly do not want any mishaps.”
“There will be no mishaps, my lord Hand. The substance is prepared by trained acolytes in a series of bare stone cells, and each jar is removed by an apprentice and carried down here the instant it is ready. Above each work cell is a room filled entirely with sand. A protective spell has been laid on the floors, hmmm, most powerful. Any fire in the cell below causes the floors to fall away, and the sand smothers the blaze at once.”
“Not to mention the careless acolyte.” By spell Tyrion imagined Hallyne meant clever trick. He thought he would like to inspect one of these false-ceilinged cells to see how it worked, but this was not the time. Perhaps when the war was won.
He placated the alchemist’s invitation for the king to visit the Guildhall, promising to speak with his sweet sister about some small demonstration instead. When at last they reached the top of the steps, Tyrion shrugged out of his shadowskin fur and folded it over his arm. He could hear Gaven doing the same. The Guildhall of the Alchemists was an imposing warren of black stone, but Hallyne led them through the twists and turns until they reached the Gallery of the Iron Torches, a long echoing chamber where columns of green fire danced around black metal columns twenty feet tall. Ghostly flames shimmered off the polished black marble of the walls and floor and bathed the hall in an emerald radiance.
Tyrion would have been more impressed if he hadn’t known that the great iron torches had only been lit this morning in honor of his visit, and would be extinguished the instant the doors closed behind him. Wildfire was too costly to squander after all. He eyed his companion, and he saw his dark eyes aflame in green, peering silently at those deadly emerald flames.
They emerged atop the broad curving steps that fronted on the Street of the Sisters, near the foot of Visenya’s Hill. He bid Hallyne farewell and waddled down to where Timett son of Timett waited with an escort of Burned Men. Given his purpose today, it had seemed a singularly appropriate choice for his guard. Besides, their scars struck terror in the hearts of the city rabble. That was all to the good these days. Only three nights past, another mob had gathered at the gates of the Red Keep, chanting for food. Joff had unleashed a storm of arrows against them, slaying four, and then shouted down that they had his leave to eat their dead. Winning us still more friends.
“What do you make of that?”
“Terrifying,” the thief told him plainly.
“A useful terror, I would think,” Tyrion mused. Any terror will do if it can terrify Renly and Stannis.
“What he said about a spell, my lord…”
“You do not think that those wisdoms can conjure up magic from their palms, do you? I did not take thieves to believe in snarks and grumpkins.”
“Not at all, Lord Tyrion,” Gaven said, pawing his daggers. “Steel is the best spell.”
“A wise saying. Anyhow, magic is long dead from this world, no matter what my sister may claim about Eddard Stark’s pet magi, or whatever term she is using now.”
A queer smile grew over the thief’s face. “I heard about the death of that lord?”
“Baelish,” Tyrion sniffed. “An exaggeration, I imagine. The fire, the smoke, the din of fighting in the throne room. Mayhaps, Stark’s savage crushed Littlefinger’s head with a hammer or his bare hands, and after that tale has travelled through a hundred mouths, that is how we hear of dragons come again.”
The fear in Cersei’s eyes had been real however. And that was disquieting.
Tyrion was surprised to see Bronn standing beside the litter as well. “What are you doing here?”
“Delivering your messages,” Bronn said, giving the thief an appraising look. “Ironhand wants you urgently at the Gate of the Gods. He won’t say why. And you’ve been summoned to Maegor’s too.”
“Summoned?” Tyrion knew of only one person who would presume to use that word. “And what does Cersei want of me?”
Bronn shrugged. “The queen commands you to return to the castle at once and attend her in her chambers. That stripling cousin of yours delivered the message. Four hairs on his lip and he thinks he’s a man.”
“Four hairs and a knighthood. He’s Ser Lancel now, never forget.” Tyrion knew that Ser Jacelyn would not send for him unless the matter was of import. “I’d best see what Bywater wants. Inform my sister that I will attend her on my return.”
“She won’t like that,” Bronn warned.
“Good. The longer Cersei waits, the angrier she’ll become, and anger makes her stupid. I much prefer angry and stupid to composed and cunning.” Tyrion tossed his folded cloak into his litter, and Timett helped him up after it.
“Now that the only sort of burned men surrounding us are the ones I like,” Tyrion said, “tell me it all.”
Gaven shrugged. “When I arrived, there was no one, bar the sellsword with his throat cut. I left the letter on the table as you commanded, but I found no trace of the merchant or his family. No theft either. Either he cut the throat of his own guard and ran, or…”
Tyrion found the idea absurd. “Someone else got to him first.” The watchmen had told him as such, but he had imagined it was the thief who did the act. “I would have thought it was you.”
“I am a thief, my lord, not a cutthroat.”
Tyrion eyed the twin steel daggers at his hip. “I am not paying you enough to cut throats? No matter, I have Bronn for that. What do you think then?”
Gaven nodded gravely. “Merchant like that, man must have many rivals.”
“Oh well,” Tyrion waved a short hand. “Tell me more of yourself, Gaven.”
“My lord?”
“You are not half as insolent as Bronn and my wild men,” he eyed the thief, “but you have no fear in your eyes when you talk to me.”
“My father was a smith,” the young man stared back. “We saw important people.”
“Pray tell, how does a smith’s son become a thief?”
“I was a smith’s son,” was the slow reply. “He lost his hands.”
“Ah,” Tyrion gave him a pitying look. “From a hammer?”
“Something like that.”
“And your mother…”
“Tried her best but too many mouths, my lord.”
“How many is that?”
“Seven.”
“How holy. You are not the oldest, then,” Tyrion watched him.
“No, an older brother and sister, and two younger,” Gaven was solemn.
Tyrion tilted his head. If his own mother had bore two more after him, Tyrion Lannister would have been like the thief before him. But she had not, for he had slain her when he entered the world of the living.
“Where are they now?”
“He went to be a … sellsword somewhere. She dreamt of singing.”
There was a dark look in the thief’s eyes. To sweet sisters, Tyrion thought. “And the little ones,” he said, bemused.
“In a little hovel somewhere,” the thief told him with twitching lips. “The girl mentioned wanting to see Lannisters. Especially the king and the queen."
“Did she now?” Tyrion chuckled. “The queens, and knights, and heroes of song, we are. House Lannister.”
The market square inside the Gate of the Gods, which in normal times would have been thronged with farmers selling vegetables, was near-deserted when they crossed it. Ser Jacelyn met him alone at the gate, and raised his iron hand in brusque salute. “My lord. Your cousin Cleos Frey is here, come from Riverrun under a grey banner with a letter from Robb Stark.”
“Stark,” Tyrion blinked. It was his father that troubled him as of late.
“So he says.”
The gold cloaks had confined Ser Cleos to a windowless guardroom in the gatehouse. He rose when they entered. “Tyrion, you are a most welcome sight.”
“That’s not something I hear often, cousin.”
“Has Cersei come with you?”
“My sister is otherwise occupied. Is this Stark’s letter?” He plucked it off the table. “Ser Jacelyn, you may leave us.”
Bywater bowed and departed. “I was asked to bring the offer to the Queen Regent,” Ser Cleos said as the door shut.
“I shall.” Tyrion glanced over the letter. “All in good time, cousin. Sit. Rest. You look gaunt and haggard.” He looked worse than that, in truth.
“Yes.” Ser Cleos lowered himself onto a bench. “It is bad in the riverlands, Tyrion. Around the God's Eye and along the kingsroad especially. The river lords are burning their own crops to try and starve us, and your father’s foragers are torching every village they take and putting the smallfolk to the sword. Dondarrion and his bunch are haunting them in return, and the northmen are no better.”
That was the way of war. The smallfolk were slaughtered, while the highborn were held for ransom. Remind me to thank the gods that I was born a Lannister.
Ser Cleos ran a hand through his thin brown hair. “We were attacked thrice. Wolves in mail, hungry to savage anyone weaker than themselves. The gods alone know what side they started on, but they’re on their own side now. Lost five men, and twice as many wounded. We came past camps of rotting men too, Westermen.”
“What news of our foe?” Tyrion turned his attention back to Stark’s terms.
Bold, Tyrion grimaced, remembering the other dreary letter he had to read, the one that had flown from Dragonstone. The boy is certainly bold. ‘Joffrey is not worthy to sit the throne’, taking Stannis Baratheon as king, the release of his sisters… so he does not yet know about the other one. Hostages, bones, his father’s sword. And ending with a threat too. Two victories have made him bold.
“When I left, he was sitting at Riverrun,” Ser Cleos said. “His strength grows less each day. The river lords have departed, each to defend his own lands.”
Is this what Father intended? Tyrion rolled up Stark’s letter. “These terms will never do.”
“Will you at least consent to trade the Stark girls for Tion and Willem?” Ser Cleos asked plaintively.
Tion Frey was his younger brother, Tyrion recalled. “No,” he said gently, “but we’ll propose our own exchange of captives. Let me consult with Cersei and the council. We shall send you back to Riverrun with our terms.”
Clearly, the prospect did not cheer him but Tyrion cared little. “Ser Jacelyn will see that you have food and fire. You look in dire need of sleep, cousin. I will send for you when we know more.”
He found Ser Jacelyn on the ramparts, watching several hundred new recruits drilling in the field below. With so many seeking refuge in King’s Landing, there was no lack of men willing to join the City Watch for a full belly and a bed of straw in the barracks, but Tyrion had no illusions about how well these ragged defenders of theirs would fight if it came to battle. The crows might fight better, if we feed them.
“You did well to send for me,” Tyrion said. “I shall leave Ser Cleos in your hands. He is to have every hospitality.”
“And his escort?” the commander wanted to know.
“Give them food and clean garb, and find a maester to see to their hurts. They are not to set foot inside the city, is that understood?” It would never do to have the truth of conditions in King’s Landing reach Robb Stark in Riverrun.
“Well understood, my lord.”
“Oh, and one more thing. The alchemists will be sending a large supply of clay pots to each of the city gates. You’re to use them to train the men who will work your spitfires. Fill the pots with green paint and have them drill at loading and firing. Any man who spatters should be replaced. When they have mastered the paint pots, substitute lamp oil and have them work at lighting the jars and firing them while aflame. Once they learn to do that without burning themselves, they may be ready for wildfire.”
Ser Jacelyn scratched at his cheek with his iron hand. “Wise measures. Though I have no love for that alchemist’s piss.”
“Nor I, but I use what I’m given.”
Once back inside his litter, Tyrion Lannister drew the curtains and plumped a cushion under his elbow. Cersei would be displeased to learn that he had intercepted Stark’s letter, but his father had sent him here to rule, not to please Cersei.
“I have a few new names for you,” Tyrion told the thief darkly. “Varys has heard their singing, of course. And it seems the king might not enjoy their tune.”
“More letters?”
“More letters. You will come with me to the Red Keep. It shall be tiring but I shall hand you three new letters by sunset. And come dark…”
“It shall be as you command,” the thief nodded, tracing his finger over the gilded cushion on his lap.
The demands from Robb Stark were, frankly, never to be done. And he knows it. Those threats were a reminder that they were truly at war. A grey banner, he sends. There would be no room for peace and mercy, it seemed. Eddard Stark must have sent a raven to Riverrun, from Dragonstone. It was his words that led them to declare for Stannis. Tyrion grimaced. Ser Stafford was training and arming a new host at Casterly Rock, but would they have the time?
Glacial as his progress was, still Renly Baratheon crept north and east with his huge southron host, and scarcely a night passed that Tyrion did not dread being awakened with the news that Lord Stannis was sailing his fleet up the Blackwater Rush. Well, it would seem I have a goodly stock of wildfire, but still…
The sound of some hubbub in the street intruded on his worries. Tyrion peered out cautiously between the curtains. They were passing through Cobbler’s Square, where a sizable crowd had gathered beneath the leather awnings to listen to the rantings of a prophet. A robe of undyed wool belted with a hempen rope marked him for one of the begging brothers, that and the fervent fury upon his unwashed face.
“Corruption!” the man cried shrilly. “There is the warning! Behold the Father’s scourge!” He pointed at the fuzzy gold wound in the sky. From this vantage, the distant castle on Aegon’s High Hill was directly behind him, with the comet hanging forebodingly over its towers. A clever choice of stage, Tyrion reflected. “We have become swollen, bloated, foul. Brother couples with sister in the bed of kings, and the fruit of their incest capers in his palace to the piping of a twisted little monkey demon. Highborn ladies fornicate with fools and give birth to monsters! War has come to land, as men rape the realm and spill blood! Even the High Septon has forgotten the gods! He bathes in scented waters and grows fat on lark and lamprey while his people starve! Pride comes before prayer, maggots rule our castles, and gold is all ... but no more! The Rotten Summer is at an end, and the Whoremonger King is brought low! When the boar did open him, a great stench rose to heaven and a thousand snakes slid forth from his belly, hissing and biting!” He jabbed his bony finger back at comet and castle. “There comes the Harbinger! All eyes saw it turn gold from red. You all saw the twin tails. From the evils of men, to the light of the seven! Cleanse yourselves, the gods cry out, lest ye be cleansed! Bathe in the wine of righteousness, or you shall be bathed in fire! Fire! Fire!”
“Fire!” other voices echoed, drowning out the hoots of derision. Tyrion watched them silently. He gave the command to continue, and the litter rocked like a ship on a rough sea as the Burned Men cleared a path. Twisted little monkey demon indeed. The wretch did have a point about the High Septon, to be sure. But Robert’s belly was only wide enough to accommodate, mayhaps, a hundred snakes, not a thousand.
“Maggots rule our castle, he says.”
“Do highborn ladies really fornicate with fools?” Gaven tilted his head.
“Some do,” Tyrion smiled, “even queens. I am more concerned with the twisted little monkey demon. Do you see any about?”
“No, my lord.”
“The rotten summer comes to an end,” Tyrion mused. “I have never know summer to be rotten, have you? When winter comes, they will pray for a summer, verdant or rotten.”
“A harbinger of the gods,” the thief quoted.
“A trick of the light,” Tyrion waved. “There is much we do not know about the stars.”
“Much,” Gaven smiled.
He was pleased to reach the Red Keep without further incident. As he climbed the steps to his chambers, Gaven shadowing him, Tyrion felt a deal more hopeful than he had at dawn. Time, that’s all I truly need, time to piece it all together. Once the chain is done ... He opened the door to his solar.
Cersei turned away from the window, her skirts swirling around her slender hips. “How dare you ignore my summons!”
“Wait outside,” he told the thief, as he entered. “Who admitted you to my tower?”
“Your tower? This is my son’s royal castle.”
“So they tell me.” Tyrion was not amused. “I was about to come to you, as it happens.”
“Were you?”
He swung the door shut behind him. “You doubt me?”
“Always, and with good reason.”
“I’m hurt.” Tyrion waddled to the sideboard for a cup of wine. He knew no surer way to work up a thirst than talking with Cersei. “If I’ve given you offense, I would know how.”
“What a disgusting little worm you are. Myrcella is my only daughter. Did you truly imagine that I would allow you to sell her like a bag of oats?”
Myrcella, he thought. Well, that egg has hatched. “Hardly a bag of oats. Myrcella is a princess. Some would say this is what she was born for. Or did you plan to marry her to Tommen? Mayhaps another king would rise up against us at that.”
Her hand lashed out, knocking the wine cup from his hand to spill on the floor. “Brother or no, I should have your tongue out for that. I am Joffrey’s regent, not you, and I say that Myrcella will not be shipped off to this Dornishman the way I was shipped to Robert Baratheon.”
Tyrion shook wine off his fingers and sighed. “Why not? She’d be a deal safer in Dorne than she is here.”
“Are you utterly ignorant or simply perverse? You know as well as I that the Martells have no cause to love us.”
“The Martells have every cause to hate us. Nonetheless, I expect them to agree. Prince Doran’s grievance against House Lannister goes back only a generation, but the Dornishmen have warred against Storm’s End and Highgarden for a thousand years, and Renly has taken Dorne’s allegiance for granted. Myrcella is nine, Trystane Martell eleven. I have proposed they wed when she reaches her fourteenth year. Until such time, she would be an honored guest at Sunspear, under Prince Doran’s protection.”
“A hostage,” Cersei said, mouth tightening.
“An honored guest,” Tyrion insisted, “and I suspect Martell will treat Myrcella more kindly than Joffrey has treated Sansa Stark. I had in mind to send Ser Arys Oakheart with her. With a knight of the Kingsguard as her sworn shield, no one is like to forget who or what she is. But as the good knight has not yet awaken…”
The rest remaining were a sorry sight to behold. Ser Boros the Belly. Ser Meryn the Miserable. Ser Preston the Unremarkable. Moore was the only proper killer of the four, and Tyrion found that he liked the man not one bit. And he would make for a poor guard for a princess.
“Small good any of those Sers will do her if Doran Martell decides that my daughter’s death would wash out his sister’s.”
“Martell is too honorable to murder a nine-year-old girl, particularly one as sweet and innocent as Myrcella. So long as he holds her he can be reasonably certain that we’ll keep faith on our side, and the terms are too rich to refuse. Myrcella is the least part of it. I’ve also offered him his sister’s killer, a council seat, some castles on the Marches ...” If we can take them…
“Too much.” Cersei paced away from him, restless as a lioness, skirts swirling.
“You’ve offered too much, and without my authority or consent.”
“This is the Prince of Dorne we are speaking of. If I’d offered less, he’d likely spit in my face.”
“Too much!” Cersei insisted, whirling back.
“What would you have offered him, that hole between your legs?” Tyrion said, his own anger flaring. This time he saw the slap coming. His head snapped around with a crack. “Sweet sweet sister,” he said, “I promise you, that was the last time you will ever strike me.”
His sister laughed. “Don’t threaten me, little man. Do you think Father’s letter keeps you safe? A piece of paper. Eddard Stark had…” Cersei’s eyes were far away, as if remembering some dread sight. Eddard Stark did not have the City Watch, Tyrion thought, nor my clansmen and sellswords and thieves and whores. Or so he hoped. Trusting in Varys, in Ser Jacelyn Bywater, in Bronn and Gaven and Shae. Lord Stark had probably had his delusions as well.
Yet he said nothing. A wise man did not pour wildfire on a brazier. Instead, he poured a fresh cup of wine. “How safe do you think Myrcella will be if King’s Landing falls? Renly and Stannis will mount her head beside yours.”
And Cersei began to cry.
Tyrion Lannister could not have been more astonished if Aegon the Conqueror himself had burst into the room, riding on a dragon and juggling lemon pies. He had not seen his sister weep since they were children together at Casterly Rock. Awkwardly, he took a step toward her. When your sister cries, you were supposed to comfort her ... but this was Cersei! He reached a tentative hand for her shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, wrenching away. It should not have hurt, yet it did, more than any slap. Red-faced, as angry as she was grief-stricken and fearful, Cersei struggled for breath. “Don’t look at me, not ... not like this ... not you.”
Politely, Tyrion turned his back. “I did not mean to frighten you. I promise you, nothing will happen to Myrcella.”
“Liar,” she said behind him. “I’m not a child, to be soothed with empty promises. You told me you would free Jaime too. Well, where is he?”
“In Riverrun, I should imagine. Safe and under guard, until I find a way to free him.”
Cersei sniffed. “I should have been born a man. I would have no need of any of you then. None of this would have been allowed to happen. How could Jaime let himself be captured by that boy? And Father, I trusted in him, fool that I am, but where is he now that he’s wanted? What is he doing?”
“Making war.”
“From behind the walls of Harrenhal?” she said scornfully. “A curious way of fighting. It looks suspiciously like hiding from a boy.”
“Look again.”
“What else would you call it? Father sits in one castle, and Robb Stark sits in another, and no one does anything.” There is plenty of fighting, Tyrion thought, and dying, and burning, and raping, and crying.
“There is sitting and there is sitting,” Tyrion suggested. “Each one waits for the other to move, but the lion is still, poised, his tail twitching, while the fawn is frozen by fear, bowels turned to jelly. No matter which way he bounds, the lion will have him, and he knows it.”
“And you’re quite certain that Father is the lion?”
Tyrion grinned. “It’s on all our banners. You can’t miss it.”
She ignored the jest. “If it was Father who’d been taken captive, Jaime would not be sitting by idly, I promise you.”
Jaime would be battering his host to bloody bits against the walls of Riverrun, and the Others take their chances. He never did have any patience, no more than you, sweet sister. “Not all of us can be as bold as Jaime, but there are other ways to win wars. Harrenhal is strong and well situated.”
“And King’s Landing is not, as we both know perfectly well. While Father plays lion and fawn with the Stark boy, Renly marches up the roseroad. He could be at our gates any day now! Stannis, too, with his ships. Neither of them have any love for us.”
They are not the only ones. “The city will not fall in a day. From Harrenhal it is a straight, swift march down the kingsroad. Renly will scarce have unlimbered his siege engines before Father takes him in the rear. His host will be the hammer, the city walls the anvil. It makes a lovely picture.”
Cersei’s green eyes bored into him, wary, yet hungry for the reassurance he was feeding her. “And if Robb Stark marches?”
“Harrenhal is close enough to the fords of the Trident so that Roose Bolton cannot bring the northern foot across to join with the Young Wolf’s horse. Stark cannot march on King’s Landing without taking Harrenhal first, and even with Bolton he is not strong enough to do that.” Tyrion tried his most winning smile. “Meanwhile Father lives off the fat of the riverlands, while our uncle Stafford gathers fresh levies at the Rock.”
Cersei regarded him suspiciously. “How could you know all this? Did Father tell you his intentions when he sent you here?”
“No. I glanced at a map.”
Her look turned to disdain. “You’ve conjured up every word of this in that grotesque head of yours, haven’t you, Imp? And what shall you do if Robert’s brothers make common cause? One has the Reach and the Stormlands, the other has the Riverlands and the North.”
Yes, Tyrion offered her a tight smile. I wonder who allowed Stark to reach Dragonstone. “Have you perchance seen Stannis and Renly together before? Stark has grown bold after two victories, I believe.” He drew out the letter that Ser Cleos Frey had brought. “The Young Wolf has sent us demands, you see. Rather unreasonable, though I wonder if Dragonstone knows of this.”
That fast, she was all queen again. “How do you come to have them? They should have come to me.”
“What else is a Hand for, if not to hand you things?” Tyrion handed her the letter. His cheek still throbbed where Cersei’s hand had left its mark. Let her flay half my face, it will be a small price to pay for her consent to the Dornish marriage. He might have that now, he could sense it. And certain knowledge of an informer too ... well, that was the plum in his pudding.
He could remember what the letter said.
First, let all men hear the words of the North and the Riverlands. Joffrey Baratheon is not worthy to sit upon the Iron Throne. We have taken Stannis Baratheon as our king; not Joffrey, nor Renly.
Second, the queen must release my sisters and provide them with transport by sea from King’s Landing to White Harbor. It is to be understood that Sansa’s betrothal to Joffrey Baratheon is at an end.
Third, the remains of the men and women of my father’s household who died in his service at King’s Landing must be returned.
Fourth, my father’s greatsword Ice will be delivered to my hand, here at Riverrun.
Fifth, the queen will command her father Lord Tywin to release those knights and lords bannermen of mine that he took captive in the battle on the Green Fork of the Trident. Once he does so, I shall release my own captives taken in the Whispering Wood and the Battle of the Camps, save Jaime Lannister alone, who will remain my hostage for his father’s good behavior.
Lastly, let it be known that this is no offer of peace. All good men and true of the North and the Trident shall bear their steel in service of the true king. There is no need for a declaration of war for Lord Tywin has proclaimed his blood desire with smoke and fire. If these demands are not met, no mercy will be shown for the Westermen to be captured in the coming battles.
He could see the red growing on Cersei’s face as her eyes flitted over the lines. “See how he calls our good king. Joffrey Baratheon, as he should be called of course. Stannis labelled him Joffrey, the boy. This letter was written before Stannis’ letter was written, and I do not imagine ravens to have flown frequent between Riverrun and Dragonstone. Lands burnt by war are dangerous, so I hear.”
“He… He dares?”
“He won two battles,” Tyrion reminded his fuming sister. “Boys feel like they can conquer the world after winning a fisticuff, let alone two battles.”
“A feeling you have never felt,” she sneered.
“Jaime had his sword, our lord father his armies,” Tyrion offered her a crooked smile. Jaime lost his sword, and Lord Tywin an army. “Now, you see why we need Dorne?”
And in her green eyes, he thought he saw victory. He would have to relish it, for he did not know when the next one would come … if it ever would.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Tyrion V, ACOK
Gunther passes several Deception checks and Tyrion's headache grows even bigger. Next chapter, a surprise bonus POV from someone who died in canon but survived thanks to the butterfly effect. First correct guess gets ... uh ... one brass penny
Chapter 67: The Wandering Crow
Summary:
Yoren has a bad time.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
A wandering crow, they called him. Now, he wished he had perched himself on the Wall. Cold as it was, even the wildlings did not feel so savage and dangerous.
Leaving King’s Landing was easy. The Lannister guardsmen on the gate were stopping everyone, rummaging through cargo and squinting at faces. A quick sniff at his filthy black cloak, caked in mud and sweat, was enough to hasten things along, and cursory glances at the miserable, black company he kept too.
He had orphan boys that he plucked from the streets with promises of food for their bellies and shoes for their feet. The rest he’d found in chains, dogs and downtrodden all.“The Watch needs good men,” he told them as they set out, “but you lot will have to do.” He had taken grown men from the dungeons as well, thieves and poachers and rapers and the like. The worst were the two he’d found in the black cells that he kept them fettered hand and foot in the back of a wagon. He vowed they’d stay in irons all the way to the Wall. After, they were Mormont’s problem. One had no nose, only the hole in his face where it had been cut off, and the fat bald one with the pointed teeth and the weeping sores on his cheeks had eyes like nothing human.
They took five full wagons out of King’s Landing, laden with supplies for the Wall; hides and bolts of cloth, bars of pig iron, a cage of ravens, books and paper and ink, a bale of sourleaf, jars of oil, and chests of medicine and spices. Teams of plow horses pulled the wagons, and Yoren had bought two coursers and a half-dozen donkeys for the boys.
A day passed, and the day after, and the day after that. There was a long road to ride, from King’s Landing to the crossroads and up the kingsroad past the Neck. Then, it was cold through the North before the Wall would sprawl its blue view before him again. And he would have to lead this sorry bunch through a wartorn land.
Some nights, he spent it watching the great gold comet in the night sky, splendid and terrifying all at once. He had seen it red and bleeding, and saw it flash gold, pulsing with a brilliant shimmer. Magic, some of the younger boys had called it. Lommy Greenhands claimed that the gods dyed the red star with gold, and Hot Pie argued that the comet was baked to perfection. They all shared a good laugh at that. Most nights however, he did not sleep easily, or lightly, and kept a dirk close to him.
They traveled dawn to dusk, past woods and orchards and neatly tended fields, through small villages, crowded market towns, and stout holdfasts. Come dark, they would make camp and eat by the light of the twin-tailed comet. The men took turns standing watch, the ones he could trust halfway that was. He would glimpse firelight flickering through the trees from the camps of other travelers. There seemed to be more camps every night, and more traffic on the kingsroad by day.
Morn, noon, and night they came, old folks and little children, big men and small ones, barefoot girls and women with babes at their breasts. Some drove farm wagons or bumped along in the back of ox carts. More rode; dying draft horses, pitiful ponies, mules, donkeys, anything that would walk or run or roll. One woman led a milk cow with a little girl on its back. He saw a smith pushing a wheelbarrow with his tools inside, hammers and tongs and even an anvil, and a little while later a different man with a different wheelbarrow, only inside this one were two babies in a blanket. Most came on foot, with their goods on their shoulders and weary, wary looks upon their faces. They walked south, toward the city, toward King’s Landing, and only one in a hundred spared so much as a word for Yoren and his charges, traveling north. None were riding in the same way as them. He was unsurprised.
Many of the travelers were armed; he saw daggers and dirks, scythes and axes, and here and there a sword or rusty mace. Some had made clubs from tree limbs, or carved knobby staffs. They fingered their weapons and gave lingering, longing looks at the wagons as they rolled by, yet in the end they let the column pass. Thirty was too many, no matter what they had in those wagons. Or who.
One day a madwoman began to scream at them from the side of the road. “Fools! They’ll kill you, fools!” She was scarecrow-thin, with hollow eyes and bloody feet.
The next morning, a sleek merchant on a grey mare reined up by him and offered to buy his wagons and everything in them for a quarter of their worth. “It’s war, they’ll take what they want, you’ll do better selling to me, my friend.” Yoren turned away with a twist of his crooked shoulders, and spat.
He noticed the first grave that same day, a small mound beside the road, dug for a child. A crystal had been set in the soft earth, and Lommy Greenhands wanted to take it but a nasty glare had set him straight. A few leagues farther on, Praed pointed out more graves, a whole row freshly dug. These ones had no crystals, just pale flowers. After that, a day hardly passed without one. Then, it was Praed who did not wake from his coughing. They dug a grave of their own then, burying the sellsword where he’d slept. Yoren stripped him of his valuables before they threw the dirt on him. One man claimed his boots, another his dagger. His mail-shirt and helm were parceled out. His longsword Yoren kept. A boy called Tarber tossed a handful of acorns on top of Praed’s body, so an oak might grow to mark his place.
That evening they stopped in a village at an ivy-covered inn. Yoren counted the coins in his purse and decided they had enough for a hot meal. “We’ll sleep outside, same as ever, but they got a bathhouse here, if any of you feels the need o’ hot water and a lick o’ soap.” He did not.
Tarber and Hot Pie joined the line of men headed for the tubs. Others settled down in front of the bathhouse. The rest crowded into the common room. He even sent Lommy out with tankards for the two in fetters, who’d been left chained up in the back of their wagon. Washed and unwashed alike supped on hot pork pies and baked apples. The innkeeper gave them a round of beer on the house. “I had a brother took the black, years ago. Serving boy, clever, but one day he got seen filching pepper from m’lord’s table. He liked the taste of it, is all. Just a pinch o’ pepper, but Ser Malcolm was a hard man. You get pepper on the Wall?” When Yoren shook his head, the man sighed. “Shame. Lync loved that pepper.”
The inn was full of people moving south, and the common room erupted in scorn when Yoren said they were traveling the other way. “You’ll be back soon enough,” the innkeeper vowed. “There’s no going north. Half the fields are burnt, and what folks are left are walled up inside their holdfasts. One bunch rides off at dawn and another one shows up by dusk. The Seven Hells have come, ser, that they have.”
“That’s nothing to us,” Yoren insisted stubbornly. “Tully or Lannister or demons, makes no matter. The Watch takes no part.”
“It’s more than Lannister and Tully,” the innkeeper said. “There’s wild men down from the Mountains of the Moon, try telling them you take no part. Sellswords too, bastards all. And the Starks are in it too, the young lord’s come down, Stark’s son ...”
“I heard the boy rides to battle on a wolf,” said a yellow-haired man with a tankard in his hand. “As wild as one.”
“Fool’s talk.” Yoren spat. He remembered the red-haired son of Eddard Stark when he had stopped at Winterfell with the Imp. And he was there when his mother took Tyrion Lannister. Sometimes, he wondered if he should have said something.
“The man I heard it from, he saw it himself. A wolf big as a horse, he swore.”
“It’s been a bad year for wolves,” volunteered a sallow man in a travel-stained green cloak. “Around the God's Eye, the packs have grown bolder’n anyone can remember. Sheep, cows, dogs, makes no matter, they kill as they like, and they got no fear of men. It’s worth your life to go into those woods by night. And my pa heard that he saw them trotting for Riverrun, where the Young Wolf is. He swears it true, led by the biggest bitch he ever seen in his life. Monsters all.”
“Wouldn’t want to be a Lannister,” the yellow-haired man muttered. “Heard the Westermen are being slain all over the Riverlands, bloody that way. And word is, they gave them a bloody beating at High Heart. T’was always a dark place. If not the Northmen and Riverlords, then it’s that band of outlaws that has been disappearing and appearing all across the land, from the Red Fork to the God’s Eye.
The next day, they found themselves on a road, no more than a rut through weeds.
The good part was, with so little traffic there’d be no one to point the finger and say which way they’d gone. The human flood that had flowed down the kingsroad was only a trickle here. The bad part was, the road wound back and forth like a snake, tangling with even smaller trails and sometimes seeming to vanish entirely only to reappear half a league farther on when they had all but given up hope. The land was gentle enough, rolling hills and terraced fields interspersed with meadows and woodlands and valleys where willows crowded close to slow shallow streams. Even so, the path was so narrow and crooked that their pace had dropped to a crawl.
But it was the wagons that slowed them, lumbering along, axles creaking under the weight of their heavy loads. A dozen times a day they had to stop to free a wheel that had stuck in a rut, or double up the teams to climb a muddy slope. Once, in the middle of a dense stand of oak, they came face-to-face with three men pulling a load of firewood in an ox cart, with no way for either to get around. There had been nothing for it but to wait while the foresters unhitched their ox, led him through the trees, spun the cart, hitched the ox up again, and started back the way they’d come. The ox was even slower, so that day they hardly got anywhere at all.
“We’re not far from God's Eye,” he told them one morning. “The kingsroad won’t be safe till we’re across the Trident. So we’ll come up around the lake along the western shore, they’re not like to look for us there.” At the next spot where two ruts cut cross each other, he turned the wagons west.
Here farmland gave way to forest, the villages and holdfasts were smaller and farther apart, the hills higher and the valleys deeper. Food grew harder to come by. In the city, he had loaded up the wagons with salt fish, hard bread, lard, turnips, sacks of beans and barley, and wheels of yellow cheese, but every bite had been eaten. Forced to live off the land, he turned to Koss and Kurz, who’d been taken as poachers. He sent them ahead, into the woods, and come dusk they would be back with a deer slung between them on a pole or a brace of quail swinging from their belts. The younger boys would be set to picking blackberries along the road, or climbing fences to fill a sack with apples if they happened upon an orchard.
Outside a holdfast called Briarwhite, some field hands surrounded them in a cornfield, demanding coin for the ears they’d taken. Yoren eyed their scythes and tossed them a few coppers. “Time was, a man in black was feasted from Dorne to Winterfell, and even high lords called it an honor to shelter him under their roofs,” he said bitterly. “Now cravens like you want hard coin for a bite of wormy apple and half rotten corn.” He spat.
“It’s sweetcorn, better’n a stinking old black bird like you deserves,” one of them answered roughly. “You get out of our field now, and take these sneaks and stabbers with you, or we’ll stake you up in the corn to scare the other crows away.” He hefted his pitchfork like a spear, and Yoren grunted.
They roasted the sweetcorn in the husk that night, turning the ears with long forked sticks, and ate it hot right off the cob. Yoren was too angry to eat. A dark cloud seemed to hang over him, ragged and black as his cloak. He paced about the camp restlessly, muttering to himself. They were barely a fortnight into the long travel, and it would only grow more hellish from here. Robert’s death had shattered a fragile peace, it seemed, and now the wolves and stags and lions reared their ugly heads to fight and feast over the corpse that would soon be the realm and its people.
The next day Koss came racing back to warn Yoren of a dead camp ahead. “Dead men, Yoren, killed recently. The camp’s been there awhile, I’ll reckon, from the stink of the place, but they were just slain.”
“See a banner?”
“Spotted treecat, yellow and black, on a mud-brown field.”
Yoren folded a sourleaf into his mouth and chewed. “Can’t say,” he admitted.
They rode on regardless, spying the slaughtered camp with caution. Carrion crows pecked at the rotting bodies, cawing with dark delight, and fat worms slithered over the decaying flesh. A sickening stench lingered from the blood-stained tents, blood and gore and death. Hot Pie retched, Lommy was pale, and the two bastards in the fetters hollered hungrily. “Keep it quiet in there,” he cursed at them.
There were more men guarding the fields on the road. Often they stood silently beside the road, giving a cold eye to anyone who passed. Elsewhere they patrolled on horses, riding their fence lines with axes strapped to their saddles. At one place, she spotted a man perched up in a dead tree, with a bow in his hand and a quiver hanging from the branch beside him. The moment he spied them, he notched an arrow to his bowstring, and never looked away until the last wagon was out of sight. All the while, Yoren cursed. “Him in his tree, let’s see how well he likes it up there when the Others come to take him. He’ll scream for the Watch then, that he will.”
A day later Dobber spied a red glow against the evening sky. “Either this road went and turned again, or that sun’s setting in the north.”
Yoren climbed a rise to get a better look. “Fire,” he announced. He licked a thumb and held it up. “Wind should blow it away from us. Still bears watching.”
And watch it they did. As the world darkened, the fire seemed to grow brighter and brighter, until it looked as though the whole north was ablaze. From time to time, they could even smell the smoke, though the wind held steady and the flames never got any closer. Then, they saw the fighting. A small flock of riders charging madly into the burning village, some men on foot behind.
“Madmen,” he thought he heard Dobber say.
“Brave men,” Yoren grunted. “Braver than us.”
It was midday when they arrived at the village, the fighting faded. The fields were bloodied and he could spy corpses lying face down across the wheat and barley. Half of the houses were blackened shells, and smoke still drifted from inside the holdfast. He saw burnt bodies impaled on sharpened stakes atop the walls, the faintest hue of red and gold on their cloth, and he spied a roaring lion on a surcoat.
Inside, he saw life. Men were running here and there with buckets of sand or water. Women knelt to tend to the wounded, praying. The dead were loaded onto worn wagons gently. He saw a bard with a lute singing to a group of hollow-eyed children, blood splashed across their soot-stained faces. As he marched in with Murch and Cutjack, empty eyes followed him. He knew what happened here.
“Bard,” he rasped out to the singer amidst his tune. “Who leads here?”
The man was small and trim, with thinning brown hair, a sharp nose and a wide smile. He wore parched, faded greens, with a woodman’s axe by his side. “No banners fly over here, crow. We’re a brotherhood, see?”
“Still, who leads here?”
“We’ve got three,” the singer pointed to one of the few hovels standing. Once a tavern by the look of it. “A knight, a priest, a soldier. A merry band, we are.” His fingers plucked at the woodharp again, and the song continued for the children.
Three stepped into the smoky tavern, and he spied three sitting close to the fire. A grim-faced man snapped his head towards Yoren. He had a bow strapped to his back, an axe by his hip, a dagger and throwing knives. He wore padded armour, mail, and a dark helm, and his eyes glared at them. The two men by his side were more courteous, as armed vagrants could be. One was a younger man, dashing with red-gold hair, but he bore a haunted look in his one eye. His dented breastplate of dull black steel displayed a forked purple lightning bolt. The last was an older man in flapping red robes, sipping at wine.
“Thoros of Myr,” he said dumbly. “I heard about you back in King’s Landing.”
“All sordid tales, I imagine,” the red priest muttered to himself. The knight gave him a curious look, and in the firelight, he could see his pale flesh.
“Welcome, friend,” the knight said politely enough. “We would offer you wine and bread, but I fear the people have little to go around as is.”
“No matter,” he grunted. “Just passing through. So, you’re the leader of this band I’ve been hearing about, killing lions.”
“Leader?” the one-eyed man shook his head. “We are brothers here.”
“Holy brothers,” agreed Thoros. “Sworn to the realm, our god, and each other.”
“The brotherhood without banners,” sang the bard as he stepped into the room behind him. “The forgotten fellowship. Knights of the people.”
“More and more titles you are giving us, Tom,” the knight japed.
“More and more we seem to deserve,” Thoros told them.
“You’re Stark men, then?”
“When we left King’s Landing,” the knight said, “we were men of Winterfell and Darry and Blackhaven. Six score brave men and true, led by a fool in a starry cloak. More than eighty of those men are dead now, but we fight on. Others have taken up the swords that fell from their hands. With their help, we fight for Robert and the realm.”
“You’re Beric Dondarrion,” Yoren realised. He did not imagine him so young.
“You came from King’s Landing?” The third man, who had been silent, spoke in a grave tone as dry and hard as stone.
“Aye, I did,” Yoren spat. “When I left, I thought no place could be worse. Now, I know better. Riverlands are being raped and burnt.”
“It is,” agreed the red priest. “We seek to fight it.”
“I seek to leave this all behind,” Yoren grunted. “Got a long road to the Wall.”
“Kingsroad won’t be safe,” Dondarrion warned. “Tywin Lannister sits at Harrenhal. From there, he reaches out with his fingers to burn at the land. Gregor Clegane, Amory Lorch, the Bloody Mummers. No one is safe; knights, lords, farmers, merchants. Aye, crows and night’s men too. One glance at those wagons of yours, and they’ll be riding for you with blades drawn and arrows notched.”
Yoren felt a claw of despair and exhaustion rend his withered heart. Aye, Robert’s death had spelled the end of summer and peace. “Doubt King’s Landing will open its gates for me to take a ship to Eastwatch.”
“No,” Thoros told him, staring at his wine. “No, they won’t, my friend.”
“It may be that Maidenpoole has those ships you need,” Beric told him. “Do you have the coin they will want from you?”
“No,” Yoren muttered. He had spent most of it in King’s Landing anyhow.
The one-eyed knight gave a look to the red priest and the grim man. “Some of our numbers are haunting the Hollow Hill. Harwin can lead you to them. From there, you could follow the Red Fork to Riverrun, where the Young Wolf sits.”
“Harwin?” Yoren thought the name familiar. “From Winterfell?”
“Lord Stark lent us a score of his men,” said Beric forlornly. “He is the last of them.”
“He will have much to ask you,” chuckled the singer. “He’s away now, trying to hunt what he can. Not much left around here other than ash and blood, you see.”
“I wager you won’t offer this help for free,” Yoren said bluntly. “My lot don’t have much food to offer, but we’ve got oil and medicine, and we can spare a donkey.”
“Keep the donkey,” Thoros told him, smiling. “You have a long ride ahead.”
“We will take the oil and medicine, if you are offering,” Beric said.
“How fares the city, then?” Tom asked, plucking at his lute.
“Shite,” he told them simply. “Hundreds, thousands flocking in to flee the war. No food’s coming in from land. Fewer and fewer ships were coming in. The Imp came in, with his mountain’s men, fat load of good that did. The queen took gold from them coming in, and merchants inside too. Whole city was waiting to burn when I left.”
“Grim news,” Beric shook his head. “Kings squabble over the throne, the high lords wage their war, and the realm bleeds and burns.”
“Will you and yours stay here, then?” He asked.
“No,” Thoros shook his head. “I have seen the flames.”
Yoren wondered what that meant, but he could not find it in him to ask.
“We will do what we can for the people, but the fight continues,” Beric Dondarrion said grimly. “There are a hundred villages like this one. We are needed.”
“I wish you fortune, then,” Yoren told him earnestly. “Your lot look like they might need it.”
“Wish us fire and flame,” Thoros raised his wineskin. “That is all we need.”
The red priest had changed. Far from the jolly, fat drunk that King’s Landing knew, there was a hardness to his eyes. All three of the men before him were hard and grim-faced, spectres haunting a war. And haunted by war, it seemed.
“You have a perilous journey ahead,” Beric told him. “A long, cold one fraught with danger at every turn, behind every weed. I do not envy you.”
“I do not envy you,” he told the knight of the purple star. “Me and mine are riding away from the war, yet you towards it. If the Lannisters catch you, I doubt I will see you at the Wall, Dondarrion. Nor you as well, priest.”
At that, knight and priest shared a mirthful glance, but they did not speak.
“You should spend the night here,” suggested Tom. “There is safety in numbers. The villagers are not inclined to offer much for free, but if you and yours were to lend your hands to work, you might find some gifts nonetheless.”
“We just might,” Yoren mused. “The travel will be hard, from here to this hollow hill. And only harder after, to Riverrun and through the Neck and North.”
“Enjoy our hospitality,” Thoros offered his wineskin.
Yoren took it, and drank deeply. It was a sour red, not one he would pay for at a tavern, but it tasted better than thirst or smoke. “My thanks. How will we cross the river?” That one ran south from the God’s Eye. Their wagons could not swim.
“There are ways,” Thoros told him, smiling and eying the hearthfire.
“As you say then,” Yoren said tiredly. “Where shall I get my men set up?”
“Just south of the village, perhaps. Send any strong hands you would spare to us, and we’ll put them to work for some hours,” Beric Dondarrion offered.
And so it was, Yoren kept a stern gaze on the scum and the criminals, lending Dondarrion and his men the boys and the poachers. The wandering crow kept his black gaze on the Golden Star in the sky, chewing on sourleaf silently. Through the sunset and its golden glow, he was quiet, barking commands where needed. And when night came, he felt exhaustion the like he had never felt.
Though the air was marred by smoke and ash and death, Yoren found that he slept well still. His dreams were untroubled. Trouble only came when he woke, when Cutjack came running, shouting that they are gone, Rorge and Biter.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Arya I, II, ACOK
Yoren is an underrated character in my humble opinion, and he will continue to have his troubled journey north to the Wall. At some point in Arc 3, we will get another chapter to see how his little caravan is doing, but not from his POV. I'm trying to get used to getting into the heads of different POVs, so each of these bonus chapters will be from a new person.
For anyone disappointed that it isn't Jory, just know that I have plans for Jory 'One-Eye' Cassel coming up. :))
In fact, the next bonus chapter will be from a minor character in the North, a few chapters from now. Hint: They are part of a noble family, that is not the Boltons or the Starks.
Anyways, a classic butterfly effect. Because Ned is never captured and Varys was busy dealing with the aftermath of that and Littlefinger's death, Gendry is never sent with Yoren. Of course, Gunther helped him there. Without Arya and Gendry, no gold cloaks come to pursue them ... but whether this merry band can make it through the Riverlands will be another story.
Next chapter, we return to our favorite (?) singer.
Chapter 68: Lorenzo I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
This is a curious world, Lorenzo wondered.
“This Yi Ti,” he told a mildly annoyed Lucia, judging by the frown on her face. “It resembles the Empire of Cathay. Spices, pearls, jades, exotic animals, silks. See how they are described here,” he made to hand her the tome but she only offered him a flat stare. Ah, Lorenzo remembered. The East, by Maester Vydel, was a fascinating read, but she had not yet learned to read as well as he could have.
“I know not what to make of it,” he admitted.
“What about the voices in your dreams?” She grunted in Estalian.
When he had asked, the three-eyed crow had only shook his head. There are dark powers in slumber to the far east, we shall not awaken them, the crow told him.
And that was the end of that.
“Verena has not seen to guide my slumbering self,” he said, instead. “I see that you are well-armored in faith and steel this day. You intend to take part in the melee?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“There’s finally real fighting,” she told him, patting her gilded mace.
“The other woman warrior in steel has nothing to do with it?” His lips curled up.
“She is interesting,” Lucia admitted. “I would test my steel with hers.”
“I would wish you fortune, but I think you do not need it, and I do believe that Myrmidians do not have heavy love for Ranald’s fickle favor.”
“They do not.” Lucia rose, resting her cold helm upon her head. Towering over him, she looked a steel giant, mighty and proud as a bastion wall.
“Fight well,” he offered her. She nodded mutely.
He sat alone then, in the luxurious tent that they had been given. The king’s singer and the queen’s shadow, they were known. Accordingly, they were given tents and tables and wine and food as befitting. Lorenzo eyed the messy plate of meat and bread that Lucia had devoured, shaking his head. He reached for the golden goblet, and took a final sip from it. His thoughts were heavy and dreary as of late.
Just the night prior, his dreams were dark. Oh, it started bright enough. He dreamt of a gilded fang, large as if it had come from the maw of a giant’s wolf. He saw two warriors dueling before an ancient, mighty castle while storms raged, but the sight of burning red eyes prevented him from soaring closer. He remembered white light in a black alley, an old lion snarling west, and dragonskulls watching him vigilantly.
There, the crow had found him, perched upon shadows.
“Mighty, are they not?” The crow asked in an aged voice.
“They are,” Lorenzo had agreed. “Though I imagine they may be more fearsome, alive and breathing fire, rather than silent and still.” Tilea was once a colony to the Asur, whose legends with the dragons of yore were renowned. Once in his youth, he had found a forgotten statue in a cave, the face and make of some dead elf.
Niccolo glanced at the old marble and spat on the ground, shaking his head. Are you going to carry this to the nearest city to sell? The hoary old bandit asked him.
“Be careful what you wish,” the three-eyed crow said. His voice turned wistful. “There have always been Targaryens who dreamed of things to come, since long before the Conquest. There are other sights as well, the greensight, the red… It may be that we need a thousand eyes, black and white and green and red, for what is to come.”
“Where is your apprentice, then?”
“He shall be busy tonight. The mastersmith does not need to hover over the journeyman as he hammers his steel day and night.”
“I see,” Lorenzo hummed. “What will you show me this night, then?”
“I have wondered,” the crow said quietly. “Your eyes are green, but have you changed your skins? Beyond the dreams, have you seen the world through a crow’s eye, or ran through a forest on wolf paws?”
“No, I am not a wizard, you see.” Though, his songs could call them to his side. A hymn to Taal soothed the beasts of the wilds, he found, calming them where needed, invigorating and infuriating those mighty creatures where needed.
“Repetition of words does not make them truth,” the crow’s voice was flat.
“Denial of truth does not turn it false.”
“What are you then? I have seen what you can do. The children are called those who sing the song of earth, in their true tongue. Yet, you sing the song of all; of fortune and fury, of mercy and malice.”
“Your words are query and answer both. I am just a bard,” Lorenzo told him, smiling.
“I sense we shall make no progress in this.”
“I sense so as well,” Lorenzo nodded. “You believe that I can…”
“Skinchange,” the crow intoned. “It may be so.”
And the crow spoke the truth.
That night, he saw from the eyes of wolves and ravens alike, and more. He was a wild wolf thundering through a dark forest, a stream by his side, gushing swiftly, as he ran with a pack of howling wolves. He was a raven in a godswood, watching a shadowy figure speak to a young woman in the pale moonlight. He was an eagle soaring over a fleet sailing south amidst stormy waters, and in the winds, golden and black banners fluttered. The crow’s voice had faded away, and Lorenzo flew east.
He flew over shimmering cities, each a shadow of Luccini’s light. He thought he saw a bird of fire circling the Three Sisters, then it faded as well. What has happened, or what is to come? He soared past a smoking land, choked by fire and dark smog. Topless towers, jagged as dragonfangs, pierced into the sky, and rivers of boiling lava spilled across the land. He thought he saw life there. He turned away.
Past it, he saw an expanse of red sands, parched and lifeless. No, not so lifeless. He saw, under the comet’s golden glimmer, shadows marching east and he heard a song. The music of dragons. Lorenzo gave that a wistful smile.
As he hovered over a sea of vile poison, he looked to the east. And there, he saw naught but darkness. An endless ocean of dread shadows, he shivered to remember. He saw a city of whispering secrets, where the dead walked again, shambling and groaning. In another, he saw unspeakable rites performed to slake the eternal hunger of cackling, mad gods. He saw a town of dry, aged bones that were not human, and a city of pale, bloodless men, and one of queer, winged men who soared like misshapen eagles. Then, he saw it.
A city ruled by a king in yellow, whose eyeless eyes watched him. Under a night of starry wisdom, he saw a god-shaped hole in the world, mournful and hollow.
He woke, then. Never again, he told himself. West or east, north or south, this world is ancient and terrible.
The singer stirred himself from his silent solitude, rising slowly. An oval mirror had been placed in their tent, grand and illustrious with a back of carved ornate gold. Lucia used it to strap her armour. He stood before it and a blond-haired man with green eyes stood before him. The skin was fair and unblemished, the hair long and smooth to brush near against the shoulder, and the eyes were emerald bright. He was clad in fine green silks, embroidered with golden flowers. Along with the green and gold were a pair of white trousers, and deerskin boots, as soft as a petal.
Around his neck, he wore a golden brooch of a rose that the queen had gifted him. He placed The East in the ironwood chest by his campbed, closing it gently. His hand brushed against his lute, and he strapped it to his back. “Where kings go,” Lorenzo murmured softly, “songs follow.”
Outside, smoke drifted from the camp’s fires. It must have been thousands of them, filling the air with a pale, smoky haze. The horse lines stretched out over leagues, across farm and field and rolling plain, a sea of flesh and mane and smell. So many banners were held that the tall staffs resembled a forest of their own. Great siege engines lined the grassy verge of the roseroad, mangonels and trebuchets and rolling rams mounted on wheels taller than a man on horseback.
The steel points of pikes flamed red with sunlight, as if already blooded, while the pavilions of the knights and high lords sprouted from the grass like silken mushrooms. There were men with spears and men with swords, men in steel caps and mail shirts, camp followers strutting their charms, archers fletching arrows, teamsters driving wagons, swineherds driving pigs, pages running messages, squires honing swords, knights riding palfreys, grooms leading ill-tempered destriers. And singers, thought the singer.
The golden rose of Highgarden was seen everywhere: sewn on the right breast of armsmen and servants, flapping and fluttering from the green silk banners that adorned lance and pike, painted upon the shields hung outside the pavilions of the sons and brothers and cousins and uncles of House Tyrell. Alongside the golden rose were fox and flowers, apples, huntsmen, oak leaves, cranes, butterflies and more. Across the Mander were the sigils of the storm; nightingales, quills, sea turtles.
King Renly’s own standard flew high over all. From the top of his tallest siege tower, a wheeled oaken immensity covered with rawhides, streamed the largest war banner that he had ever seen; a cloth big enough to carpet many a hall, shimmering gold, with the crowned stag of Baratheon black upon it, prancing proud and tall.
Past a line of brightly colored pavilions, Lorenzo found the melee field in preparation, under the shadow of a small castle. A field had been cleared off, fences and galleries and tilting barriers thrown up. Hundreds were gathering to watch, perhaps thousands. He found the queen and king in the high seats of honor. To the king’s right stood Lord Mathis Rowan whispering into the young stag’s ears.
Renly laughed at whatever the lord had told him, placing a hand upon Rowan’s shoulder. Lorenzo’s gaze hardly lingered. He watched the lords and ladies in the gallery. He saw the tiny and delicate Lady Oakheart, who had asked him for two songs during the feast last night. He recognised the stern, grim Lord Randyll Tarly as well, his greatsword propped up against the back of his seat. Heartsbane, he recalled from the conversation he had with Willas Tyrell. Amidst the pomp and din, he found himself missing forlornly the quiet, clever conversations he shared with the heir to Highgarden. A war camp holds few men of wit and wisdom.
There was a third seat to the queen’s left, a smaller but no less fine make of wood and inlaid gold. Renly watched him with deep blue eyes and an easy smile. The slender circlet seemed to sit well on his head; a ring of soft gold roses exquisitely wrought and at the front lifted a stag’s head of dark green jade.
“Seasinger,” the king greeted. Queen Margaery favored him with a sweet smile.
“King Renly, Queen Margaery,” Lorenzo bowed. “Majesty follows your trails.”
The king laughed lightly. “Sit,” Renly gestured towards the chair. “I am afraid your voice may not be well heard this day, over the clashing of steel. Watch, mayhaps. It may be that the battle will write a song in your head?”
“Of course,” Lorenzo bowed again, sitting. Battles make for the poorest songs. Some songs sang for victory at a war’s end, some mourned the start of a war, crying at the tragedy of the bloodshed to come. He found little taste in the songs of battle.
“My shadow wishes to fight today,” Margaery giggled, eying the armored figure of Lucia. She stood tall and proud, towering over even some of the knights gathering in the field, much to their dismay as he could spy in their eyes. “I could not refuse her.”
No one can refuse her, Lorenzo smiled. “The shadow does as the body acts. The queen’s shadow can only do what the queen does best.”
“Oh,” Queen Margaery looked at him. “And what is that?”
Lorenzo offered her a charming smile. “Shine.”
“You sing as well as you flatter,” Margaery laughed, like a song.
It must have been over a hundred knights that had gathered in the field. The light glimmering from their armor and lances and swords was so bright that he looked away. Most of the knights were ahorse, and Lucia was as well. Atop her barded brown mare, she looked as fierce as any man in steel. Fiercer, he met her eyes.
Even from afar and through the thin visor of her helm, he thought he saw her rolling her olive eyes.
So many colors, so many banners, Lorenzo thought. Flowers, fruits, fearsome beasts. The eagle will soar over all of them, and pick with bloody talons.
He entertained himself, and the royals, with a wordless tune. It was a fair, sweet one; one that reminded him of Highgarden. Try as he might, he had grown some slight fondness for that white castle of flowers. Even now, if he closed his eyes, he could smell the flower hedges and fruit trees. It was a melody for the verdant field, a hymn for the pleasure barge that floated down the Mander, a symphony for each and every rose within Highgarden. And the finest rose of the garden heard its sound, and closed her eyes, sighing contently and sweetly.
Once the knights and warriors had gathered in a ring, a hundred and sixteen, Renly Baratheon rose. He did so regally, and silence fell upon the field. Lords and knights and ladies watched the young king, and Renly raised a hand.
“The chivalry of the Reach! The might of the storm! Let it all be shown on this day!”
And the melee began.
The knights on their barded steeds had little room to gallop for a charge. Instead, lance met sword amidst a growing storm of dust and shouts. Battleaxe clashed with maces, morningstars with steel shields. He saw two destriers collide in full armor, going down in a tangle of steel and horseflesh. He saw a knight discarding his shattered lance and drawing a longsword. Another knight fell from his horse, and did not rise again. And in the eye of the storm, he saw Lucia.
She deflected a soaring blade with her mace, and slammed the edge of her shield against the foe’s chest, and the man was flung from his horse. Weighed down by armor and shield, her steed was slower. And easier to control, Lorenzo noticed.
A knight in a rainbow-striped cloak wheeled to deliver a backhand blow with a long-handled axe that shattered the shield of the man pursuing him and sent him reeling in his stirrups. Another in a green cloak took an axe to his shield, splinters raining upon his plate, but he held a dirk to his foe’s throat, and the man yielded.
Over the song of steel, only the queen could hear his strumming. Yet, he played nonetheless, for his own ears. As sharp blades clashed and rang, he heard the crowd shout “ Highgarden!”, “Storm’s End!”, “Horn Hill!”, and dozens of other castles.
Another roar went up from the crowd as a helmetless red-bearded man with a griffin on his shield went down before a big knight in blue armor. His steel was a deep cobalt, even the blunt morningstar he wielded with such deadly effect, his mount barded in the quartered sun-and-moon heraldry of House Tarth.
“Red Ronnet’s down, gods be damned,” a man cursed.
“Loras’ll do for that blue—” a companion answered before a roar drowned out the rest of his words.
Another man was fallen, trapped beneath his injured horse, both of them screaming in pain. Squires rushed out to aid them. Half of the realm is in flames, Lorenzo mused, and here the knights of summer play at war. The lords and ladies in the gallery were as engrossed in the melee as the men on the ground. Not even the pompous princes of the Tilean cities viewed war as such. War was a plague; none truly desired it, only what could be reaped from it. The lifeblood of Tilea was wine, gold, and trade, and the sort of war that brought burnt fields would drain the body of Tilea of its wine and gold and trade. No, the princes preferred to pay the masses of mercenaries to slay each other needlessly. And the more of the dogs of war that bit each other to death, less coin needed to be forked out to them.
On and on and on, men fought under the light of the sun. Knights clashed swords, lances were broken, and shields were splintered. Lorenzo found himself pondering the meaning of starry wisdom instead, his thoughts haunted by the king in yellow.
Out in the field, another man lost his seat to the knight in the rainbow-striped cloak, and the king shouted approval with the rest. “ Loras!” he heard him call. “Loras! Highgarden!” The queen clapped her hands together in excitement.
Only five were left in the fight now, and there was small doubt whom king and commons favored. Ser Loras rode a tall white stallion in silver mail, and fought with a long-handled axe. A crest of golden roses ran down the center of his helm. Two of the other survivors had made common cause. They spurred their mounts toward the knight in the cobalt armor and Lucia.
As they closed to either side, the blue knight reined hard, smashing one man full in the face with his splintered shield. Lucia crashed her mace at the other, breaking shield and arm. In a blink, one combatant was unhorsed, the other reeling.
The blue knight let his broken shield drop to the ground to free his left arm, and turned to eye Lucia. Then, the Knight of Flowers was on them. The weight of his steel seemed to hardly diminish the grace and quickness with which Ser Loras moved, his rainbow cloak swirling about him.
The three mares wheeled like lovers at a harvest dance; brown and black and white, their riders throwing steel in place of kisses. Longaxe flashed and morningstar whirled and mace soared. An awful clangor was raised. Ser Loras slashed his axe at Lucia, who blocked it with her shield. The blue knight answered with his morningstar, swinging it in a wide arc. Loras ducked his elegant helm under the blow, but Lucia took it on a shield. Then, a swipe from the axe scarred the side of the brown steed.
Lucia answered with her shield, slamming the heavy metal against Loras’ arm. As the Knight of Flowers crashed onto the floor, Lucia leapt off her braying mount. Two were dismounted now, and the third watched them silently. Then, his steel boots met the soil as well. Ser Loras rose, and the three warriors stood in a loose triangle.
The crowd was silent. Ser Loras held his battleaxe tightly and close to his chest. Lucia had her heavy shield raised, and twirled her mace as she liked to do. The blue knight gave his morningstar a few lazy, testing swings. Then, Ser Loras leapt at the knight, like a steel leopard pouncing on a boar. The blade of the axe flew for the knight’s helm, and he raised the taut chain of the morningstar to block it.
The Knight of Flowers twirled the axe around masterfully, and the longaxe caught the blue knight’s hand on the backswing. He raised his axe for another blow, and then parried a wild, fierce swing of a gilded mace. Lucia’s shield smashed into him again, and Ser Loras grunted in pain, swiping at her greaves with the axe. Steel met steel.
The blue knight rose, a hand on the bloodied soil. Then, Loras ducked towards Lucia, his axe biting sharply. It bit only steel, as her shield met him. The morningstar soared towards them. The steel ball met Lucia’s shield, and Loras’ axe cut through its chains. The crowd screamed like a rutting beast.
If the flower knight had thought that Lucia would work with him against the third, he was sorely wrong. She slammed her gauntlet against his helm, and Lorenzo winced, imagining the ringing. The Myrmidian raised her mace, only for the blue knight to crash into her. The blue knight pulled a long dirk free and flicked open Lucia’s visor, but the tip of the mace was thrusted against the turquoise helm. With a snarl, Lucia threw the knight away from her. Ser Loras came, swinging his battle axe down.
She rolled to the side, and the axe pierced only mud. Suddenly, the two knights were grappling on the ground, Ser Loras on the bottom. His visor was wrenched open, and a metal fist was held high. The roar of the crowd was too loud for Lorenzo to hear what Ser Loras said, but he saw the word form on his split, bloody lips. Yield.
The blue knight climbed unsteady to his feet, and took Loras’ axe. Lucia had seized both her weapons again, and watched the knight. Squires dashed onto the field to help the vanquished Loras to his feet. He could spy the sullen anger on the young man’s handsome face. Then, all eyes turned to the two snarling warriors.
Axe met shield and mace once, twice, and thrice. Then again, and again. Sparks flew, steel rang, and the crowd was roaring. Lucia’s mace crashed against the knight’s pauldrons, but the blue knight only grunted and brought his axe down on Lucia’s kiteshield. The Myrmidian responded by flicking her mace from low to high, crashing swiftly against the bottom of the blue helm.
Then, the heft of the axe splintered and broke under the shield. Without hesitation, he took the top half of the broken axe, wielding it like a jagged handaxe. It reminded him of Andrei, but cruder and elegant at the same time. The blade bit along Lucia’s breastplate but she ignored it, crashing her mace against the dented pauldron. Then, the knight raised his broken axe and swung it, just as Lucia brought her mace close.
The world must have frozen over, by the way the two warriors froze. Lucia’s mace was a hair away from the knight’s face, while the axe was an inch away from her underarm, protected only by mail. The crowd was silent. The spell was only broken when Lucia slowly drew her mace away. The knight backed with hesitation, but Lucia only offered him a nod before turning away, and walking fearlessly for the queen. Her own armor was scarred and crusted with blood, but her gait was proud and no knight met her fierce gaze. Each creak of her steel boots was loud as Lucia made to stand by Queen Margaery’s side, in between her and Lorenzo.
“Approach,” King Renly called to the dazed champion.
He limped toward the gallery. At close hand, the brilliant blue armor looked rather less splendid; everywhere it showed scars, the dents of mace and warhammer, the long gouges left by swords, chips in the enameled breastplate and helm. His cloak hung in rags. From the way he moved, the man within was no less battered. A few voices hailed him with cries of “Tarth!” and, oddly, “ A Beauty! A Beauty!” but most were silent. The blue knight knelt before the king. “Grace,” he said, his voice muffled by his dented greathelm.
“You are all your lord father claimed you were.” Renly’s voice carried over the field.
He leaned in to whisper to Lucia. “You could have won that.”
“If I did,” she grunted, “I would have to stand there and suffer that.”
That was King Renly declaring the Lady Brienne of Tarth the victor of the great melee at Bitterbridge, last standing of one hundred sixteen knights. “As champion, you may ask of me any boon that you desire. If it lies in my power, it is yours.”
“Your Grace,” Brienne answered, “I ask the honor of a place among your Rainbow Guard. I would be one of your seven, and pledge my life to yours, to go where you go, ride at your side, and keep you safe from all hurt and harm.”
“Done,” he said. “Rise, and remove your helm.”
She did as he bid her. And when the greathelm was lifted, Lorenzo understood the mockery. Beauty, they called her, in the way cravens were dubbed brave. The hair beneath the visor was a squirrel’s nest of dirty straw, and her eyes were large and very blue, a young girl’s eyes, trusting and guileless, like a calm sea. Her features were broad and coarse, her teeth prominent and crooked, her mouth too wide, her lips so plump they seemed swollen. A thousand freckles speckled her cheeks and brow, and her nose had been broken more than once.
Lucia was not a beautiful woman; fierce and rough and crude as she was. Yet, there was power in her, and if he believed true, some noble blood in those veins. She had a strong aquilline nose, skin that was kissed by the sun, and olive eyes that were too often angry. Even so, Brienne of Tarth bore fewer features that could be considered fine. And she was an inch or two taller than Lucia. That is rare. Very rare.
He watched as King Renly cut away her torn cloak and fastened a rainbow in its place. Her smile lit up her face, and her voice was strong and proud as she said, “My life for yours, Your Grace. From this day on, I am your shield, I swear it by the old gods and the new.” There was a look in her eyes, a painful one to watch.
He gave Lucia an accusatory look, but she kept her eyes straight to the sky. And when the queen rose, Lucia gave him a mocking bow, mirth in her eyes.
He shook his head with a smile.
When the feast came in Caswell’s castle, he found himself seated by the queen’s left, herself on the king’s left. Lucia shadowed the queen, stern and clad in steel despite the merriment around. Brienne of Tarth had been seated at the far end of the high table. She did not gown herself as a lady, but chose a knight’s finery instead, a velvet doublet quartered rose-and-azure, breeches and boots and a fine-tooled swordbelt, her new rainbow cloak flowing down her back.
No garb could disguise her plainness, though; the huge freckled hands, the wide flat face, the thrust of her teeth. Out of armor, her body seemed ungainly, broad of hip and thick of limb, with hunched muscular shoulders but no bosom to speak of. And it was clear from her every action that Brienne knew it, and suffered for it. She spoke only in answer, and seldom lifted her gaze from her food. He glanced at Lucia, and found her watching the young woman with pity in her olive eyes.
Of food, there was plenty. The war had not touched the fabled bounty of Highgarden. While singers sang and tumblers tumbled, they began with pears poached in wine, and went on to tiny savory fish rolled in salt and cooked crisp, and capons stuffed with onions and mushrooms. There were great loaves of brown bread, mounds of turnips and sweetcorn and pease, immense hams and roast geese and trenchers dripping full of venison stewed with beer and barley. For the sweet, Lord Caswell’s servants brought down trays of pastries from his castle kitchens, cream swans and spun-sugar unicorns, lemon cakes in the shape of roses, spiced honey biscuits and blackberry tarts, apple crisps and wheels of buttery cheese.
He did not sing this night, for the king had bade him to judge if the other singers were well worth the gold they were paid. They were not. He watched the king instead. Renly sat with his young bride on his left hand and her brother on the right. Apart from the white linen bandage around his brow, Ser Loras seemed none the worse for the day’s misadventures.
He had replaced his tattered tourney cloak with a new one; the same brilliantly striped silk of Renly’s Rainbow Guard, clasped with the golden rose of Highgarden. From time to time, King Renly would feed Margaery some choice morsel off the point of his dagger, or lean over to plant the lightest of kisses on her cheek, but it was Loras who shared most of his jests and confidences. The king enjoyed his food and drink, that was plain to see, yet he seemed neither glutton nor drunkard. He laughed often, and well, and spoke amiably to lords and lowly serving wenches alike.
Some of his guests were less moderate. They drank too much and boasted too loudly, to her mind. Lord Willum’s sons Josua and Elyas disputed heatedly about who would be first over the walls of King’s Landing. Lord Varner dandled a serving girl on his lap, nuzzling at her neck while one hand went exploring down her bodice. Guyard the Green, who fancied himself a singer, diddled a harp and gave them a verse about tying lions’ tails in knots, parts of which rhymed. Ser Mark Mullendore brought a black-and-white monkey and fed him morsels from his own plate, while Ser Tanton of the red-apple Fossoways climbed on the table and swore to slay Gregor Clegane in single combat. The vow might have been taken more solemnly if Ser Tanton had not had one foot in a gravy boat when he made it.
No point in singing this night, Lorenzo thought, dismayed. They can hear a song better over the din of a battlefield.
The height of folly was reached when a plump fool came capering out in gold-painted tin with a cloth lion’s head, and chased a dwarf around the tables, whacking him over the head with a bladder. Finally, King Renly demanded to know why he was beating his brother. “Why, Your Grace, I’m the Kinslayer,” the fool said.
“It’s Kingslayer, fool of a fool,” Renly said, and the hall rang with laughter.
It is all a game to them, Lorenzo realised. A tourney writ large. Glory and honor and chivalry, song and story. He plucked at the strings of his lute. There will be no songs sung for these ones who die.
He found that he could no longer even strum at his lute, dismayed as he was. Instead, he stole a blackberry tart and approached the stiff Lucia.
“The hams are immense,” he told her. “Good knight.”
“Do you need someone to feed you?” She asked mockingly, in the Common Tongue.
“You know I prefer the sweet to the savoury,” he chuckled. He savoured the sweet tart in his hands slowly. “Is this not a glorious sight?”
“As glorious as the songs they sing to children,” she muttered in her native tongue. “They are so young, so blind and foolish. Like a thousand Knights Errants.”
“La follia della giovinezza,” he murmured. “The madness of youth.”
“Were you?”
“Hmm?”
“Were you mad as a youth?”
Lorenzo only smiled. “No more than you might have been.”
Lucia gave him half a glare. “Were you a bandit?” She spoke in Estalian.
“You might be surprised,” he responded playfully.
“Singer,” Renly called to him, an easy smile on his face. “I feel the need of some air. Will you walk with me?”
Lorenzo turned, bowing. “I should be honored.” Through the din of song and shout, he thought he heard a snort behind him.
As they passed through the lines of trestle tables, Brienne rose to her feet. “Your Grace, give me but a moment to don my mail. You should not be without protection.”
King Renly smiled. “If I am not safe in the heart of Lord Caswell’s castle, with my own host around me, one sword will make no matter ... not even your sword, Brienne. Sit and eat. If I have need of you, I’ll send for you.”
His words seemed to strike the girl harder than any blow she had taken that afternoon. “As you will, Your Grace.” Brienne sat, eyes downcast. Lorenzo watched her with curious green eyes as they left. She could not have been older than twenty, he thought. A year or three younger than the stag king.
“This way,” the king took him through a low door into a stair tower.
They had reached the top of the stairwell. Renly pushed open a wooden door, and they stepped out onto the roof. Lord Caswell’s keep was scarcely tall enough to call a tower, but the country was low and flat and he could see for leagues in all directions. Wherever he looked, he saw fires. They covered the earth like fallen stars, and like the stars there was no end to them.
“If you deign to count them, Seasinger,” Renly said quietly. “You will still be counting when dawn breaks in the east.”
“Only the fool goes to the shore and counts the grains of sand, King Renly.”
Renly’s eyes were filled with mirth. “There must be as many Lannisters whose names sound like yours.”
Lorenzo wore a smile, refusing to blink. “Names are just words.”
“Words can kill,” Renly told him. “Words can condemn, and judge, and slay.”
“Words can be sung as well.”
“They can,” Renly nodded. “And you sing them well. Curious, is it not? A few moons before my kingly brother was slain, a green-eyed, blond-haired bard, with a voice like the sea and prettier than the Kingslayer, arrives at Highgarden. He sings so well that the Tyrells appoint him as their court bard. And now he marches with them.”
“A curious coincidence,” Lorenzo said softly. “Nothing more, King Renly.”
“As you say,” Renly laughed without mirth. “You came from Braavos, you say.”
“I was raised by rough men and merciful sisters, and I sang to the sea and the men who sailed those waters. I left when I heard the calling of the journey.”
“As you say,” Renly watched him. “The last King of the Rock was Loren Lannister.”
“He knelt to Aegon the Dragon,” Lorenzo mused. “In Braavos, women like to name nameless children after figures of legend. Sometimes, those legends come from the east, as far as Yi Ti. Sometimes, those legends come from the west, as far as the Westerlands.” Whether that was the truth, he did not know. Yet, judging by the king’s face, he certainly did not.
“As you say,” Renly said for the third time. “I-” Renly broke off suddenly, distracted. “What’s this now?”
The rattle of chains heralded the raising of the portcullis. Down in the yard below, a rider in a winged helm urged his well-lathered horse under the spikes. “Summon the king!” he called tiredly but with strength.
Renly vaulted up into a crenel. “I’m here, ser.”
“Your Grace.” The rider spurred his mount closer. “I came swift as I could. From Storm’s End. We are besieged, Your Grace, Ser Cortnay defies them, but ...”
Lorenzo blinked. But if he were shocked, Renly Baratheon was more so. The young king’s face was frozen, and his eyes blinked rapidly. He found his voice.
“But ... that’s not possible. I would have been told if Lord Tywin left Harrenhal.”
“These are no Lannisters, my liege. It’s Lord Stannis at your gates. King Stannis, he calls himself now.”
The fleet sailing south, Lorenzo remembered his dream. His mind was racing. A raven had flown to Bitterbridge, as it must have for dozens of other castles and ports. He remembered the night that Renly and his lords read the letter. If one had been standing outside, they might have thought the jester had made a particularly amusing jape. Not so amusing now, Lorenzo saw the look on Renly’s face.
If this Stark is with Stannis, Andrei must be with him too. He remembered the rumors he heard back in Highgarden. The Stark’s swornsword, Andrei had found renown as, defeating the Kingslayer and slaughtering men before the steps of the Iron Throne. This talk of a hand dragon, Lorenzo knew the use of a pistol well. He had seen the Kossar use it plenty on their travels. How and why the Kislevite had found himself working as a guard for one of the most powerful and important men in the realm, Lorenzo did not know, nor did he find it important.
Renly Baratheon, he knew, would have to confront his brother at the home they grew up in, where they starved together. A bitter battle between brothers, Lorenzo wondered, intrigued. A true tragedy. A mournful tale and song.
The king bade him to leave, a dazed look upon his face. Lorenzo bowed, leaving Renly Baratheon to the silence and the shadows. I suppose Lucia will get what she wants now, he sighed, a bloody battle to decide it all. Would Andrei be there?
He did not know if he would be there, considering Renly’s suspicion of him.
Sleep did not come easy to Lorenzo that night. He dreamt of dragons dancing over a town, their shadows reeling and coiling over streets and alleys. Then came fire, and all was silent and dark. And in that darkness, dragonskulls watched him in his sleep.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Catelyn II, ACOK
A lot of trippy dreams, eh? Feel free to discuss them, I would love to hear the theories. And yes, that was a Carcosa, King In Yellow reference since Carcosa exists in Planetos.
Green eyes, blond hair, attractive features, clever, a singing voice better than Rhaegar's, I wonder how Cersei would react to Lorenzo.
Fittingly, next chapter, we fly back to the North and see what Bran has been doing.
Chapter 69: Bran I
Summary:
Things are not so well in the North.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Ser Rodrik watched him from the dark corner of his room. His face was gone.
No matter how tightly Bran squeezed his eyes shut, he could still see. And he could hear. The slow, rhythmic patter of blood dripping onto the carpet. The wet, obscene squelch as the thing that had once been Ser Rodrik Cassel stretched its mouth into that wide, terrible grin. And the gurgling, thick, wet, and wrong, from something that no longer had a throat, or lips, or teeth
“Please…” Bran whimpered.
“I would never hurt you, Bran,” the knight spoke with a dozen voices. Some were sweet and cloying, others were dark and raspy. The thing took a step closer.
There were others in the room, other dark grotesques. Maester Luwin sat where he always did, but his chains were wound so tightly around his throat that his face had turned pale, his eyes bulging, bloodshot, and unblinking. His tongue had been split in two, forked like a serpent’s, and when he opened his mouth, he hissed at Bran. Old Nan was there too, shrunken and toothless as ever, but her withered flesh was riddled with slits and holes, seeping something dark and glistening.
They were all coming closer now; each groaning and moaning and crying. Bran, they called to him, reaching out with flayed fingers. Bran. Bran. BRAN!
He woke.
Sweat ran in rivulets down his skin, and his heart pounded so hard it swallowed all other sound. He glanced around frantically. His chambers were empty, save for Summer, curled by the hearth, breathing slow and steady, but his eyes lingered on the place where Ser Rodrik had stood in his dream, faceless and grinning.
Then came the knock.
His head snapped toward the door so fast it felt as if it might come loose. Summer stirred at once, ears twitching.
"Who... who is it?" Bran whispered.
“Jeyne, m’lord,” said the girl quietly. “Hodor is with me. Ser Rodrik is preparing to leave. You had not awoken so…”
Bran felt a panic seize him, a cold fire pooling within. No, he thought. He cannot go.
Trouble had grown to the east. By all accounts, Roose Bolton’s vicious bastard had seized Lady Hornwood as she returned from the harvest feast, marrying her that very night even though he was young enough to be her son. Her husband, Halys Hornwood, had died at the Green Fork, though her son, Daryn, still fought valiantly by Robb’s side in the south. Coupled with the queer news of farmers and hunters vanishing in the lands close to the Dreadfort, Ser Rodrik grew grimly determined. Then came the news last night, of Lord Manderly taking Hornwood's castle. To protect the Hornwood holdings from the Boltons, he had written, but Ser Rodrik had been almost as angry with him as with the bastard of Bolton.
That was last night, and now, Ser Rodrik was preparing to ride forth with fifty men to set matters to right. The old knight’s skinless face smiled at him again in his mind, and Bran shivered in fright. No, they cannot go, he thought desperately.
“Come in,” he told them as bravely as he could. “Be quick about it too, I must speak with Ser Rodrik. Before they ride out.”
“Hodor,” Hodor said, as the giant and the girl entered. They made for a strange pair; the gentle giant who could only speak the one word, and the solemn, young woman who hardly spoke. Nevertheless, Bran enjoyed their company, quiet as it was. Perhaps, it was precisely for how quiet they were. Jeyne helped to dress him, and Hodor took him in the basket on his strong, sturdy back. Giant and girl and cripple and wolf marched down the hallway silently, like a curious troupe.
They found Ser Rodrik ahorse in the courtyard, barking sternly at the dozens of riders around him. All were armored in mail and furs, with spears and swords and bows strapped to them. Each was grim and fierce, the best of the guards they had left. The knight wore ringmail and a padded leather vest under a dark, furred cloak, and Bran could spy the dagger and longsword hanging from his sword belt.
“Bran, my lord,” Ser Rodrik gave a gruff smile. “You did not need to come bid farewell.”
“No,” he blurted out. “You can’t go, you…”
Suddenly, he felt the weight of dozens of eyes upon him; some curious, others pitying, some mocking. Ser Rodrik sat mounted, just as he did atop Hodor’s shoulders, yet their eyes met at the same level. Bran fought to hold the old knight’s strong gaze.
“I must,” Ser Rodrik said, not unkindly. “There is trouble in the North, lad. I must do my duty to your father.”
And Ser Rodrik was nothing if not dutiful. “I…”
What could he say? I saw you without your face.
Rodrik Cassel laid an armored hand on his shoulder, with a surprising softness. “I ride with good men,” he assured, “we will do this thing and be done with it.”
“Go,” Bran whispered, “in the name of House Stark.”
Ser Rodrik offered him a wistful smile before turning to bark orders at his riders.
When they rode out, Bran watched in silence, perched on Hodor’s shoulders like a broken raven. First, his father had left with Sansa and Arya, bound for King’s Landing. Then Jon had gone as well. Now his father was at war, Sansa a prisoner, Arya vanished, and Jon alone at the Wall. His mother had left next. Then Robb, marching to battle. And now, once again, Bran could do nothing but watch as more souls drifted from Winterfell’s warm halls, leaving it emptier with each farewell.
They will return, he told himself. They must.
“Hodor?”
“The godswood,” he told Hodor.
Jeyne excused herself, returning to the kitchens. Summer followed them eagerly to the godswood. All around, Winterfell felt even emptier, as barren and cold as the lands around it. He was the Stark in Winterfell now, Robb had told him, but he did not feel as strong as his father or brothers. Father is the Lord of Winterfell, Robb after him. He could not walk, ride, or be a knight, let alone the Stark of Winterfell.
Everyone is leaving, Bran thought. He did not want to think about who would leave next. Osha? Old Nan? Maester Luwin? Hopefully, the Freys. He wanted the Reeds to stay. All of the other lords and knights had departed within a day or two of the harvest feast, but the Reeds had stayed to become Bran’s constant companions. Jojen was so solemn that Old Nan called him “little grandfather,” but Meera reminded Bran of his sister Arya. She wasn’t scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as good as a boy. She was older than Arya, though; almost sixteen, a woman grown. Arya will like her. They were both older than Bran, even though his ninth name day had finally come and gone, but they never treated him like a child.
I wish they were our wards, Bran frowned, not the Walders.
Though his wishes seldom grew to reality, he found them in the godswood. He saw Meera, her net dangling loose in her left hand, the slender three-pronged frog spear poised in her right. She was moving slowly in a circle, stabbing her spear in the air. Sitting cross-legged under the weirwood, Jojen Reed regarded him solemnly.
“My lord,” Jojen whispered. Meera stabbed the trident into the ground, piercing through a red leaf. “Bran,” she smiled.
Hodor laid him down against the trunk of an old ash, and Summer rested his head against Bran’s lap. “I never knew anyone who fought with a net before,” he told Meera while he scratched the direwolf between the ears. “Did your master-at-arms teach you net-fighting?”
“My father taught me. We have no knights at Greywater. No master-at-arms, and no maester.”
“Who keeps your ravens?”
She smiled. “Ravens can’t find Greywater Watch, no more than our enemies can.”
“Why not?”
“Because it moves,” she told him.
Bran had never heard of a moving castle before. He looked at her uncertainly, but he couldn’t tell whether she was teasing him or not. “I wish I could see it. Do you think your lord father would let me come visit when the war is over?”
“You would be most welcome, my lord. Then or now.”
“Now?” Bran had spent his whole life at Winterfell. He yearned to see far places. “I could ask Ser Rodrik when he returns. He might let me go, but the maester will not.”
“It would be good if you left Winterfell, Bran.” Jojen’s eyes were as old and sorrowful as the heart tree’s.
“It would?”
“Yes. And sooner rather than later.”
“My brother has the greensight,” said Meera. “He dreams things that haven’t happened, but sometimes they do.”
“There is no sometimes, Meera.” A look passed between them; him sad, her defiant.
The greensight, Bran blinked. Though the hummingbird had seldom appeared in his dreams as of late, he could still remember its voice, smooth like soft silks. Yours shall be too, when you see the green.
“Tell me what’s going to happen,” Bran said.
“I will,” said Jojen, “if you’ll tell me about your dreams.”
The godswood grew quiet. Bran could hear leaves rustling, and Hodor’s distant splashing from the hot pools. He thought of the golden man and the three-eyed crow, remembered the crunch of bones between his jaws and the coppery taste of blood. He could still see the lands they had flown over, and those four strange beasts that had evoked such fear. “I will,” he promised.
Jojen’s eyes were the color of moss, and sometimes when he looked at you he seemed to be seeing something else. Like now. “I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with eight grey stone chains,” he said. “It was a green dream, so I knew it was true. A crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them. But chip it did. And three nights prior, I dreamt that one of the chains was already broken.”
“Did the crow have three eyes?”
Jojen nodded. Summer raised his head from Bran’s lap, and gazed at the mudman with his dark golden eyes.
“When I was little, I almost died of greywater fever. That was when the crow came to me.”
“He came to me after I fell,” Bran blurted. “I was asleep for a long time. He said I had to fly or die, and I woke up, only I was broken and I couldn’t fly after all. But… in the dreams… I flew. I flew over the lands; over rivers and valleys and hills. The three-eyed crow was there, and a red singing bird. And… and other things too.”
“You are the winged wolf, Bran,” said Jojen. “I wasn’t sure when we first came, but now I am. The crow sent us here to break your chains.”
“Is the crow at Greywater?”
“No. The crow is in the north.”
“At the Wall?” Bran had always wanted to see the Wall. His bastard brother Jon was there now, a man of the Night’s Watch. Some nights, he thought he saw Jon in his dreams but his face was always covered by a light, gold and brilliant.
“Beyond the Wall.” Meera Reed hung the net from her belt. “When Jojen told our lord father what he’d dreamed, he sent us to Winterfell.”
“How would I break the chains, Jojen?” Bran asked.
“Open your eye.”
“They are open. Can’t you see?”
“Two are open.” Jojen pointed. “One, two.”
“I only have two.”
“You have three. The crow gave you the third, but you will not open it.” He had a slow soft way of speaking. “With two eyes, you see my face. With three, you could see my heart. With two, you can see that oak tree there. With three, you could see the acorn the oak grew from and the stump that it will one day become. With two, you see no farther than your walls. With three, you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall.”
I already have, Bran realised. He had gazed west to Lonely Light and east to the Jade Sea. And more, he remembered the lands that the red bird had shown him. The Empire, the singing voice named it.
“The crow is not the only one in my dreams,” Bran said reluctantly. “There is a red hummingbird and a skeleton in a black cloak. And… before the comet turned gold, I saw it already, in the skull’s eyes. I saw it as it is now, gold with twin tails of fire. I saw it, Jojen. That… thing in the black cloak showed me. And everytime I saw it, or him, there were black roses around. The hummingbird showed me things too. Lands and creatures that I have never seen before, we flew over them all.”
Meera glanced at her brother. Jojen only smiled wistfully. “I dreamt that a singer plucked a black rose from a grave to lay before the chained winged wolf.”
“Who are they?”
“I do not know,” Jojen admitted. “The only one who knows is the crow.”
“I cannot go beyond the Wall,” Bran frowned. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. “If I leave, Rickon will be the Stark in Winterfell. He’s four.”
“It may be that you have to,” Jojen whispered. “Have you dreamt it Bran? That screaming sea of blood and skinless men, standing still outside the walls.”
He felt cold, like frostbite had claimed his fingers and flesh. He had. Sometimes, in his dreams, he saw hundreds of skinless men staggering mournfully outside the walls of Winterfell. They all lacked faces, and the worst were stripped of flesh entirely, little more than sinew and muscle, stretched taut and trembling against the never-ending cold. But the sounds were the worst. The wet, sickening drag of raw flesh scraping across the endless sea of white, and the groaning.
“You have seen it,” Jojen realised, watching him.
“I have,” he whispered.
“We will talk again,” he promised Bran.
The Reeds left him to the solace of the godswood, before the weeping face of the heart tree. The melancholic face watched him. Old Gods, Bran tried to pray, watch… watch over Winterfell. Watch over Ser Rodrik. Watch over Robb, and Mother, and Sansa, and Arya, and Jon, and Father. Watch over Rickon. And … and me.
When he turned away, he met Summer’s gaze. “Hodor,” he said, “bring me to Maester Luwin.”
The maester’s turret below the rookery was one of Bran’s favorite places. Luwin was hopelessly untidy, but his clutter of books and scrolls and bottles was as familiar and comforting to Bran as his bald spot and the flapping sleeves of his loose grey robes. He liked the ravens too, awake and asleep.
He found Luwin perched on a high stool, writing. With Ser Rodrik gone, all of the governance of the castle had fallen on his shoulders. “My lord,” he said when Hodor entered, “you’re early for lessons today.” The maester spent several hours every afternoon tutoring Bran, Rickon, and the Walder Freys.
“Hodor, stand still.” Bran grasped a wall sconce with both hands and used it to pull himself up and out of the basket. He hung for a moment by his arms until Hodor carried him to a chair. “Meera says her brother has the greensight.”
Maester Luwin scratched at the side of his nose with his writing quill. “Does she now?”
He nodded. “You told me that the children of the forest had the greensight. I remember.”
“Some claimed to have that power. Their wise men were called greenseers.”
Yours shall be too, when you see the green.
“Was it magic?”
“Call it that for want of a better word, if you must. At heart, it was only a different sort of knowledge.”
“What was it?”
Luwin set down his quill. “No one truly knows, Bran. The children are gone from the world, and their wisdom with them. It had to do with the faces in the trees, we think. The First Men believed that the greenseers could see through the eyes of the weirwoods. That was why they cut down the trees whenever they warred upon the children. Supposedly, the greenseers also had power over the beasts of the wood and the birds in the trees. Even fish. Does the Reed boy claim such powers?”
“No. I don’t think. But he has dreams that come true sometimes, Meera says.”
“All of us have dreams that come true sometimes. “Call it greensight, if you wish ... but remember as well all those tens of thousands of dreams that you have dreamed that did not come true. Do you perchance recall what I taught you about the chain collar that every maester wears?”
Bran thought for a moment, trying to remember. “A maester forges his chain in the Citadel of Oldtown. It’s a chain because you swear to serve, and it’s made of different metals because you serve the realm and the realm has different sorts of people. Every time you learn something you get another link. Black iron is for ravenry, silver for healing, gold for sums and numbers. I don’t remember them all.”
Luwin slid a finger up under his collar and began to turn it, inch by inch. He had a thick neck for a small man, and the chain was tight, but a few pulls had it all the way around. “This is Valyrian steel,” he said when the link of dark grey metal lay against the apple of his throat. “Only one maester in a hundred wears such a link. This signifies that I have studied what the Citadel calls the higher mysteries—magic, for want of a better word. A fascinating pursuit, but of small use, which is why so few maesters trouble themselves with it. All those who study the higher mysteries try their own hand at spells, soon or late. I yielded to the temptation too, I must confess it. Well, I was a boy, and what boy does not secretly wish to find hidden powers in himself? I got no more for my efforts than a thousand boys before me, and a thousand since. Sad to say, magic does not work.”
“Sometimes it does,” Bran protested. “I had that dream, and Rickon did too. And there are mages and warlocks in the east ...”
“There are men who call themselves mages and warlocks,” Maester Luwin said. “I had a friend at the Citadel who could pull a rose out of your ear, but he was no more magical than I was. Tricks and glamour and all hidden behind a veil. Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters?”
“We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem ... but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes. Perhaps magic was once a mighty force in the world, but no longer. What little remains is no more than the wisp of smoke that lingers in the air after a great fire has burned out, and even that is fading. Valyria was the last ember, and Valyria is gone. The dragons are no more, the giants are dead, the children of the forest forgotten with all their lore.”
“Men die too,” Bran said after a long pause, “but more are born again. Just because magic died does not mean it cannot come again.”
“It may be so,” the maester gave him a tired smile. “A thousand years from now perhaps. No, my lord. Jojen Reed may have had a dream or two that he believes came true, but he does not have the greensight. No living man has that power.”
I do, Bran knew. The three-eyed crow, the hummingbird, and the figure in the black cloak. They could not all be a dream. “Can you tell me about the Stranger?”
“The Stranger?” The maester tilted his head. “You would do best to ask Septon Chayle if you are curious about the Seven.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
Luwin smiled. “Three of the Seven are depicted as male; the Father, the Smith, and the Warrior. Three are depicted as female; the Mother, the Crone, and the Maiden. The Stranger is neither male nor female, yet both, ever the outcast. He is the wanderer from far places, the exile, the unwanted. He is less and more than human, unknown and unknowable, the great end at the end. Death.”
That word terrified Bran more than any nightmare could. “How is he depicted?”
“A faceless figure,” the maester was thoughtful. “His face is described as half human, concealed beneath a hooded mantle. I hear that the statue at Dragonstone depicts him as more beast than man. An interesting choice, if nothing else, by the sculpter.”
A figure in a black cloak. “What about black roses?”
“What about them?” At Bran’s silence, the maester shook his head. “Did you dream that as well, Bran?”
“Yes.”
“Those are just dreams, my lord. Men hold no sway in their dreams, I find. It is best to keep our roots to the world of the waking and the living.”
When Meera came to him at dusk, he told her as much, seated in his windowseat and watching the lights flickering to life, glimmering into gold shards through the glass. “All that I have dreamt, and all that your brother has seen when he slumbers… Do you think they are real?’’
“You best ask my brother.”
“I am asking you,” he insisted.
“I think they can be,” Meera leaned against the wall, peering at the sunlight. “I think they can be unmade, the glimpse of what is to come unmade to never come.”
“How?”
“I shall leave that to the two of you,” she shrugged. “Jojen has his dreams, I have my net and spear. That is all I need.”
What do I have?
When he sat alone again in the dark, after supper, he kept his gaze in the corner where he had dreamt Ser Rodrik stood. There was naught there but empty shadows, but in the night, the shadows seemed to dance before his eyes, shifting and twisting into horrifying shapes that haunted and mocked him even as he tried to sleep.
“Go away,” he wanted to shout, but all that came was a whisper. “Go away.”
Strangely, he found himself relieved when the three-eyed crow came again. They were flying again, and he could feel the wind soaring through his… furs.
He tried not to think about it.
“Where are we going?”
“The end is far less important than the flight itself,” the crow lectured him. In truth, he would take a thousand nagging lectures than to stay awake in the dark of his room.
“Where is the other one? The hummingbird.”
“The singer will be… otherwise occupied.”
“Why?”
“You will know.”
“When?”
“You will know.”
“The maester said that magic has died. Are you of magic?”
He heard a scoff. “There are wise men, and there are men of wisdom.”
Bran frowned, parsing through the crow’s words. “Are you magic?”
“What do you think, Bran Stark?”
“I think you are. The singing bird and the figure in black…”
“Those are not so easily named,” the crow told him with some light amusement.
“Why?”
“You are curious,” the crow muttered. “That is good.”
“So magic is not yet dead? The maester said that Valyria was the last ember, and Valyria is gone.”
“Not yet gone,” the crow said darkly. “Its rotting corpse remains a blight on the world, smoking and coughing stains onto the lands and seas.”
“The dragons, the giants, and the children…”
“You may be surprised,” a dry, aged voice told him. “The dragons have come, the giants are alive, and the children remember.”
The thought of dragons was both terrible and great, a nightmare and a dream. “Where are they? Are they in Valyria?”
“You do not want to know. Not now.”
“Is the figure in black the Stranger?”
He heard a dark, low chuckle. “Look there.”
He looked. A blond-haired man with bright green eyes peered at a sword in his hand. Its blade was smoky and dark and sharp. “The past has come alive, the future has awakened. The old and the new are not all there is.”
Bran did not understand its meaning, but he was growing tired of asking.
“Has magic come to life again?” He asked a final question.
“It has,” the crow finally answered. “Born anew under the blazing comet and amidst the music of dragons. It was always alive, merely slumbering. A beast in its den amidst the harsh snows of winter, and now it has come to life once more. You spoke the truth there, Bran of House Stark. Your dreams are green, and there are men of miracles and women of wonder to the east, further than the eye can see. Yet, they are not so far away as well. There have always been ghosts here, old things with sombre hearts who can still see and sing. Gods still watch from unblinking eyes, and halls made for summer now weep for winter.”
Bran shivered. They were perched atop an old weirwood tree, and ahead, he spied a grand clearing of red leaves. There were figures in the clearing, distortions and blurs of light; gold and red and black, green and blue and white. Things that his eyes were never meant to see, he thought. What are they?
“Other things have stirred from their long sleep as well. Things that should have stayed dormant. The world shudders at their coming. Death comes from the north, marching in all its grotesque silence. There are foul things stirring to the east as well, make no mistake. I will warn you once and never again, do not fly to the east.”
“I will not,” he promised. The last time he broke a promise, he fell.
“The Reed boy spoke the truth of the matter.”
“I must go north? Beyond the Wall?”
“You will.”
“How? Robb is fighting in the south. Father too. Rickon is just four.”
“The threads have been woven, Bran Stark. What men do, it may not matter as much as you think it does or will. The sea may not be of salt, but it will come. This one will be darker, but the threads will not alter much. You will come.”
Bran did not speak. He could not. One of the hazy blurs had grown clearer; from a shimmer of shadows to a familiar figure in black. From under cloth as black as death, a pale, pure skull watched him. And then, it spoke to him.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Bran IV, ACOK.
And the horror starts to creep in, as the war in the south rages on. While things continue to develop in the Riverlands and King's Landing, the rest of the realm is not doing so hot either.
Chapter 70: Bonus Party Scenes
Summary:
Little excerpts of the main campaign that the party is from
Notes:
Just had another fun session with the main party today and so I wanted to post this out. I actually wrote these conversations awhile back, just dug them out for the occasion. By the way, we have been in Altdorf, the capital of the Empire, for about 12-13 sessions. Can you believe it? It's been fun.
And the funny thing is, the exact point that the party was transported away from the Old World and into Planetos was actually set in a 'near future', when I started writing this story. And we are actually approaching that part in the campaign where they will pass by the Colleges of Magic so I'm thinking of making a reference.
I will provide a little context for each of these characters that they are talking to, and I hope that you guys enjoy them!
P.S Folke is not here because the player left the table and he left the party shortly after we arrived at Altdorf!
P.S.S The original title for this short chapter was 'Conversations Far From Home, This Time In Altdorf'
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Context: The Wayfarer's Rest is a tavern that the party used as a base for a time during an earlier arc of Altdorf. Runze is its innkeeper and a local information broker. Some time before they arrived at Altdorf, the party stepped in to investigate a murder on the road and saved another innkeeper's family from a group of criminal enforcers. Motivated to take on that same criminal organisation, they soon find themselves embroiled into a gang war in Altdorf. This is them right before getting into the crazy action, gathering information and what not. Runze's son was killed by that same crime lord and he is also a friend of that previous innkeeper, and you can tell that he saw something in Gunther.
The Wayfarer’s Rest, Altdorf
“So,” Gunther drawled lazily as he took a drink from the mug. “Which of the districts, would you say, is the richest?”
Runze gave him a glance of amusement and hummed in thought. “There’s the Mauerblumchen, full of mansions and quiet streets. You’ll be a fool to try and break in there. Guards will shoot on sight.”
Gunther grimaced. “Right.”
Runze scratched his cheek. “The Palast District, obviously. Anyone who is not a noble or their servant will be suspicious. With the Imperial Palace right there, the City Watch doesn’t play around.”
“That’s where the Emperor lives, right?”
“Aye.” Runze laughed. “Even Ranald may think twice before trying to steal anything there.”
“If yer fingers are feeling itchy,” he continued. “You can try the Markt an der Wand. Mercantile area. Upper class. Rich enough to have their wits addled but not rich enough to be careful.”
Gunther tapped his fingers on the counter. “Speaking of, you know anything about the Brotherhood?”
Runze continued wiping a washed mug. “Which one? At least four different groups in Altdorf call themselves the brotherhood of something.”
Gunther gave him a brief, exasperated glance and fished out a single gold crown, flashing it and flicking it at the smiling man who caught it deftly.
“Brotherhood of Ranald, eh?” Runze flicked the coin, catching it on the back of his palm, the Imperial Griffon snarling at them. “Can’t say I know too much about them. No one knows whether they are a formal organisation or just a loose collection of thieves. They stretch across the Old World, that’s for certain, and can be found in almost every city of note.”
Runze flicked the coin back at him and Gunther blinked.
“Can’t accept payment if the job wasn’t well done, lad.” Runze shrugged. “I’m not a crook.”
“Huh.” Gunther stared at him. “You know, you remind me of someone… Nevermind. Gotta go, the others are waiting. Places to be, locks to pick and all.”
The innkeeper raised his empty mug in salute. “Ranald be with you, then.”
Runze’s smile turned sad. “Could say the same.” He muttered quietly under his breath, staring at Gunther’s retreating back.
Context: Valery, Nikolai, and Alexei are Kislevites that the party met in the Street of a Hundred Taverns, and Andrei befriends them. Valery is a Gospodar and the son of a Boyar, Nikolai is a playful Gospodar hunter, and Alexei is as Ungol as you get; big, burly, gruff. Andrei hits it off with them instantly. As you can tell, I went with the idea of them basically being another DND party on their own adventures. The Laughing Bear Inn is an all Kislevite tavern within the Street, run by Kislevites, for Kislevites.
The Laughing Bear, Altdorf
“So, where were you from?” Nikolai asked curiously, taking a sip from his mug.
Andrei shook his head. “We were nomadic. Roamed from oblast to oblast.” He peered at the dark kvas in his large mug.
Alexei barked out a harsh laugh. “That’s the way. Not like you soft city boys.” He knocked back another pint of his cold kvas.
“City or forest, Gospodar or Ungol, here we are.” Valery smiled, raising his own mug for a toast.
“Here, here!” Nikolai laughed, clinking his own mug forth.
A small smile tugged on Alexei’s lips, his great blonde beard wrinkling, as he brought his mug up, giving him an expectant look.
“To the Motherland,” Andrei said, softly.
“To the Motherland!” They called out, with joy and sorrow.
“What is your plan, then?” Andrei asked, eyeing young Valery. “You have come far.”
The Gospodar shrugged with a lazy smile. “One could say the same for you.” He took another sip. “Further south, perhaps, to see that city of smoke. Or west, past the mountains, into that realm of horses and knights.”
“I find that Altdorf agrees with me.” Nikolai grinned, ignoring Alexei’s disapproving stare and winking at Alina who ignored him in turn.
“Bah.” Alexei waved. “I say we go east, into the mountains. I hear the Dwarfs are good fighters and forge the best steel in the world.”
Valery gave him a lazy smile and a pointed look. “I imagine we will be here for quite some time too. Do you need us to save you again?”
Andrei scoffed and glared light-heartedly at the young man. “We could have taken them. We stormed a barge amidst a storm.”
Alexei huffed, but gave Andrei a long, curious stare. “How many men did you fight then?” The burly Ungol questioned, tapping his fingers on Karolina’s blade.
“Six at once.” Andrei stared back, patting the bear’s head of his own axe.
Nikolai whistled in appreciation and Valery smiled. “Well, go on. Don’t leave us hanging.”
“It was like this…”
Context: The Sisters of Sigmar hardly need any introduction. Badass warrior women who take on the worst that the world has to offer. If you know the slightest thing about Mordheim ... Well, Lucia has many things in common eh? The party helped out the Cloister with recovering a small shard of warpstone trafficked through the city, as the Sisters face way too much official pressure and trouble from the Church and, well, sexism.
The Cloister of the Sisters of Sigmar, Altdorf
Lucia grunted in pain as the weight of Diomira’s hammer crashed against her shield, the vibrations coursing through the metal and up her arm. She brought her mace against the left pauldron of Diomira’s armour and blinked when the steel heft of the warhammer was suddenly in the way. The heavy base of the hammer smacked the side of her helmet in the next instance and Lucia winced in pain, her head ringing.
She felt the head of the warhammer press against her breastplate and Diomira grunted.
“Common trick with a warhammer. The shield doesn’t mean much if the arm behind it gets shattered. Don’t rely on blocking much.” She accepted a waterskin from Cressida, the blind augur smiling in cat-like amusement. “Use the side of your shield to parry, just below the head of the hammer.”
Lucia nodded, removing her helmet and feeling the sweat trickle from her messy, matted hair. “The reach is an issue,” Lucia muttered, remembering that damned diestro’s words.
“It is,” Diomira spoke, a low, deep rumble. “Conversely, if you get too close, the reach would have been an issue for me.”
“Who would want to get close and personal with you, dear Sister Superior?” Cressida asked with a soft smile, chiming in from her seat.
Diomira ignored her. “You wield that mace well, but you clutch it too tightly at times. That gives your strikes more strength but that’s where you start to overextend.”
Lucia blinked and nodded, testing her grip on her gilded, flanged mace.
“It is good that you wield that shield like a weapon. Too many fools only keep it close.” Diomira rested the head of her hammer against her spiked pauldron. “Every part of you is a weapon. Your legs and head are armoured. Use them more.”
Lucia gulped the water from her own skin greedily before giving her a nod.
“That was impressive, nonetheless,” Cressida spoke, softly and gently. “Few in our order can match our Sister Superior the way you did.”
Lucia shrugged. “Had a good teacher.”
Cressida smiled. “Another would not hurt. The rapier can teach as well as the hammer.”
Lucia’s head snapped in her direction and the blind, bald augur grinned cheekily, tapping the side of the red cloth covering her eyes. Ignoring the words, Lucia stepped closer. “Can you…see people? Three of them.”
Cressida hummed. “I see what the Lord shows me. Give me your hand.” Cressida’s pale, smooth hand held onto Lucia’s own one. For a moment, she was silent. Then, she grimaced.
Context: The Crescent Moon Inn is a mysterious, possibly magical, tavern within the Street of a Hundred Taverns, known to be frequented by the enigmatic Strigany people. Granny Bydia is a Strigany seer who has delivered ominous but accurate readings and prophesies to the party, and Ashila is her granddaughter that helps her with her dirty work and messages.
The Crescent Moon, Altdorf
“How do you do it?” Lorenzo asked, curious and half-desperate.
“How do I do what?” Granny Bydia snapped. The interior of the Crescent Moon was dark and smoky, the few lamps casting her face in shadows.
Lorenzo gestured at the pale, green orb on the table. The old woman huffed and scoffed.
“That old thing. My ma passed it down to me, just like her ma before her.”
“Must have been two centuries past,” Ashila muttered under her breath. The old woman snapped her fingers and a blurry, smoky silhouette of a young, tanned girl came to life within the orb, singing and dancing. Ashila looked at it in horror. “I will break that thing.” She threatened, clutching at her weapon, that sharp, steel ring.
Granny Bydia laughed. “You can try, you damned brat.”
Lorenzo coughed slightly and the old seer gave him a glance. “Ah yes, that old thing.”
“Do you know well the history of my people, boy?”
“I’ve read some tales.” He shrugged.
She scowled. “From writers who would burn us.” Her face darkened.
“The Travels of A Strigany, by Alafair.” He murmured quietly, watching her scowl turn into a small, sad smile.
“I remember that brat.” Grannny Bydia laughed. "Do you really want to know?” She gave him a stern look.
“I must.” He whispered, his green eyes haunted by the past and future.
“Then, you’ll know that my people worshipped Vampires as gods, and many still do. Some old mystics, generations older than I am, still croak out that Ushoran will return.”
“You don’t believe so?” Lorenzo stared at her, his face a mask of porcelain with only two shards of emeralds burning coldly amidst the smoky darkness.
“Strigos died a long time ago, and Ushoran with it.” She stared back. “Those fools who still cling to those tales will die with them. This…” She gestured to her orb. “Mystic lore passed down from generation to generation. Not just that. Witch’s blood runs in my veins, lad. Witch’s blood, hex sight and a touch of lore from those bloodsuckers.”
Lorenzo finally blinked, the intensity fading from his eyes. “Not something a simple bard can learn, I imagine?”
Bydia laughed, before her face turned stern. “What you do, I have never seen before.” She closed her eyes. “Those gods are not mine, nor do I pray. I cannot help you.”
Notes:
Do pardon me if it feels less refined than normal. I just felt like putting this out there because I really enjoyed my DND session today with the main party and felt like sharing!
There's a lot of context that had to be summarised very succinctly so if anyone is curious for specific details, feel free to ask!
Next proper chapter returns to King's Landing. Curious, between Tyrion, Gunther, Arya, and Sansa, which POV are you guys most excited to see?
Chapter 71: Gunther III
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“These three, then, he wants dead?”
Gunther nodded, eying the dark beer in the wooden mug. Ironbelly cursed.
“The dagger is not in his hand,” muttered the thief, “but the ink condemns them all the same. All three cannot be saved, you know that.”
“I do, aye, by the gods, I do.” The lines on the smith’s face seemed to have grown deeper and more numerous since the last Gunther had seen him.
“Bryen is the youngest,” the third man offered. Alton rubbed his brow tiredly. The innkeeper of the South Boar was not a face he had expected to find with these Antler Men. Lannisters killed my father during the Sack, Alton told him grimly the first time they gathered in the cellar under his inn. “He has an old mother.”
“Donnor’s got a family,” Ironbelly groused, eyeing the three letters on the table. Tales of treason that the Imp had crafted, that a certain thief was meant to leave behind in solars and on tables. “A wife, three children. Owns a tailor’s shop.”
“But this Victor’s a smith,” the fourth and last on the table spoke. Tobho Mott tapped his fingers along the hilt of a jeweled dagger. “The Imp’s got him working on the chain, I hear.”
“What are their crimes?” The innkeeper frowned.
“Bryen, the fledgling bard,” Gunther sighed. “Tried to write a song about the lions. Poor bastard got the words wrong, and word on the street is that it’s an insult. The tailor, Donnor, was overheard in his cups cursing the Lannisters, and promising to sew a banner for whichever stag takes the throne. The smith, aye, is working for the Imp’s chain, but he’s not happy about it. Although, if he’s so loud about his discontent, he might not be… as subtle as we need to be.”
“I like this not,” Ironbelly furrowed his brow. “Who are we to decide who lives and who dies? These men all do not love the Lannisters. We are not gods, or lords, or kings, just men.”
“Our lives are on the line too,” Alton reminded him. “Many of us have families. We cannot save everyone.”
“We are fighting a war of our own, I would say,” Mott nodded. “Men die. I do not like this any more than you, friend, but it is an ill thing that has to be done.”
“And need I remind you all,” Gunther rapped his knuckles on the table. “I am the one in the most dangerous position? The Imp’s not a fool. If all three of them miraculously live where they should be condemned, then it’s my head next.”
“We can only save one,” Mott declared morosely. “The smith is my choice.”
“Aye,” Ironbelly nodded.
“Forgive me,” Alton murmured. “If we have to hide this man, what purpose might he serve? He surely cannot join in the work you are doing for the Imp’s chain.”
“He’s right,” Gunther agreed. “And he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut either.”
“None of them can,” Mott told him. “That’s why we are here, and their deaths are writ in ink on these yellowed letters.”
“The bard’s an idiot,” Gunther shook his head. “Too young, too reckless.” In truth, the singer was probably older than him. “The smith’s too stubborn and proud. The tailor made an error, while drunk. The only reason he was overheard was because one of the Spider’s birds was flying past there. Bad luck.”
“And he has a family,” Alton reminded them. “A man sobers up fast when he remembers that his family might be in danger. I would know.”
“Smiths we have in plenty,” Mott said reluctantly. “Tailors might be useful, and their work can continue in the shadows as well, in cellars. Take a smith away from their forge and the bellows, and he is just a burly man. I would know.”
“If you all say so,” Ironbelly grumbled. “How will we do this thing then?”
“When night comes,” Gunther said, “I will go to the bard’s house first. A hovel in Flea Bottom. Then, the tailor’s. It’s not too far from the Street of Sisters. The smith will be the last. Lord Tyrion will want to see me tomorrow.”
“I cannot be seen to talk to this tailor,” Ironbelly told him.
“Neither can I,” Tobho Mott shook his head.
“I can,” Alton offered. “An innkeeper buying tunics and fabrics is not uncommon. I can speak to him swiftly.”
“Tell him to go to his favorite tavern at sunset, and to walk down the Street of Sisters so all would think he was heading for a brothel,” Gunther said thoughtfully. “When the City Watch storms into his house in the morning, and finds only his wife and children, they would think that he must be dead in an alleyway somewhere.”
“I will wait with a wagon closeby,” Alton agreed. “Hide him under a tarp and bring him to Tymor’s inn.”
“And the other two?” Ironbelly wondered. “Bryen has an old mother. Who will take care of her after the Watch hangs him?”
“We can leave her some money when we can,” Mott said uncomfortably.
“She lives in Flea Bottom,” Gunther reminded them. “Thieves are the least of her concerns. If you give her silver…”
“We cannot hide every poor soul that needs hiding,” the innkeeper was morose.
“No,” the thief sighed. “We cannot. The smith’s shop. The gold cloaks will be sure to ransack it as they arrest him. Any objections if I take some of the gold for myself?”
He did not wait for a response, rising and stalking for the stairway that led to the smoky, common room of the South Boar. He was just another hooded, cloaked scum here, another quiet shadow passing by a busy crowd. He remained that even as he crossed into Flea Bottom, through the winding alleyways and crisscrossing streets.
His sigh was heavy when he raised his hand to knock upon the bolted door. After half a minute of locks being unlocked and unclapsed, Len’s impish grin met him. Behind him, he saw Arya twirling and stabbing the air; Needle in her right and a throwing knife in her left. “Killed anyone yet?”
“Only a poor thief needs to kill,” Len quoted. “You taught us that.”
I seem to be not following my own teachings, Gunther grimaced. Killing had not come easy to him, at first. He remembered the Reikwald Road, during the start of his travels with the others. He was not Andrei, who could carve through men and beast alike with nary a twitch on his face. Nor was he Lucia, a stolid, steel giant that never wavered, no matter how much blood was on her hands. The less said about the others, the better. Sometimes, he wondered what his mother would say if she could see him now, garbed in dark leathers and armed with daggers. Disown me probably, he scoffed to himself.
“How did it go?” Arya asked curiously, stabbing the air for the final time. There was another soul who seemed to straddle the path of gold and the route of iron.
“What would you call saving one life but condemning two others?”
Arya frowned, furrowing her brows. “Saving a life?” She said slowly.
“Like a burning house,” Len was thoughtful as well. “It’s like managing to only pull one out, and you have to leave two inside. Why?”
He sighed, sinking into a sea of silk pillows. When did we get those? “Because that is exactly what I will be doing. A poor bard, a tailor, and a smith. The Imp wants all three dead. I cannot save all three. The agreement made was the tailor. He has a family, he is the most subtle of the three, and he may be useful.”
“But…” Arya chewed on her lips. “The other two…”
“I know,” he muttered. “There is nothing else that can be done. If all three lives condemned by the Imp, who handed those letters to me and me alone, were saved, he would know it was me. That one’s no fool, no matter how most people think.”
“It’s his fault,” Arya decided angrily. “It’s all their fault. The Queen. Joffrey.”
“I saw the beggars,” Len said quietly. “I could see their bones under their skin. And… some of the other thieves my age… I don’t see them around anymore.”
His eyes were fixed on the dragonsteel dagger stabbed into the table. The city was like a pot of water boiling for over long. Too many were growing lean and gaunt and grim; even the thieves and the thugs were struggling to find food. The Queen’s taxes only served to throw wine on the flames. The gold cloaks were little loved as well. When the queen had ordered them to reap through the city in search of Eddard Stark and Andrei, too many houses had been broken into. Food and gold were stolen by the killers in gold, women despoiled, men bruised and broken. More were still flooding into the city, desperate ghosts fleeing the war in the Riverlands.
Each day, more wraiths seemed to haunt the streets of King’s Landing, as thin as bones and quiet in their seething, growing anger. The Imp’s work had done little to tame the growing flames. The smiths were torn away from their labor to toil on his chain, with no gold coming their way. Too many men and women had vanished in the night, simply because they had muttered a curse against the Illborn King or the Whore Queen. The mountain savages that Tyrion Lannister had brought with him had done little to appease or calm the hungry, desperate folk either; not with the trouble they brought with them wherever they went.
Then came the begging brothers and the preachers.
When Tamurkhan was marching on Nuln, the streets were flooded with flagellants and mad priests, raving about the end of the world. Blood dripped from the lashes they gave themselves, as they demanded purity and promised conflagration.
Hearing the fiery voices preach about the Father’s Scourge brought to life old, haunting memories that he preferred dead. No flagellants, he prayed.
“Anyways,” he told them. “I will be out at night. Tomorrow, the Imp wants me in the Keep. Don’t get into any trouble.”
“Of course not,” Arya huffed.
“You know us,” Len promised.
The two of them spent another hour throwing knives and water dancing before they finally collapsed, exhausted. And when they did, he finally spoke.
“Your aim is improving,” he told Len, “now try to do it quicker and while moving.”
“That knife cannot parry anything more than a fork,” he told Arya. “You have to dance around even more, and use that knife to stab faster than the eye can blink.”
“I thought we were supposed to be thieves,” Len quipped tiredly.
“You never know when you might need to use the knife,” he told him.
Night found him a shadow once more, lurking the rooftops and alleyways. With him, he bore four letters. Three from Tyrion Lannister, and one from Arya Stark.
And when he peered through the window of the bard’s hovel, he found the young man regaling an old, toothless woman with a poor, clumsy song.
The singer was older than him by two or three years, at the most. A plain man with messy brown hair, dressed in an old, stained tunic, strumming at a lute that had seen better days. The woman across him was thrice his age, wrinkled and shrunken, but her smile was still young. Come the morrow, she would smile no more.
Damn you, Tyrion Lannister.
When the song ended, and they finally slept, he entered; an unwelcome wraith in black. The lock was an ancient, flimsy thing, covered in rust. He could have broken it with the hilt of his dagger if he wanted to. Within, he found a messy pile of parchment on a small table, half-written songs by the look of them. Poorly written, even he could tell. Lorenzo would proclaim these as drunken ramblings, at best. He has no talent for singing, Gunther thought.
He never should have sung a damned thing, thought the thief darkly.
A letter that sang of treason and death found its way under the pile. He might have plunged the daggers into the two of them himself there and then, to save mother and singer both some misery. Should I?
He found that he could not.
The second was a tailor’s shophouse, with a sturdier lock of clean iron. It took him three seconds to pick it open. He stepped into a dimly lit floor, with the glow of a dying hearth casting flickering shadows across wooden beams. The air was heavy with the scent of wool, linen, and tallow from a dead candle. To his left, bolts of fabric - undyed wool, rich velvets, fine silks - were stacked atop sturdy shelves, some partially unfurled. The wooden counter at the end held a bronze scale, small iron shears, needles and unfinished doublets. He passed through it all, creeping quietly up the wooden stairway, like a ghost in the night.
In one room, he saw three small beds, three small children slumbering in them. In another, he spied a sleeping woman on a bed meant for two. A black shadow entered and when he left, a treasonous tale was left behind.
When he stepped into the night air again, he watched the pale moon. It felt like the eye of a god, judging him coldly at the hour of ghosts.
The third and final house of judgement was a modest, soot-streaked building nestled amongst the narrow, grimy street; just behind a back alley off the Street of Steel. It was a humble place; horseshoes were strewn about, butcher’s cleavers, carpenter’s saws. It was a squat and unadorned structure, its walls blackened by years of smoke. A trough of murky water outside reflected the pale moonlight. He saw his eyes on the glistening surface, like a dark, haunting mirror. For this, he had worn both his cloth and hood, obscuring all his flesh under black. For a long moment, he stood there in the night, watching the ghost in the water.
Inside, even in the cool air of night, there was a dull heat. The forge’s embers glowed faintly. Tongs, haimmers and files were scattered across a heavy wooden workbench, worn smooth by years of labor. A rack of unfinished work was pressed against the backwall; crude blades for knives, iron nails, half-shaped horseshoes.
He found the slumbering smith in a cot on the second floor; a black-haired man in the prime of his life, with thick, muscled arms, and a frown even as he slept.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered silently, leaving the third letter on the table.
He felt like an unwelcome spirit, haunting the living, and dooming them to death. What do they call them again? Banshees?
One in three, he told himself as he was returning, I saved one, but I doomed two. He wondered what the others would have done in his boots. They are not here, he told himself. It is just me. Perhaps, Andrei or Lucia could have saved all three.
He could only save the one. One is better than none, he reminded himself. We are doing this for a reason.
The hour of the owl found him watching the night sky in solitude, the two children sleeping behind him. Come dawn, a bard and a smith would be condemned.
He did not sleep easy.
When the gold light of dawn woke him, he could only offer a solemn stare. He was quiet when he stepped out into Flea Bottom, and he was just as morose as he climbed The Hook to Aegon’s High Hill. He flashed the golden brooch of the lion that Tyrion Lannister had given him, and the guards waved him through.
He found Bronn in the outer yard dicing with a pair of red cloaks.
“Thief,” the sellsword greeted, watching him as he approached, like a hawk.
“Sellsword,” he nodded. “Your lord wants to see me.”
“My lord?” Bronn seemed amused. “Our employer, you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“He’ll be in the throne room,” the sellsword told him, smirking. “High on the throne. You’ll have to wait for when he climbs down. You sure you don’t want to dice?”
“Be a pity to take all your hard-earned gold.”
The sellsword laughed, flicking the six-sided die on the table. It landed on the four, and the two red cloaks groaned. His own hand itched but he ignored the feeling. Swiping their silver, Bronn gave him a grin. “Come then, I can be your chaperone.”
“A fairer knight the world has never seen.”
“I am only dark-hearted on the outside,” Bronn told him with a crooked smile. “At least when I kill a man, I just plant a sword in their gut.”
Gunther gave him a baleful look. Bronn chuckled darkly. “I am curious. You grew up in Flea Bottom?”
“Where I grew up,” Gunther said, “words are gold.”
He shrugged. “The Imp doesn’t pay me enough that I will spend it on you.”
The Iron Throne of Aegon the Conqueror was a tangle of nasty barbs and jagged metal teeth waiting for any fool who tried to sit too comfortably. Bronn parted ways with him, giving him a smirk, before taking his stand by the steps to the throne. He spied the Lannister guardsmen in their crimson cloaks and lion-crested half-helms, silent and watching. The gold cloaks faced them across. Courtiers filled the gallery while supplicants clustered near the towering oak-and-bronze doors. Sansa Stark looked especially lovely this morning, though her face was as pale as milk. An old lord coughed violently. And he thought he saw a young man that looked like Lorenzo.
Tyrion Lannister climbed the jagged throne, and sat high above them all.
“Call forth Ser Cleos Frey.” The Imp’s voice rang off the stone walls and down the length of the hall.
A thin-faced man marched forth, like a man stepping to his death. He wore a weak chin, with thinning stringy brown hair. Ser Cleos made the long walk between the gold cloaks and the crimson, looking neither right nor left.
The old Grand Maester cleared his throat. “The Queen Regent, the King’s Hand, and the small council have considered the terms offered by this brazen young lord. Sad to say, they will not do, and you must tell these northmen so, ser.”
“Here are our terms,” said Tyrion. “Robb Stark must lay down his sword, swear fealty, and return to Winterfell. He must free my brother unharmed, and place his host under Jaime’s command, to march against the rebels Renly and Stannis Baratheon. His vows of fealty to Stannis Baratheon do not hold. Each of Stark’s bannermen must send us a son as hostage. A daughter will suffice where there is no son. They shall be treated gently and given high places here at court, so long as their fathers commit no new treasons.”
Since when do winning armies lay down their swords? It was an impossible demand. Even he could see it. He turned to Sansa but found the Stark girl already watching him, with a gentle smile. He gave her an awkward grin.
Cleos Frey looked ill. “My lord Hand,” he said, “Lord Stark will never consent to these terms.”
“Tell him that we have raised another great host at Casterly Rock, that soon it will march on him from the west while my lord father advances from the east. Tell him that he stands alone, that the king he has sworn fealty to is busy waging war against his own brother. His father is fighting with Lord Stannis, I hear. It is a most dangerous place there, a warzone. Stannis and Renly Baratheon war against each other, his own aunt ignores his war, and the Prince of Dorne has consented to wed his son Trystane to the Princess Myrcella. House Lannister always pays its debts.” Murmurs of delight and consternation alike arose from the gallery and the back of the hall.
“As to this of my cousins,” Tyrion went on, “we offer Harrion Karstark and Ser Wylis Manderly for Willem Lannister, and Lord Cerwyn and Ser Donnel Locke for your brother Tion. Tell Stark that two Lannisters are worth four northmen in any season.” He waited for the laughter to die. “The bones of his father’s guards and servants he shall have, as a gesture of Joffrey’s good faith.”
“Lord Stark asked for his sisters and his father’s sword as well,” Ser Cleos reminded him.
“Ice,” said Tyrion. “He’ll have that when he makes his peace with us, not before.”
“As you say. And his sisters?”
“Until such time as he frees my brother Jaime, unharmed, they shall remain here as hostages. How well they are treated depends on him.”
Gunther suppressed a smile. How long can they keep this up?
“I shall bring him your message, my lord.”
Tyrion plucked at one of the twisted blades that sprang from the arm of the throne. Gunther would not deny that the Imp sat the throne like he deserved it. “Vylarr,” he called.
“My lord.”
“The men Stark sent are sufficient to protect bones, but a Lannister should have a Lannister escort,” Tyrion declared. “Ser Cleos is the queen’s cousin, and mine. We shall sleep more easily if you would see him safely back to Riverrun.”
“As you command. How many men should I take?”
“Why, all of them.”
Grand Maester Pycelle rose, gasping, “My lord Hand, that cannot ... your father, Lord Tywin himself, he sent these good men to our city to protect Queen Cersei and her children ...”
“The Kingsguard and the City Watch protect them well enough. The gods speed you on your way, Vylarr.”
Where ever is the queen? Gunther glanced around.
A herald stepped forward. “If any man has other matters to set before the King’s Hand, let him speak now or go forth and hold his silence.”
“I will be heard.” A slender man all in black pushed his way through.
“Ser Alliser!” Tyrion exclaimed. “Why, I had no notion that you’d come to court. You should have sent me word.”
“I have, as well you know.” He was a spare, sharp-featured man of fifty, hard-eyed and hard-handed, his black hair streaked with grey. Gunther kept an eye on the man. He knew the look of old soldiers well. “I have been shunned, ignored, and left to wait like some baseborn servant.”
“Truly? Bronn, this was not well done. Ser Alliser and I are old friends. We walked the Wall together.”
“Sweet Ser Alliser,” murmured Varys, “you must not think too harshly of us. So many seek our Joffrey’s grace, in these troubled and tumultuous times.” “
“More troubled than you know, eunuch.”
Gunther winced. That is no man to be insulted so easily.
“How may we be of help to you, good brother?” Grand Maester Pycelle asked in soothing tones.
“The Lord Commander sent me to His Grace the king,” Thorne answered. “The matter is too grave to be left to servants.”
Right, Gunther noticed, where is that twat of a king?
“The king is playing with his new crossbow,” Tyrion said. “You can speak to servants or hold your silence.”
“As you will,” Ser Alliser said, displeasure dark in every word. “I am sent to tell you that we found two rangers, long missing. They were dead, yet when we brought the corpses back to the Wall they rose again in the night. One slew Ser Jaremy Rykker, while the second tried to murder the Lord Commander.”
He felt his world freeze. Even in Nuln, he heard the dreadful tales of vampires and necromancers; foul sorcerers who disturbed Morr’s Gardens to wake the dead, binding them with dread spells to command them. The Empire was long haunted by the armies of the macabre, of the shambling dead. Even the common thief knew well the Vampire Wars, where the von Carsteins ravaged the lands of Sigmar.
Distantly, he heard someone snigger.
Are there necromancers here as well? He was horrified. If there were, he hoped that they were native. There were dragons here once, if there are necromancers, Ranald, let it be native ones.
“I trust that the Old Bear survived this attack?” Tyrion’s voice was full of doubt.
“He did.”
“And that your brothers killed these, ah, dead men?”
“We did.”
“You’re certain that they are dead this time?” Tyrion asked mildly. “Truly truly dead?”
“They were dead the first time,” Ser Alliser snapped. “Pale and cold, with black hands and feet. I brought Jared’s hand, torn from his corpse by the bastard’s wolf.”
A wolf? He spied a glance at Sansa Stark, and found her gaze fixed on the man.
“And where is this charming token?”
Ser Alliser frowned uncomfortably. “It ... rotted to pieces while I waited, unheard. There’s naught left to show but bones.”
Titters echoed through the hall. “Bronn,” Tyrion called down, “buy our brave Ser Alliser a hundred spades to take back to the Wall with him.”
“Spades?” Ser Alliser narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“If you bury your dead, they won’t come walking,” Tyrion told him, and the court laughed openly. Gunther fought the smile growing on his face. “Spades will end your troubles, with some strong backs to wield them. Ser Jacelyn, see that the good brother has his pick of the city dungeons.”
Ser Jacelyn Bywater said, “As you will, my lord, but the cells are near empty. Yoren took all the likely men.”
“More are coming,” Tyrion told him. There, he met Gunther’s eyes, and he smiled. “Or spread the word that there’s bread and turnips on the Wall, and they’ll go of their own accord.”
When Tyrion descended, he saw the knight of thorns approaching him. Gunther took the time to slip past Sansa Stark. “Godswood,” he whispered. He did not linger.
He found Lord Varys speaking to Tyrion Lannister, while Bronn marched Ser Alliser by the elbow and out the hall. Gunther gave them an amused look.
“-bones and strip your sister of her protectors in one swift stroke. You give that black brother the men he seeks, rid the city of some hungry mouths, yet make it all seem mockery so none may say that the dwarf fears snarks and grumkins. Oh, deftly done.” Varys tittered, eyeing Gunther as he approached.
“Lord Tyrion, Lord Varys,” he bowed.
“Gaven,” Tyrion nodded. “Walk with me, you two.”
They left through the king’s door behind the throne, the eunuch’s slippers whisking lightly over the stone.
“I had not yet gotten to express my appreciation for Brown Alley,” Varys told him.
“Small matter, my lord.”
“To you, perhaps,” Varys tittered. “They have proven most useful.”
He did not want to wonder what the eunuch had tasked the bastards to do.
“And those three?” Tyrion trailed off.
“Done,” Gunther said. “Bard, tailor, smith. Though when I was there, the tailor was not yet home.”
“Men prowl the streets at night for many reasons,” Tyrion mused. “He best take care. I hear King’s Landing is dangerous these days, even during the day.”
“All Westeros is dangerous these days, my lord,” Varys said lightly. “So precarious. The queen will never permit you to send away her guard.”
“She will. You’ll see to that.”
A smile flickered across Varys’s plump lips. “Will I?”
“Oh, for a certainty. You’ll tell her it is part of my scheme to free Jaime.”
Varys stroked a powdered cheek. “This would doubtless involve the four men your man Bronn searched for so diligently in all the low places of King’s Landing. A thief, a poisoner, a mummer, and a murderer. A shame you would not just send Gaven here, he is all four at once.” Varys smiled sweetly at him.
“I want a man like that closeby, you see,” Tyrion offered him a wink. “Put them in crimson cloaks and lion helms, they’ll look no different from any other guardsmen. Most of them are murderers and mummers to start, anyhow. I searched for some time for a ruse that might get them into Riverrun before I thought to hide them in plain sight. They’ll ride in by the main gate, flying Lannister banners and escorting bones.” He smiled crookedly. “Four men alone would be watched vigilantly. Four among a hundred can lose themselves. So I must send the true guardsmen as well as the false ... as you’ll tell my sister.”
“And for the sake of her beloved brother, she will consent, despite her misgivings.” They made their way down a deserted colonnade. “Still, the loss of her red cloaks will surely make her uneasy.”
“I like her uneasy,” said Tyrion.
“As you say,” Varys bowed, leaving.
Ser Cleos Frey left that very afternoon, escorted by Vylarr and a hundred red-cloaked Lannister guardsmen. The men Robb Stark had sent joined them at the King’s Gate for the long ride west. Gunther followed Tyrion all the while.
“A brave man, my cousin,” Tyrion Lannister mused.
“I think I saw a few strands of his hair drop.”
“It takes much bravery to ride away from the safety of a city and back into a land torn by war,” Tyrion sniffed.
“Safety, my lord?”
“The word is relative,” the Hand admitted.
Gunther sat with Tyrion Lannister on the palanquin on their way back to the Red Keep. “I realise I have not yet introduced you to the other charming men I have with me. You have met Bronn, of course.”
“I have.”
“You shall meet more goodly men, this night. There is Timett, son of Timett, of the Burned Men. Did you know that when they come of age, they burn off a body part of their choosing? How charming. I prefer the brothel. Then, there are the Stone Crows. You will meet Shagga, son of Dolf, do remember to not confuse him with a bear. It will be most improper, I would think.”
After travelling with Andrei, it would be hard for him to confuse another for one.
“There are others as well that you should meet,” Tyrion told him, smiling. “There is Chella, daughter of Cheyk, a more charming maid you will never meet. Where most ladies wear necklaces of gold and gems, she wears one of ears. She might like you, I would think. Then again, you must be as young as her sons. How old are you?”
“Twenty, Lord Tyrion.”
“Twenty,” the Imp raised a brow. “A rare talent for one so young. Then again, Lord Renly is as old as you.”
He shadowed the Imp as they found the young man with one burnt eye dicing in the barracks with the other burned men. “Come to my solar at midnight.” Tyrion told him.
At sunset, he feasted with the Imp in the Small Hall, along with the Stone Crows and the Moon Brothers. Shagga was a beast of a man, big and burly, almost Andrei’s height and he wielded an axe near as long as Gunther was tall.
“Little man,” Shagga eyed him. There was a fierce glint in the wild man’s eyes, sizing him up. He had seen that look many times, and knew to never look away.
“Big man,” Gunther said, nodding and meeting his eyes. After the Reikwald Road, it was hard for men to be frightful to him.
“Your knives are too small,” Shagga told him.
“Six inches or six feet, it doesn’t matter if you cannot get it in.”
The hairy brute of a man laughed. “I like this one, Halfman!”
“I am glad you do,” Tyrion Lannister said drily. “Tell me, Shagga, what moon is this?”
Shagga’s frown was a fierce thing. “Black, I think.”
“In the west, they call that a traitor’s moon. Try not to get too drunk tonight, and see that your axe is sharp.”
“A Stone Crow’s axe is always sharp, and Shagga’s axes are sharpest of all. Once I cut off a man’s head, but he did not know it until he tried to brush his hair. Then it fell off.”
“Is that why you never brush yours?” The Stone Crows roared and stamped their feet, Shagga hooting loudest of all.
By midnight, the castle was silent and dark. Doubtless a few gold cloaks on the walls spied them leaving the Tower of the Hand, but no one raised a voice. No matter how short the dwarf was, the Hand of the King casted a long shadow.
The thin wooden door split with a thunderous crack beneath the heel of Shagga’s boot. Pieces went flying inward, and he heard a woman’s gasp of fear. Shagga hacked the door apart with three great blows of his axe and kicked his way through the ruins. Timett followed, and then Tyrion, stepping gingerly over the splinters. Gunther was last, a silent shadow with a crossbow in one hand, dagger in the other.
The fire had burned down to a few glowing embers, and shadows lay thick across the bedchamber. When Timett ripped the heavy curtains off the bed, the naked serving girl stared up with wide white eyes. “Please, my lords,” she pleaded, “don’t hurt me.” She cringed away from Shagga, flushed and fearful, trying to cover her charms with her hands and coming up a hand short.
“Go,” Tyrion told her. “It’s not you we want.”
“Shagga wants this woman.”
“Shagga wants every whore in this city of whores,” complained Timett, son of Timett.
“Yes,” Shagga said, unabashed. “Shagga would give her a strong child. Little shadow, have you tried any?”
“Not yet,” he muttered.
“Leave my shadow alone, and if she wants a strong child, she’ll know whom to seek,” Tyrion said. “Timett, see her out ... gently, if you would.”
The Burned Man pulled the girl from the bed and half marched, half dragged her across the chamber. Shagga watched them go, mournful as a puppy. The girl stumbled over the shattered door and out into the hall, helped along by a firm shove from Timett. Gunther offered her a shrug. Above their heads, the ravens were screeching a cacophony of utter madness, black feathers and caws. He had never liked that sound.
Tyrion dragged the soft blanket off the bed, uncovering Grand Maester Pycelle beneath. “Tell me, does the Citadel approve of you bedding the serving wenches, Maester?”
The old man was as naked as the girl, though he made a markedly less attractive sight. Though he had seen men dead, young and old, and sent them there, Gunther looked away, wincing. “W-what is the meaning of this? I am an old man, your loyal servant ...”
Gunther kept his eyes on the shelves of poison and cure. Tyrion hoisted himself onto the bed. “So loyal that you sent only one of my letters to Doran Martell. The other you gave to my sister.”
“N-no,” squealed Pycelle. “No, a falsehood, I swear it, it was not me. Varys, it was Varys, the Spider, I warned you—”
“Do all maesters lie so poorly? I told Varys that I was giving Prince Doran my nephew Tommen to foster. I told no one that I had offered Myrcella to the Dornish ... that truth was only in the letter I entrusted to you .”
Pycelle clutched for a corner of the blanket. “Birds are lost, messages stolen or sold ... it was Varys, there are things I might tell you of that eunuch that would chill your blood ...”
“My lady prefers my blood hot.”
“Make no mistake, for every secret the eunuch whispers in your ear, he holds seven back. He is untrustworthy.”
“Almost as untrustworthy as you. Shagga, cut off his manhood and feed it to the goats.”
Shagga hefted the huge double-bladed axe. “There are no goats, Halfman.”
“Make do.”
Roaring, Shagga leapt forward. Pycelle shrieked and wet the bed, urine spraying in all directions as he tried to scramble back out of reach. The wildling caught him by the end of his billowy white beard and hacked off three-quarters of it with a single slash of the axe.
“Timett, Gaven, do you suppose our friend will be more forthcoming without those whiskers to hide behind?” Tyrion used a bit of the sheet to wipe the piss off his boots.
“He will tell the truth soon.” Darkness pooled in the empty pit of Timett’s burned eye. “I can smell the stink of his fear.”
“Men speak the truth and lie in equal measures quickly when you put a blade close to their throats,” Gunther told him.
Shagga tossed a handful of hair down to the rushes, and seized what beard was left. “Hold still, Maester,” urged Tyrion. “When Shagga gets angry, his hands shake.”
“Shagga’s hands never shake,” the huge man said indignantly, pressing the great crescent blade under Pycelle’s quivering chin and sawing through another tangle of beard.
“How long have you been spying for my sister?” Tyrion asked.
Pycelle’s breathing was rapid and shallow. “All I did, I did for House Lannister.” A sheen of sweat covered the broad dome of the old man’s brow, and wisps of white hair clung to his wrinkled skin. “Always ... for years ... your lord father, ask him, I was ever his true servant ... ‘twas I who bid Aerys open his gates ...”
“So the Sack of King’s Landing was your work as well?”
“For the realm! Once Rhaegar died, the war was done. Aerys was mad, Viserys too young, Prince Aegon a babe at the breast, but the realm needed a king ... I prayed it should be your good father, but Robert was too strong, and Lord Stark moved too swiftly ...”
Gunther listened, fascinated. The Sack was something that he had heard in low mutters by too many souls in the city; Chataya, Ironbelly, Mott, Alton, even Len knew about it and the brat was not even born during then.
“How many have you betrayed, I wonder? Aerys, Eddard Stark, me ... King Robert as well? Lord Arryn, Prince Rhaegar? Where does it begin, Pycelle?”
The axe scratched at the apple of Pycelle’s throat and stroked the soft wobbly skin under his jaw, scraping away the last hairs. “You ... were not here,” he gasped when the blade moved upward to his cheeks. “Robert ... his wounds ... if you had seen them, smelled them, you would have no doubt ...”
“Oh, I know the boar did your work for you ... but if he’d left the job half done, doubtless you would have finished it.”
At that, Gunther looked at the old man in interest.
“He was a wretched king ... vain, drunken, lecherous ... he would have set your sister aside, his own queen ... please ... Renly was plotting to bring the Highgarden maid to court, to entice his brother ... it is the gods’ own truth ...”
“And what was Lord Arryn plotting?”
“He knew,” Pycelle said. “About ... about ...”
“I know what he knew about,” snapped Tyrion.
“He was sending his wife back to the Eyrie, and his son to be fostered on Dragonstone ... he meant to act ...”
“So you poisoned him first.”
“No.” Pycelle struggled feebly. Shagga growled and grabbed his head. The clansman’s hand was so big he could have crushed the maester’s skull like an eggshell had he squeezed.
Tyrion tsk ed at him. “I saw the tears of Lys among your potions. And you sent away Lord Arryn’s own maester and tended him yourself, so you could make certain that he died.”
“A falsehood!”
“Shave him closer,” Tyrion suggested. “The throat again.”
The axe swept back down, rasping over the skin. A thin film of spit bubbled on Pycelle’s lips as his mouth trembled. “I tried to save Lord Arryn. I vow—”
“Careful now, Shagga, you’ve cut him.”
Shagga growled. “Dolf fathered warriors, not barbers.”
When he felt the blood trickling down his neck and onto his chest, the old man shuddered, and the last strength went out of him. He looked shrunken, both smaller and frailer than he had been when they burst in on him. “Yes,” he whimpered, “ yes , Colemon was purging, so I sent him away. The queen needed Lord Arryn dead, she did not say so, could not, Varys was listening, always listening, but when I looked at her I knew. It was not me who gave him the poison, though, I swear it.” The old man wept. “Varys will tell you, it was the boy, his squire, Hugh he was called, he must surely have done it, ask your sister, ask her.”
Gunther watched the old maester closely, wondering what he was doing here. He recognised the name of Arryn, Andrei had mentioned it once.
“Bind him and take him away,” Tyrion commanded. “Throw him down in one of the black cells.”
The two wild men dragged him out the splintered door. “Lannister,” he moaned, “all I’ve done has been for Lannister ...”
Gunther made to leave as well, but Tyrion held a hand. “Walk with me.”
And so he did, shadowing the Imp as the little man made a leisurely search of the quarters and collected a few more small jars from the shelves. “If I were to task you with sneaking into the queen’s chambers, could you do it?”
“No,” he told the dwarf at once.
“Good,” Tyrion sniffed. “I like knights who are brave, and thieves who are not.”
The ravens muttered above their head as he worked, a strangely peaceful noise. He found himself carrying the vials and jars for the Hand, trailing him as they left.
“Tell me,” Tyrion Lannister seemed curious. “Does your family know that you are working for the Hand of the King? Well, Hand in acting, and work in shadows.”
“No, my lord,” Gunther murmured. “I prefer to keep that a secret.”
“Not work they will be proud of?” The dwarf’s mismatched eyes peered at him.
“I would not think so.”
“To proud families then!” Tyrion Lannister japed. They stood before the doors to Tyrion’s chambers. One second, Gunther wondered. That was all he needed to cut this man’s throat. He could hide the body within and make it out of the Keep before a single soul even noticed. The second passed.
Tyrion Lannister took the vials and jars from him, and gave him a pouch of clinking coins. “Come again in two days, I am sure our friend will have more names for us both. Or come again anytime, Shagga seems fond of you, and I have more friends for you to meet.”
“I will do my best,” he bowed. And the little lion stepped into his room. Gunther stood there for a silent moment.
The twilight found him stalking into the godswood, that dark and silent refuge that Sansa Stark made her own. He found her, pale and fair as fresh snow, kneeling by the heart tree that bore the bear’s snarling face. He did not interrupt her prayers.
Sansa had yet to notice his presence, quiet as he was. She wore a dress of white, woven with grey threads, and her eyes were shut in concentration. She was … singing . A strange type of prayer, Gunther thought to himself. Then again, he remembered, Ranaldians worship by stealing.
He turned his gaze to the bear’s head in the tree.
As much as the twin-tailed comet in the sky, or Arya’s dream of dice and coin, that was a sign. He remembered Andrei’s query now, and the pale face the Kossar wore when he had asked him about signs. He did not understand then, but he did now. Why here? Ursun was a foreign god to him, but in this foreign land - world, a voice reminded him - it was familiar. He realised suddenly that Andrei must have stood here, terrified and intrigued as he was. He wondered what the old soldier was doing.
“Good ser,” he heard a gentle voice call to him. “Pardon me.”
He tore his gaze back to Sansa Stark. Her deep blue eyes watched him curiously, and her soft auburn hair trailed past her shoulder, like tendrils of flames in the night. She is a child, Gunther thought, barely older than her sister.
“My lady,” he remembered to bow.
“Please,” Sansa shook her head, “how fares my sister?”
“As well as ever,” he told her. “I’ve been keeping them inside for now. City’s too dangerous. She wrote another letter for you. A shorter one, this one.”
“Thank you,” Sansa said gratefully, accepting the letter with her slender hands. The letter was short, almost curt, but he had seen how long it took for the Stark girl to write it, hunched over the table and agonising. Sansa read it slowly.
“She… has wolf dreams?”
“Amidst other dreams,” he said, picking a red leaf and toying with it.
Her face was troubled. “Would you know of a singer with green eyes?”
The leaf fell from his hand. “There… there are many such singers.”
“I am not trying to trick you,” Sansa said earnestly. “Last night, I dreamt I was in a garden. A white dove led me through a path, and from a cliff, I saw you and three others. I saw Andrei, a woman in armor, and a fair singer with green eyes and blond hair. The dove perched on his shoulder, and he sang for it. That voice, I have heard it for some time in my dreams. It brings me peace and warmth.”
Gunther swallowed thickly. “I know him.”
“You must tell me it all,” she pleaded. Gunther grimaced. Not all.
“We travelled together. Andrei, Lorenzo, Lucia and I. There were others as well, but they were like to come and go.”
“Where are they now?”
“You know where Andrei is,” he almost chuckled. “As for the others, I do not know.”
“The dove,” Sansa clutched her hands. “What do you know about it?”
I really am not the person to talk about Shallya, he thought dryly. Yet, for the second time, he found himself telling a Stark sister about the gods of his world.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Tyrion VI, ACOK
For those of you who wanted to see a POV from Arya, Sansa, or Tyrion, I hope you are not too disappointed! This chapter felt like a meeting of different worlds, for sure, with each of those three appearing. Do not worry, they will have their own chapters to come. As King's Landing continues to be a focus for this arc, each of those four will continue to shine. I hope you all enjoy Gunther's roguish games as much as I have enjoyed writing them!
Next, we will have a bonus chapter in White Harbor before we go further south :)
Chapter 72: The Merman's Daughter
Summary:
Wynafryd Manderly is sharp of eye and mind.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Incest, you say.”
“The truth,” Ser Davos nodded stiffly. He was a slight man with brown eyes and common features; an ordinary face, thinning brown hair and beard flecked with grey. The knight of onions wore a simple brown and green wool mantle, with leather gloves and a pouch around his neck, and a letter clutched in his hand.
The lord sitting across him could not be more different. In a velvet blue-green doublet embroidered with golden thread was the Lord of White Harbor. Her grandfather was nearly sixty years old, with a massive belly and fingers the size of sausages. He was sagging into his seat, his hands resting on the arms of the seat as if the weight of them were too much to bear. His eyes, though, were pale blue and sharp as ice.
The room was snug and warm and comfortably furnished, with a blue Myrish carpet on the floor and beeswax candles burning on a table. On the wall hung a sheepskin with a map of the North painted across it in faded colors. Beneath the map sat Lord Wyman Manderly and Ser Davos Seaworth. She stood to their side, as quiet as a mouse, as watchful as an eagle. Watch him well, Wynafryd, my dear, her grandfather instructed kindly. Men often neglect the eyes and ears of women, watch him well and see what songs his face and eyes may sing to you.
And she watched.
The Onion Knight’s brows were furrowed slightly and his lips were stiff, though he sat surely on the velvet chair that had been offered. A feast in small was placed before him; cold cuts of meat and cheese, honey glazed roasts, fresh baked bread, lemon cakes, two pitchers of Arbor Gold. The knight only sipped at his goblet.
“The food is not poisoned, ser,” Lord Wyman assured. “It would be a waste, no?”
“A fine feast,” Ser Davos placated, reaching for a slice of ham. His eyes flicked to the stained glass window, to the calm seas beyond. The knight was eager to leave, she could tell, to return to the seas and his king in the warring south. Our king now. “A better fare than I was given at Gulltown, I must say.”
“Have you ever tasted such finery, Ser?”
The Onion Knight almost chuckled. “Dragonstone salts its fishes well.”
“Salt alone ruins a meal, I find,” her grandfather leaned against the tall, wide back of his reinforced chair. “It is spices, you need. Cardamom and cinnamon, clove and mastic, pepper and saffron.”
“Your lordship did not call me here to discuss spices, I wager?”
“Mayhaps, I did, Ser,” Lord Wyman chuckled. “Mayhaps I wanted to know whether King Stannis would frown at me, should I send my ships to trade more with the Summer Islands, or as far as Qarth. Will he, ser? I hear King Stannis never smiles.”
“He does,” Ser Davos assured. “Rarely. I have seen it once, I believe.”
“Once is better than none,” her grandfather was amused. “Ah, forgive me, good knight. I should be calling him our king, yes.”
“No matter, my lord.”
“No small matter, I fear,” Wyman Manderly was frowning, though his eyes were shrewd. “Not when there are three kings in the realm.”
“One king,” Ser Davos was determined. “And two usurpers.”
“As you say, Ser. And this letter tells it well,” Lord Wyman made a show of looking over the letter again. She had seen him read it over four times before they admitted the Onion Knight. Ser Davos sat uncomfortably as her grandfather hummed and nodded, reading as slowly as a snail’s crawl. “You must tell me it true. However did Lord Eddard find Dragonstone? There is a bay between King’s Landing and Dragonstone, or so I hear, of water most black and treacherous.”
“Lord Stark left King’s Landing on a rowboat, escorted by his swornsword, Ser Andrei. It was my eldest, Dale, who found them in the Blackwater Bay.”
“Praise to the Seven and the Old,” Lord Wyman declared. “A better man there never was.” Wynafryd smiled at that. Ser Davos seemed perplexed at which man that was.
“That letter in your hand,” Wyman Manderly continued, “from the way you clutch at it, ser, I sense you want it gone.”
“Like a snake in my grasp,” Ser Davos nodded, placing the letter on the table and sliding it across to the Lord of White Harbor. “Lord Stark entrusted it to my hands.”
Her grandfather took it carefully, breaking the seal of the stag and reading it over silently. His eyes were calm and calculating. “Ah,” Lord Wyman murmured. “Very well, that can be done. As my lord and king commands.”
The knight did not know what he meant, that much was clear to Wynafryd.
“My lord?”
“No matter, Ser Davos,” Lord Wyman folded the letter neatly. “Please, eat, we must talk plenty, yes? We are both men of the sea.”
She almost giggled at that. The last her grandfather had felt the churning waves and the salt of the sea was long before she was born. And the knight was a smuggler, who knew the jest for what it was, smiling. “We are. You will have to forgive me, my lord, for I cannot linger long. Duty…”
“You are a dutiful man,” Wyman nodded. “You can fulfil your duty without sailing into a storm, I would think.”
“I can outrun it,” Ser Davos shrugged. So he knew there was one coming.
“Our king may come from a land of storms,” her grandfather was bemused, “but you are a man of humble birth, I hear?”
“I am, my lord.”
“From King’s Landing! There are few cities finer in Westeros.”
There are few other cities, she thought, smiling. And each of those four are finer.
“Few,” Ser Davos agreed, “only four.”
“I would imagine a man like yourself to harken to caution, then. And not run a storm.”
“Caution and danger,” the knight and smuggler shrugged. “Balance those two well on a scale, and a man can take home that scale, and sell it.”
“Well said,” Wyman Manderly chewed on a leg of roast. “Some lords should hear that, yes, and kings too. Too often, they weigh one side of that scale greatly.”
“As you say, my lord.”
“Come, Ser Davos,” her grandfather was laughing. “We are all knights and lords in service to greater lords and kings here, no? Have you met my granddaughter? Wynafryd, daughter to my brave son, Wylis.”
Her father was held at Harren’s Folly. Ever since his capture at the Battle of the Green Fork, her mother had been beside herself with fear. Wylla was equal parts fearful and furious. She kept her faith; in the Old Gods, in the Young Wolf, in the Starks, in her father. He is a brave, stubborn man, she told herself.
“Well met, my lady,” the knight nodded.
Most knights would rise to lay a kiss on my hand, she smiled. She returned the nod.
“The storm shall leave in two days time, I hear,” Lord Wyman finished his roast. “You must enjoy all that White Harbor has to offer during this time.”
“I have a duty-”
“Duty need not always be salt and storm, ser. It can be spice and silk.” There was a steel in her grandfather’s voice now. “There is much that we must talk, ser. Lord Stark has commanded me to raise a new navy, you see. A new war fleet that can guard the north, approved by the king. Your king, our king, would want more ships to patrol his waters and coast, I would think. So, there is much I must ask of you, and hear from you, ser. And if you do not wield the answers here, then I would ask of you to recall them and present them before your, our, king of stag and storm.”
“How many of my, our, ships will your king want to patrol the seas to the south? The North would be glad to send more seawolves out onto the Shivering Sea to prowl against pirates and savages, but we cannot do that well if King Stannis would wish for all of them to run to the Stepstones instead, for one. This is a big undertaking as well, you must understand, my knight of onions. It would require us to avoid a hundred feasts like this to build a warship, and you would understand that I am loath to be parted from my roasts and my wine, ser. Will the king provide us gold? Will he cut short the taxes we must pay the crown? We have wood aplenty in the North, in the Hornwood and the Wolfswood, but we have fewer hands to cut and saw them, good ser. Will your king provide us those men, or must we find and pay them ourselves? Where shall we find these sailors to crew the ships? The sails, the provisions, the tarps and riggings and nails, who shall pay for them?”
The smuggler seemed at a loss for words. She felt pity for the knight.
“So, Ser Davos, you see why you must stay for two days?”
“I do, my lord.”
“Please,” Lord Wyman sipped at his gold. “You have sailed a great distance. Dragonstone is far away, I hear, though not so far that ships cannot find it.”
House Stark has taken Stannis as king, he was telling the smuggler, but the North is watching him to see if he is worthy of our swords, our ships, and our sons.
“My men will see to it that you shall have a most comfortable room, ser. Silks and sheets so soft that you will feel like you are drowning.”
And when the knight was gone, Wynafryd gave her grandfather an amused smile.
“You play the mummer well, lord grandfather.”
“You play the mouse well, lady granddaughter.” Lord Wyman Manderly’s smile had dimmed, but it was no less genuine. “What do you think?”
“More smuggler than knight, this one,” she mused. “A good thing for that, I think.”
“Why so?” He enjoyed his many questions, and watching her think.
“More sense than chivalry, but more chivalry than greed,” she told him. “He is not the knight that charges to his death, nor is he the smuggler that sails for gold alone.”
“I would agree,” Lord Wyman poured a second goblet, gesturing for her to sit.
“All those questions, grandfather,” she took the goblet with a grateful nod, “did you mean them?”
“Tell me, Wynafryd,” he was smiling shrewdly. “Did I?”
“You did,” she nodded, “but the questions were asking other questions of their own.”
“Really now?” Lord Wyman seemed bemused. “Were they?”
“We have the gold to afford a new war fleet,” she told him flatly. “We have the men and the timber and the shipyard. You wanted to know if you can get the Crown to pay for it. More importantly, you want to know this king and his court better.”
“I do,” he nodded, suddenly grave. All bemusement fled from his face. It was the Lord of White Harbor that was talking to her, the Warden of the White Knife. “Stannis is not a man well-loved. There are two other kings in the realm. Joffrey has the gold of the West, Renly has the lances of the Reach and the swords of the Stormlands. Lord Eddard says that Stannis must be king, should be king, and I hear that Wendel has drawn his sword to call Stannis his king as well, when the Young Wolf led their howling at Riverrun. So, White Harbor shall say those words as well, I say. But I want to know this Stannis, this lord who takes in smugglers and foreign priestesses in his grim, dark court. I will speak to this knight most carefully and most frequently in these coming days. And I want you to speak to him as well, my dear.”
“Me?”
“You have watched, now you will speak.”
“As you say, grandfather, though I fear there might be little left of our poor knight of onions after you are done grilling him.”
“I am not a lover of onions,” he sniffed. “Though your father is.”
At the twisting of her lips, the Lord of White Harbor vanished like a ghost and it was her grandfather, and father to her father, who took her hand gently.
“You have been brave, Wynafryd, and Wylla too,” he smiled at her. “Your mother… she is frightened most fitfully, Wylis is her life.”
“He will be safe, right, grandfather?”
“He will,” Lord Wyman assured her. “Tywin Lannister is no fool to harm a hostage, not less one as important as Wylis. Not when thrice as many Westermen are held at Riverrun. Lord Eddard’s son had done well. The Young Wolf, they call him, and it is a title most well earned. I wonder if men will ever call your father the Young Merman.”
The giggle left her without warning. “The Forty-Year Old Merman.”
“And you are the merman’s daughter,” he reminded her. “You and your sister both. Brave, you two are. Your sister is braver, I would think, for rage of youth.”
“I am not so old, grandfather,” she protested, grinning.
“Sometimes, my eyes cloud over, and the Crone is before me,” he was laughing.
“That said,” she remembered, “you spoke of marriage…”
“Things have changed, Wynafryd,” Lord Wyman was thoughtful. “Before… I would imagine Lord Eddard’s son…”
“The Young Wolf?”
“Three years your younger,” he shrugged. “Now, I imagine Lord Eddard and King Stannis might wish to hold his hand in reserve. Do you have any in mind, my dear?”
“Lord Grafton has some sons my age, I believe…”
“You believe we can bring the Vale to King Stannis?”
“No,” she said flatly. “But Gulltown is rich, and the closest port city other than Braavos. A pact between our two houses may be sound.”
“You are the best of us, dear granddaughter,” Wyman Manderly was smiling.
She bowed her head respectfully. She had learnt from the very best.
“What of the North?” Lord Wyman was curious. “There is sense in looking south, but there is sense in looking within as well.”
“Too many young Northmen are at war,” she said softly. “It makes no sense to speak of marriage with men who might be dead come the morrow.”
Grandfather was solemn. “Aye, you have the right of it. War in the south… Trouble in the north. I mislike much what I hear of the happenings around the Hornwood.”
Disappearances. Vanishings. Hunters who had prowled the woods for their whole lives slipping into the dark and never returning. Loggers and foresters too. A pale, bloated hand was found by fishermen floating along the Weeping Water, though the body was never found. And the Dreadfort was silent, ominously so.
“Winterfell has sent riders to investigate, or so I hear,” Lord Wyman muttered. In truth, he had only returned from the harvest feast. Lady Hornwood was not so fortunate. Is there anything more tragic than the widow? Wynafryd wondered. Mayhaps the widow who becomes a weeping mother as well. She prayed that Daryn Hornwood would return from the war safe, for his mother’s sake. She prayed that Lady Leona Manderly need not wear the widow’s black shawl as well.
“The Bastard of Bolton has taken Lady Hornwood, and taken her hand in marriage. Taken, though her son is still alive,” Lord Wyman was furious. He was even more furious when the news first came. That fury had cooled to ice when he sent his riders to take Hornwood’s castle, for safety. “My own cousin, a proud lady of the north whose lord husband perished at war, forced at swordpoint to marry a beast.”
It was a deed most foul, Wynafryd agreed. The Boltons had a long and dark history, and this Ramsay Snow seemed eager to bring it to life, with all the blood it entailed.
“I have written to Karhold and the Last Hearth,” Wyman Manderly told her. “To hoary, old Arnolf Karstark, and Crowfood and the Whoresbane too. Raise half a hundred men for caution’s sake, I advised them. They did not deign to send a response.”
“Old fools,” Wynafryd sighed. “Ramsgate is close to the Hornwood, just down the Broken Branch,” she glanced at the map.
“I have river barges waiting there,” Lord Wyman gave her a grim smile. “And fifty men of mine. The men there will take my command as well.”
“When the Starks return,” she said, “justice will be delivered.”
“That might be for a long time to come,” her grandfather said, “but they will return. The North remembers. Winter is coming, and flayed men do not do well in the cold.”
Notes:
Wynafryd Manderly has always been one of my favorite minor characters, and I do hope I captured that shrewd intellect of Lord Wyman "The Goat" Manderly!
In canon, Stannis instructs Davos to announce and drop off the letters of his declaration at Gulltown and White Harbor. While we aren't given the details, I do imagine that he did not linger, definitely not long enough for a conversation with the lord. Here, with the North having declared for Stannis, I did think that Wyman would definitely want to poach some information from Davos.
Next chapter, we arrive at Storm's End...
Chapter 73: Catelyn II
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The camp that sieged Storm’s End was much like the king that had commanded its creation; orderly, rigid, dour, and quiet. And stubborn too, thought Catelyn.
“There cannot be more than six thousand,” Hallis Mollen said as they reined up.
The direwolf banner of House Stark flapped and fluttered atop the lance he bore. Catelyn could not see the sea from here, but she could feel how close it was. The smell of salt was heavy on the wind gusting from the east. A storm was coming.
All around, Stannis Baratheon’s foragers had cut the trees down for his siege towers, walls, and catapults. Catelyn wondered how long those trees had stood, and whether Ned had seen them here when he led his host south to lift the last siege of Storm’s End. He had won a great victory that day, all the greater for being bloodless. She prayed that the victory to come would be just as bloodless. She hoped.
And now we are both here, at Storm’s End. And those two boys who starved then now fight each other as kings. The gods can be cruel.
Across rain-sodden fields and stony ridges, she could see the great, ancient castle of Storm’s End rearing up against the sky, its back to the unseen sea. Beneath that mass of pale grey stone, the encircling army of King Stannis Baratheon looked as small and insignificant as mice with banners. So few, she despaired.
The five hundred riders Robb sent with her were hidden in a dark copse of trees to the north, watching and ready. She had twenty of their numbers; Jory, Hal and…
The mother wolf pawed at the ground eagerly, sniffing.
The songs said that Storm’s End had been raised in ancient days by Durran, the first Storm King, who had won the love of the fair Elenei, daughter of the sea god and the goddess of the wind. On the night of their wedding, Elenei had yielded her maidenhood to a mortal’s love and thus doomed herself to a mortal’s death, and her grieving parents had unleashed their wrath and sent the winds and waters to batter down Durran’s hold. His friends and brothers and wedding guests were crushed beneath collapsing walls or blown out to sea and storm, but Elenei sheltered Durran within her arms so he took no harm, and when the dawn came at last he declared war upon the gods and vowed to rebuild.
Five more castles he built, each larger and stronger than the last, only to see them smashed asunder when the gale winds came howling up Shipbreaker Bay, driving great walls of water before them. A seventh castle he raised, most massive of all. Some said the children of the forest helped him build it, shaping the stones with magic; others claimed that a small boy told him what he must do, a boy who would grow to be Bran the Builder. No matter how the tale was told, the end was the same. Though the angry gods threw storm after storm against it, the seventh castle stood defiant, and Durran Godsgrief and fair Elenei dwelt there together until the end of their days. These brothers are as stubborn as Durran Godsgrief.
Storm’s End endured, through centuries and tens of centuries, a castle like no other. Its great curtain wall was a hundred feet high, unbroken by arrow slit or postern, everywhere rounded, curving, smooth, its stones fit so cunningly together that nowhere was crevice nor angle nor gap by which the wind might enter. That wall was said to be forty feet thick at its narrowest, and near eighty on the seaward face, a double course of stones with an inner core of sand and rubble. Within that mighty bulwark, the kitchens and stables and yards sheltered safe from wind and wave. Of towers, there was but one, a colossal drum tower, windowless where it faced the sea, so large that it was granary and barracks and feast hall and lord’s dwelling all in one, crowned by massive battlements that made it look from afar like a stone spiked fist atop an up-thrust arm. And now we fight for it.
“My lady,” Hal Mollen called. Riders had emerged from the tidy little camp beneath the castle, and were coming toward them at a slow walk. “Outriders.”
“No doubt.” Catelyn watched them come. Her eyes were on the banners that fluttered over the camp. It was a bright yellow, and the device it bore was red, though she could not make out its shape. Before it was rows of simple tents, with little decoration of flair; grey and white and dull. Men were sharpening swords or tending to cookfires, drinking or drilling or dicing. There were siege weapons, watchtowers, and a long line of earthworks that had been dug, and sharp palisades too.
The two knights that rode forth from the camp bore the seahorse of Velaryon, though she did not know their names. “Good sers,” she told them. “Do you recognise the banner we fly?” They should, there is a direwolf right here.
“Lady Stark,” a grim-faced knight bowed his head. “The king is in council with Lord Eddard, and his advisors. We shall bring you to them.”
“You have my thanks.”
They rode tents of solemn men, half armored, with their swordbelts tightened. She could see the carpenters and engineers at work, sawing planks, hammering, and building catapults. Fletchers were preparing arrows, a regiment of pikemen were marching in formation, and knights spoke in low, muttered tones across campfires. All around, the air was tense. “Renly is coming,” she heard one sellsword mutter. Cavalry, knights, thousands, she heard the worried voices.
The King’s tent was hardly more rich than that of the common man’s. Made of sturdy canvas and leather, it was large enough for a command center but neither grand nor ostentatious. Two spearmen withdrew their spears to let her enter, though her companions remained outside. In her hands, she clutched Jaime Lannister’s sword, the golden blade that had sipped the blood of the last of the dragonkings. It was finely made, with a golden hilt and ornamented with rubies. The blade that slew Aerys Targaryen, Catelyn oft wondered at that.
Inside, a war table dominated the space, flooded with maps, wooden figurines, and two lanterns that cast flickering shadows.
King Stannis wore a crown of red gold with points fashioned in the shape of flames, and his cold gaze was on the map. His belt was studded with garnets and yellow topaz, and a great square-cut ruby was set in the hilt of the sword he wore. Otherwise his dress was plain: studded leather jerkin over quilted doublet, worn boots, breeches of brown rough-spun. Even more curious was the woman, garbed all in reds, face shadowed within the deep hood of her scarlet cloak. A red priestess, Catelyn thought, wondering. The sect was numerous and powerful in the Free Cities and the distant east, but there were few in the Seven Kingdoms.
But it was her lord husband that she truly saw. And when she did, she felt like her heart was blooming once more, like the coming of spring after the winter snows. Eddard Stark wore a calm, long face and long brown hair, and a closely-trimmed beard that was beginning to grey. His dark grey eyes were as soft as fog, and his lips that were frowning tugged into a soft smile when he saw her. Oh, Ned.
The burly, gruff warrior that towered beside him was a face she had not seen in moons. Andrei Yeltska’s eyes were as flinty as ever, and he had a face that gave nothing away. His beard was thicker than last she saw. His armor and arms were unchanged; the brigandine of scales, mail and leather, the heavy steel boots, the sharp axe and heavy shield. He gave her a curt nod, tense and still.
“Lady Stark,” Stannis Baratheon said with chill courtesy. He inclined his head, balder than she remembered. He is our king now, for better or for worse.
“King Stannis,” she returned, kneeling and laying the golden sword before her. “On behalf of my son, Robb, and my brother, Edmure, I pledge their fealty to you. I present to you the sword of Jaime Lannister, captured by my son and held captive in the bowels of Riverrun.”
“Rise, Lady Stark,” Stannis Baratheon nodded grimly, with a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. “Word of your son’s victories has spread. He does the Stark and Tully names pride.” The king tilted his head towards her lord husband, stiff and slightly. The king bent slightly, took the blade, and set it aside, eying it with disdain.
“An honor, Your Grace,” Ned nodded, smiling softly. The last she had heard his voice, they had been in Littlefinger’s brothel. Curse the man.
When she rose, she spied the red woman whispering to Andrei, who only spared her a passing glance. She thought she heard something about ‘mother’. “And you as well, Andrei,” she smiled at the surly, quiet warrior. “House Stark has much to thank you for. I as well.”
“I… do my duty.”
“How many men have you brought, Lady Stark?” The king said bluntly.
This was not a man made for easy courtesies. “Outside of this tent, twenty. Outside of this camp, five hundred mounted men, hidden in a thick copse to the north. In case of battle, my son warned me, though…”
“Your son is clever,” Stannis told her gruffly. “If we are to come to battle, five hundred riders with surprise can change the tides.”
“It may be so,” she said slowly, glancing at Ned. “But will you give battle to your own brother, Your Grace?”
“You are frank, Lady Stark. Very well, I’ll answer you frankly. To take King’s Landing, I need the power of these southron lords. My brother has them. I must needs take them from him. If a battle is needed, I will battle my brother.”
“Men give their allegiance where they will, Your Grace. These lords swore fealty to Robert and House Baratheon. If you and your brother were to put aside your quarrel—”
“I have no quarrel with Renly, should he prove dutiful. I am his elder, and his king. I want only what is mine by rights. Renly owes me loyalty and obedience. I mean to have it. From him, and from these other lords.” Stannis studied her face. “Your lord husband has oft told me much the same.”
And from the exhaustion on Ned’s face, she believed him true.
“It may not be that hundreds and thousands need to die,” the red priestess said. “Only one.” Her smile was red and terrible.
She gave the priestess a courteous smile, though she saw the frowns that both Andrei and Ned wore. “As you say, Lady…”
“Melisandre, of Asshai, Lady Stark.”
“Whose death is that?”
The red woman gave her a scarlet smile. “The mother of wolves awaits outside, no? Winter has come,” Melisandre whispered. “The snow will come for the false kings.”
Catelyn was shakened. And by her lord husband’s pale face, he felt the same. She gave Ned a hesitant look.
“Lord Stark,” the king said, not unkindly. “You may speak with your wife in private. The battleplans have been drawn, I have no further need of your presence.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
Ned took her hand gently as he led her out. As they left, she saw the gaze that Andrei fixed upon the red woman; cold and curious.
Strong arms wrapped around her in a warm embrace, and she could feel him smelling her hair. He had always loved it. “I have missed you,” he husked.
“As I have, my lord,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
“How is Robb?”
“He takes after you well,” she smiled. “The northmen follow him loyally. I know not where he got it from, but he takes to war like a fish to water.”
“Mayhaps it is Robert, guiding his namesake,” he said gravely. She could see the smile tugging at her lips. “You have travelled far, and through dangerous lands…”
“We rode fast, and I had many men around me, Ned,” she assured him. Even now, he worried over her first. “Ser Wendel, Hal, Jory-”
“Jory?” His eyes widened. “He… how?”
“He is here,” she said, smiling. “And… the wolf as well. The mother direwolf.”
“Winter,” Ned muttered, distractedly. He gave the silent warrior behind him a look.
“My lord?”
“It is nothing,” he said. “Take me to them. How fares the Riverlands, Cat?”
“Badly,” she said grimly. “Tywin Lannister’s mongrels are burning and raping across the land as they are wont to do. He sits at Harrenhal, choking the land.”
“I hear you have Jaime Lannister.”
“We do,” she nodded. “In Riverrun’s dungeons. Robb took him by surprise. Fought him in a duel,” she scowled at the memory. Her son, the battle-hardened victor, was sheepish when he told her. “He was in no shape for war.”
“I do not imagine him to be,” Ned’s lips twitched, and he shared a glance with Andrei.
“Good,” the man rumbled.
They continued on their march. The northmen were given a few tents near the center of the camp. “Ned,” she found herself asking. “I must ask. How is it that you … escaped from King’s Landing? Jory told us much but…”
His face was conflicted. “Varys.”
“Truly?”
“He did not want me to find Stannis,” Ned frowned. “After we fled from the throne room, we were stumbling through the Keep. Varys found us. We had little choice but to trust him. A secret path through the keep, he showed us, one that led to the sea. There was a rowboat, and enough food for two days. He wanted us to … sail to the shore off Rosby, and … make it to Riverrun. At the time, the Kingslayer had not yet besieged Riverrun. He wanted me to make the rivermen and Robb yield.”
“But you made it to Dragonstone,” she said slowly.
“We did. In truth, the gods must have blessed us. Andrei rowed us for four days. We were starving when Dale Seaworth found us out at sea.”
“Varys… What web is he spinning?”
“I fear no man other than Varys himself knows.”
“Be that as it may,” she brushed her hand against his hair. “I thank the gods for bringing you to me once more. Ned… when I heard that you had disappeared…”
He took her hand. “I am here.”
“Can we win this?” Her worries were spilling over now, a river rushing into a tidal flood. Stannis’ camp could not have more than six thousand and many were not knights. She heard the tales of Renly’s army, a hundred thousand strong. Even his horse alone would outnumber us thrice, if not more. If battle should come…
“The king knows war well,” he told her grimly. “And…”
“Red woman,” Andrei said.
“The priestess? What of her?”
“Dark things are best not spoken under the sun,” Ned muttered. “I will tell you all when we are alone.”
Ahead, they saw the northmen, and the mother wolf. As one, the men rose.
“Lord Eddard!” Hal proclaimed. Most of these men were Winterfell men, some were riders from Cerwyn as well, faces whom Ned would be familiar with.
“Hal,” he nodded. “Jory,” his voice grew thick. “You all have ridden hard, and you have done your duty to my wife and son. It may be that you have to fight more.”
“To the end, my lord,” Jory said quietly. The one-eyed northman glanced over to Andrei, smiled grimly, and said, “Yeltska. Still alive.”
“Good look,” Andrei clasped his hand with Jory, nodding at his scarred, ruined eye. The mark of torture had only hammered the iron stronger. “Strong.”
The wolf trotted quietly towards her lord husband. She was larger than any wolf, towering even over Grey Wind and Nymeria, taller than a pony. Her smoky fur was thick and wild, and her golden eyes were piercing. And she pressed her snout against Ned’s outstretched palm. “Winter,” he murmured. “Your name is Winter.”
And Winter howled.
It was a deep, primal sound; like the warhorns that had boomed at the Whispering Wood. She felt a certain strength swell in her at the sound.
The direwolf is the sigil of House Stark. My children have their wolves, and now my lord husband has his.
“Jory,” Ned rose, his hand still on the wolf. “Tell me it all.”
Over the fire, they spoke. Jory shared the tale of his harrowing escape from King’s Landing, and she found herself amused at Ned’s wide eyes.
“Ser Barristan?”
“They dismissed him,” Jory said drily. “For old age.”
“For the life of me, I do not know if that is Cersei’s work or her son.”
That reminded her. “Ned,” she looked at him. “Her children…”
She had not seen the letter that Stannis had sent to the lords of Westeros, but a passing merchant had spoken the tune, then a hunter, and a pair of farmers. The whole realm knows, she thought, or at least they have heard.
“They are not Robert’s,” he said grimly. “She told me as much, in the godswood, the night before… Jaime Lannister is as much her brother as he is her lover.”
She felt the disgust roil in her. A vile woman.
“The betrothal between that boy and Sansa never should have been a thing, damn Robert,” Ned murmured, rubbing his face. In truth, Robert’s arrival to Winterfell had brought such turmoil that she found herself damning the dead king at times.
She would not say as such to her husband, for the king had been his friend. “That betrothal does not stand. Ned, do you know if our daughters…”
“They have to be safe,” he said quietly, Winter resting her head against his thigh. “Even Cersei is not so foolish to harm hostages, not when her brother is a prisoner himself. They are safe.”
She hoped so. “These tales of Baelish’s death…”
At that, Ned shared a look with Andrei. “A long tale, Cat.” He sighed.
“He betrayed you, did he?”
“He did, damn him. He held a knife to my throat, while the gold cloaks slaughtered my men.”
“Ned… I am sorry.”
He reached across the fire, brushing his thumb across her knuckles. “It is not your fault, Cat. You knew the boy, not the man. I committed the same folly with Robert.”
“And that… did he truly die from a boar?”
“He did,” Ned sighed. “His squire, a Lannister boy, plied him with wine.”
She could see Cersei Lannister’s blood-red seal on that foul act. “And now his brothers wage war. Ned, this matter of Renly and Stannis…”
“I have said as much to the king,” he told her with a heavy sigh. The lines were deep on his face, as were the shadowy bags under his eyes. “That man is as stubborn as Robert. More, I would think. So long as Renly calls himself king, he will not relent.”
“With what army? If we all perish here…”
“We will not,” he assured her, though his face was somber. “If battle comes, Jory, Andrei, I want you to bring my wife back to Riverrun.”
“On my life,” Jory promised. Andrei nodded stiffly.
“Ned…”
“It may not come to that,” he told her. “The red woman…”
“What about her?”
“She has powers,” he said bluntly. “She sees things.”
“Magic?” Her voice was uncertain.
“Cat, I…”
What he might have told her was drowned by the sound of a deafening warhorn.
“An attack?” She rose. Her heart was clutched with cold panic and dread.
“Outriders,” Eddard shook his head. “Renly has come. We have been waiting for this. The king will want us by his side at the parlay.”
“We will speak again after,” she gave him a warning look.
“Not even kings and armies will stop you, I think,” her husband smiled at her.
They found the king mounted on a black steed. The device on his sun-yellow banner showed a red heart surrounded by a blaze of orange fire. The crowned stag was there, shrunken and enclosed within the heart of fire. The red priestess rode beside him on a pale mare, bearing his standard. A strange sight.
“You will ride with us, Lord Stark, Lady Stark, and that warrior of yours, I would think.”
“Your Grace,” Ned bowed his head. She did as well. Andrei did so reluctantly.
The meeting place was a grassy sward dotted with pale grey mushrooms and the raw stumps of felled trees.
King Renly was splendid in his green velvet doublet and satin cloak trimmed in vair. The crown of golden roses girded his temples, jade stag’s head rising over his forehead, long black hair spilling out beneath. Jagged chunks of black diamond studded his swordbelt, and a chain of gold and emeralds looped around his neck.
It seemed, to outmatch his brother’s numbers, Renly had brought six riders with him. Seven in total, Renly adored his japes. Seven for the king with the Reach against Stannis with his red priestess. Two tall warriors were draped in cold plate. The first wore deep cobalt, and bore Renly’s banner atop a twelve-foot lance; the crowned stag pranced black-on-gold as the wind off the sea rippled the cloth. The second was a figure all in metal, with strange strictures waxed upon their armor.
Behind her, she could hear a sharp intake of breath. She glanced over her shoulder to spy Andrei’s wide eyes. That was a queer sight, and one that troubled her husband as well, from his look. What could make such a man stunned?
She recognised the other four; Ser Loras Tyrell frowning in his resplendent green and gold, Lord Mathis Rowan in a snowy doublet, Lord Bryce Caron of Nightsong, and Lord Estermont, grandfather to both kings.
It was a powerful showing, the might of the Reach and the Stormlands combined. Even Stannis’ own grandfather has picked Renly over him. Even here, she could see the banners fluttering amidst Renly’s riders. They were a bright sea of steel and banners and men. Like blades of wheat and grass, they fluttered in the breeze; the golden roses of Tyrell, the oak leaves of the Oakhearts, the turtle of Estermont, the golden tree of Rowan, and so many more. Their polished plate shone in the sun, their lances tipped with bright pennants, and their warhorses draped in ornate bardings. Even here, she could hear the laughter and the boasting.
Knights of summer, she thought, thousands upon thousands of them.
Stannis’ greeting was curt. “Renly.”
“King Renly. Can that truly be you, Stannis?”
Stannis frowned. “Who else should it be?”
Renly gave an easy shrug. “When I saw that standard, I could not be certain. Whose banner do you bear?”
“Mine own.”
The red-clad priestess spoke up. “The king has taken for his sigil the fiery heart of the Lord of Light.”
Who is this woman, thought Catelyn, that she speaks for kings?
Renly seemed amused by that. “All for the good. If we both use the same banner, the battle will be terribly confusing. I spy some familiar faces! Lord Stark, Lady Stark.”
“Renly,” Ned said grimly.
“Last I saw you, you still needed a cane,” Renly jested. “Now you have a wolf!”
Winter had followed her husband, padding on the soil softly. At her presence, the seven mounts across the field grew skittish and frightful. She saw Ser Loras put a hand on the hilt of his blade, and Lord Rowan followed his lead.
“Last I saw you, I thought you would not flee.”
“I was not the only one to flee King’s Landing, it seems.” Renly shrugged. “There is little shame in retreat if it saves one their head, I am sure you will agree.”
Catelyn was growing frustrated. “We all share a common foe who would destroy us all,” the words left her, “the Lannisters have stolen the throne. Your royal brother is dead, murdered. My son is fighting Lord Tywin.”
“The Young Wolf, I hear,” Renly smiled at her. “Your son wars well.”
“The Iron Throne is mine by rights. All those who deny that are my foes.” Stannis was unsmiling. “The North and the Riverlands have declared for me. You will do well to follow their loyalty.”
“The rest of the realm denies it, brother,” said Renly. “Old men deny it with their death rattle, and unborn children deny it in their mothers’ wombs. My lords of the Reach have little love for you, and my stormlords do not know you.”
Stannis clenched his jaw, his face taut. “Your lords? I swore I would never treat with you while you wore your traitor’s crown. Would that I had kept to that vow.”
This is folly, Catelyn despaired. Lord Tywin sits at Harrenhal with twenty thousand swords. The remnants of the Kingslayer’s army have regrouped, another Lannister host gathers beneath the shadow of Casterly Rock, and Cersei and her son hold King’s Landing. The kingdom bleeds, and no one lifts a sword to defend it but my son. She glanced at her husband but his eyes were on Stannis.
“A worthy conversation,” Renly said, smiling.
“If you have proposals to make, make them,” Stannis said brusquely, “or I will be gone.”
“Very well,” said Renly. “I propose that you dismount, bend your knee, and swear me your allegiance.”
Stannis choked back rage. “That you shall never have.”
“You served Robert, why not me?”
“Robert was my elder brother. You are the younger.”
“Younger, bolder, and far more comely ...”
“... and a thief and a usurper besides.”
Renly shrugged. “The Targaryens called Robert usurper. He seemed to be able to bear the shame. So shall I.”
She glanced at Ned, whose face was drowning in consternation. What sort of brothers are they, she lamented, that they would quarrel so?
“Robert would turn in his grave at this,” Ned finally spoke. He wore exhaustion on his long face, and he looked from Stannis to Renly. “Robert would not wish to see this.”
“So you say, Lord Stark,” Renly tilted his head, his eyes considering her husband. She could not tell what the young king was thinking. “But Robert is dead.”
“He is, and Joffrey is not my brother’s seed,” Stannis said bluntly. “Nor is Tommen. They are bastards. The girl as well. All three of them abominations born of incest.”
“Isn’t that a sweet story, brother?” Renly asked. “I was camped at Horn Hill when Lord Tarly received his letter, and I must say, it took my breath away.” He smiled at his brother. “I had never suspected you were so clever, Stannis. Were it only true, you would indeed be Robert’s heir. How convenient.”
“Were it true? Do you name me a liar?”
“Can you prove any word of this fable?”
“I can,” Ned said, tiredly. “I confronted Cersei Lannister in the godswood of the Red Keep. The madness of mercy was upon me, I confess. I offered her mercy, for her to flee the city… and Robert’s wrath. The very next day, Robert returned, dying. When we spoke in the godswood, before the eyes of the Old Gods, she told me it all. The truth that Jon Arryn died for. All three are the Kingslayer’s spawn, or do you doubt my words as well, Renly?”
“I brought my suspicions to Jon Arryn,” Stannis followed. “Robert would be more disposed to listen if the charges came from Lord Arryn, whom he loved.”
“Ah,” said Renly. “So we have the word of a dead man. I do not doubt your words, Lord Stark, but awful convenient that there are no others who can speak as well.”
Catelyn was remembering, fitting pieces together. “My sister Lysa accused the queen of killing her husband in a letter she sent me at Winterfell,” she admitted. “Later, in the Eyrie, she laid the murder at the feet of the queen’s brother Tyrion.”
“Is that so!” Renly was amused. “It changes nothing. You may well have the better claim, Stannis, but I still have the larger army.” Renly’s hand slid inside his cloak. Stannis saw, and reached at once for the hilt of his sword, but before he could draw steel his brother produced ... a peach.
“Would you like one, brother?” Renly asked, smiling. “From Highgarden. You’ve never tasted anything so sweet, I promise you.” He took a bite. Juice ran from the corner of his mouth.
“I did not come here to eat fruit.” Stannis was fuming.
This is folly, she thought again. Folly and madness. Robb wars while these two kings quarrel about fruit. If Bran and Rickon behaved like this, she would have banged their heads together and locked them in a bedchamber until they remembered they were brothers. No, like Sansa and Arya.
“A man should never refuse to taste a peach,” Renly said as he tossed the stone away. “He may never get the chance again. Life is short, Stannis. Remember what the Stark words, since they are so close to you now. Winter is coming.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eying the direwolf.
“I did not come here to be threatened, either.”
“Nor were you,” Renly snapped back. “When I make threats, you’ll know it. If truth be told, I’ve never liked you, Stannis, but you are my own blood, and I have no wish to slay you. So if it is Storm’s End you want, take it ... as a brother’s gift. As Robert once gave it to me, I give it to you.”
“It is not yours to give. It is mine by rights.”
Sighing, Renly half turned in the saddle. “What am I to do with this brother of mine, Brienne? He refuses my peach, he refuses my castle, he even shunned my wedding ...”
“We both know your wedding was a mummer’s farce. A year ago you were scheming to make the girl one of Robert’s whores.”
At that, Ned’s face grew more pained.
“A year ago I was scheming to make the girl Robert’s queen,” Renly said, “but what does it matter? The boar got Robert and I got Margaery. You’ll be pleased to know she came to me a maid.”
“In your bed she’s like to die that way.” Behind her, she thought she heard a snort.
“Oh, I expect I’ll get a son on her within the year. Pray, how many sons do you have, Stannis? Oh, yes—none.” Renly smiled innocently. “As to your daughter, I understand. If my wife looked like yours, I’d avoid both of them as well.”
That was ill done, she frowned. The girl had done naught to deserve her uncle’s mocking. She felt a pang of pain in her heart, though she did not know why. She had never seen Shireen Baratheon. Does Renly want to be king so badly?
“Enough!” Stannis roared. “I will not be mocked to my face, do you hear me? I will not!” He yanked his longsword from its scabbard. The steel gleamed strangely bright in the wan sunlight, now red, now yellow, now blazing white. The air around it seemed to shimmer, as if from heat.
Catelyn’s horse whinnied and backed away a step. It was pandemonium. Winter was snarling, Ned was shouting, Andrei had drawn his axe, and Ser Loras his longsword.
Cersei Lannister is laughing herself breathless, Catelyn thought wearily.
Stannis pointed his shining sword at his brother. “I am not without mercy,” thundered he who was notoriously without mercy. “Nor do I wish to sully Lightbringer with a brother’s blood. For the sake of the mother who bore us both, I will give you this night to rethink your folly, Renly. Strike your banners and come to me before dawn, and I will grant you Storm’s End and your old seat on the council and even name you my heir until a son is born to me. Otherwise, I shall destroy you.”
Renly laughed. “Stannis, that’s a very pretty sword, I’ll grant you, but I think the glow off it has ruined your eyes. Look across the fields, brother. Can you see all those banners?” She did, and it made her heart fall.
“Do you think a few bolts of cloth will make you king?”
“Tyrell swords will make me king. Rowan and Tarly and Caron will make me king, with axe and mace and warhammer. Tarth arrows and Penrose lances, Fossoway, Cuy, Mullendore, Estermont, Selmy, Hightower, Oakheart, Crane, Caswell, Blackbar, Morrigen, Beesbury, Shermer, Dunn, Footly ... even House Florent, your own wife’s brothers and uncles, they will make me king. All the chivalry of the south rides with me, and that is the least part of my power. My foot is coming behind, a hundred thousand swords and spears and pikes. And you will destroy me? With what, pray? That paltry rabble I see there huddled under the castle walls? I’ll call them five thousand and be generous, codfish lords and onion knights and sellswords. Half of them are like to come over to me before the battle starts. You have fewer than four hundred horse, my scouts tell me—freeriders in boiled leather who will not stand an instant against armored lances. I do not care how seasoned a warrior you think you are, Stannis, that host of yours won’t survive the first charge of my vanguard.”
“We shall see, brother.” Some of the light seemed to go out of the world when Stannis slid his sword back into its scabbard. “Come the dawn, we shall see.”
“Your grace,” Ned pleaded. “Renly. If you break each other, only the Lannisters benefit.”
“Break?” Renly was laughing. “Do not worry, my lord and lady of Stark. I shall return you to your son after the battle is over, after you have bent the knee, of course. The North and the Riverlands will be accepted in my kingdom. I hope your new god’s a merciful one, brother.” ”
Stannis snorted and galloped away, disdainful. The red priestess lingered a moment behind. “Look to your own sins, Lord Renly,” she said as she wheeled her horse. “The night is dark and full of terrors.”
Folly, she wanted to tell her husband, but Ned had already wheeled his horse to the king’s right. To Stannis’ left was the red woman, and all three spoke fiercely.
She turned to a troubled Andrei instead. “This is folly.”
“It is.” The man rumbled, scratching at his beard. For the first time, he looked nervous and apprehensive. “Only… horse.”
Renly’s words rang to her. All the chivalry of the south rides with me, and that is the least part of my power. My foot is coming behind.
Renly had split his forces, much as Robb had done at the Twins, she realised now. He must have led his knights and freeriders in a swift, mad dash east. Which left his great mass of foot behind at Bitterbridge with his young queen, his wagons, carts, draft animals, and all his cumbersome siege machinery.
How like his brother Robert he was, even in that ... only Robert had always had Eddard Stark to temper his boldness with caution. Ned would surely have prevailed upon Robert to bring up his whole force, to encircle Stannis and besiege the besiegers. Except the Lord of Winterfell was here, advising Stannis.
Renly had outdistanced his supply lines, left food and forage days behind with all his wagons and mules and oxen. He must come to battle soon, or starve.
Her husband was still quarrelling with the king and the priestess even as they stepped into the king’s pavilion once more. She lingered by its exterior, Winter circling around her feet, brushing her with wolf fur. She ran her hand over the furry hide, sighing.
“Andrei,” she said, catching the warrior’s attention. He towered over her but she felt no fear. “When battle comes, I know my lord husband cannot yet fight. I want you by his side.”
“Lord Stark say…”
“Jory and the rest can bring me to safety,” she told him. “You are a good fighter, the best I have ever seen perhaps. I know of few other men who could have done what you have done. I want you to protect Ned.”
Andrei bowed. “I will,” he promised. Twice, he has protected Ned. Let him do it again, and as many times as the gods will send danger our way.
It did not take long for one to leave the tent, and not the face she hoped to see.
The Red Woman smiled at her. Andrei made to stand in between them but Melisandre raised a hand. “I mean the lady no harm,” she whispered. “I am only a priestess,” she told the warrior, amusement dancing across her smile.
Catelyn watched the priestess skeptically. This is a dangerous woman, she thought. A foreign priestess from the east, who now stood by a king’s side.
“I have seen your face in the fire, my lady,” the red woman told her, by way of a courteous greeting.
Catelyn gave Andrei a look. The warrior only offered a solemn shrug. “Fires can oft form patterns and figures that we hope to see,” she eventually said.
Melisandre was amused. “Your son, the white wolf, he has fought well. I have seen him as well, amidst others who shall war for the dawn.”
She found that she misliked this foreign priestess, all the more when she spoke of Robb. “My son will do his duty.”
“As we all must,” Melisandre’s eyes looked aflame. “As I shall this night.”
She departed in a billow of scarlet satin, and Catelyn watched her leave. “Why does Stannis keep such a woman close to him?”
“Magic,” Andrei said bluntly.
“Truly?” The thought frightened her. She should be skeptical of the word, but too much had happened for her heart to be doubtful. The sight of the comet turning from crimson to glimmering gold, Ned’s words, the wolves, and her dreams…
She had dreamt much on her ride south. Each night, she slumbered deeply, exhausted from the day’s hard ride. And in her dreams, she oft saw a woman wreathed in leaves and bedecked in fruits. She was a gracious woman, her hair a tangle of flowers and branches and her gown a weave of evergreen leaves and fragrant herbs. Does surrounded them often, as did birds and hares and flowers.
Ned’s face was grim when he left the pavilion. As the flap of the royal pavilion fell closed behind him, he stepped into the fading light of dusk. The sun was sinking low behind the western hills, bleeding red into the sky. A cruel omen, thought Catelyn. The air had grown colder, and the sounds of the camp had dulled into a low murmur beneath the wind. He gave them both a weary look, sighing. The lines on his face were deeper now than they had ever been in Winterfell. Winter came to him, slow and steady, and pressed her great head into his chest with a low rumble.
“There will be a battle, it seems,” he told them softly, stroking the direwolf’s coarse fur. “Stannis will not yield.”
“He will … never,” said Andrei.
“Neither will Renly,” Catelyn sighed. Dusk would soon fall, she realised. Then, night. And when dawn came, there would be a battle beyond the likes of which had ever been seen. And she, and her husband, would be in the heart of the storm. How many battles has Storm’s End seen? She found herself wondering. Too many.
“Let us rest early,” she told her husband. “It may be that this night is our last.”
He understood her meaning. They spent the night well in the large tent that the king had given to his most important lord and lady. Strangely, sleep came easy that night and when it did, the dreams came again. The woman stood before her again. This time, she wore a crown of barley and wheat, and she was heavy with child.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Catelyn III, ACOK
And so we get the reunion we never had in canon. This was a blast to write, and heartwarming too.
Rhya is the goddess of fertility, agriculture, motherhood, and love in Warhammer Fantasy by the way, known as the Earth Mother.
Next chapter ... Robb.
Chapter 74: Robb I: The Battle of Oxcross
Summary:
Woof.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The army gathered at Oxcross was impressive only in numbers.
“Ten thousand, or thereabouts,” Ser Brynden reported, gruffly. The Blackfish wore grey ringmail and brown leathers so dark they were almost black. Soot and mud and sand hung loosely onto them, but the knight did not seem bothered. “Mayhaps five hundred fought in a battle before, I would wager by the look of them. Mayhaps two thousand have been swinging their swords for a few years, from the looks of how they know to wear their helms the right way. Most are green boys; farmhands, apprentices, stableboys. It will take moons to forge them into proper steel.”
“I saw one holding a spear the wrong way,” Theon quipped, to the chuckling of the assembled lords of the north and river.
They were gathered in his command tent, poring over a map of the West. Ser Brynden stood to his right, Theon beside him. The Greatjon was to his left, Rickard Karstark as well. Galbart Glover looked thoughtful, frowning over the map, while Maege Mormont fingered her spiked mace. The last of their numbers was Ser Stevron Frey, his grey eyes watery in the smoke, like a man weeping.
“Their camp, if you can call it that, looked a proper mess,” the Blackfish continued. “Seated upon the fields of Oxcross like some crude giant. No walls, trenches, or palisades. What few sentries there were, I saw them drinking or dicing. Sacks of grain left open, barrels of ale tapped and forgotten. Horses tethered too far from the center. The tents are a right mess, loose clusters and lines. No scouts either.”
“They might need a day to form for battle,” Glover remarked.
“Make that two,” Ser Brynden muttered, “if we are generous.”
Robb ran his fingers through Grey Wind’s smoky fur, the direwolf’s presence as steady as the night itself. The beast had proven invaluable, as had the shepherds that Theon and the Blackfish had found; weathered men, toothless and hardened by wind and stone. They had lived their lives among the rocky hills, guiding their tough old goats along forgotten paths older than the Golden Tooth, their backs burdened with wine, salt, and bolts of cloth.
It was Grey Wind who found the first goat track, the shepherds who led them to two more. Paths so old they might have been laid by the First Men, winding through craggy cliffs and shadowed ravines where no Lannister scout would ever think to look. The cost of their silence was not steep; a gold dragon each, a fortune for men who measured wealth in salted meat and dry boots, and he had paid it gladly.
Now, he smiled at the memory.
Yet at night, unease crept into his dreams. He dreamt of padded steps on ancient trails, of slipping through misty passes where the wind whispered through grey stone sentinels. In his sleep, he could feel the chill of the earth beneath his paws.
And he howled, a sound he recognised.
With three paths, six thousand riders could cross swiftly. And so they did, bypassing the Golden Tooth entirely. Some of his lords had grumbled at that, pointing out the gold and food within the mountain fortress. He listened, and pointed out the men within that fortress. What remained of the southern camp that had besieged Riverrun found its way within the walls of the Tooth; three thousand men and more.
“Shall we ride our horses up the walls of the Tooth?” He told those stubborn lords.
No, speed and surprise were the tools they wielded, and he meant to use them well. To that end, they had bypassed Sarsfield as well, so as to not alert Stafford Lannister’s host at Oxcross. Though now, he wondered if they would be alerted if he stood before them blowing a warhorn and yelling curses. Mayhaps not.
“I would hear your advice, my lords, my lady,” he told them.
“Sweep in from the west, as the sun sets,” the Greatjon boomed.
Rickard Karstard disagreed. “They are on an open field. Split our horses in two and crush them from east and west. That way, we can slay each and every.”
Lady Mormont seemed to agree. “Three ways, I would think, and this matter with their horses. I say we pounce on that folly. Send some riders to plunge them into a wild panic. Let them stampede through the camp as well.”
“We need not send riders,” Robb nodded at Grey Wind. “Just one wolf.”
The Lady of Bear Island cackled. “As you say, Young Wolf!”
“In truth, whichever direction, it matters not, I would think,” Ser Brynden told them. “Nightfall would be best. Most of their numbers would be slumbering.”
Robb nodded. “Greatjon, Lord Karstark, you will ride with me from the north. Lady Mormont, you shall have the west. Lord Glover, the east. Ser Stevron, the south. Ser Brynden, Theon, I want our outriders to be scattered along the outskirts. Slay any Westermen that manages to run, as many as your arrows and swords can reach. Speak to your men, I want them in place after sunset.”
A chorus of ‘ayes’ answered him.
“I hear this lion is a dullard,” the Greatjon was grinning. “Might be we can sober him up with some blood, eh?” He was laughing as he left.
Theon stayed behind, as did Ser Stevron lingering with a hesitant look.
“My lord…” the Frey knight started, eying the direwolf by Robb’s side. “My father wished me to speak with you…”
“About my uncle’s marriage?”
“Ah, yes, Lord Stark.”
“My father is Lord Stark,” Robb told him. “I am but his heir. Ser Edmure is most grateful for the role that House Frey has played in his rescue. Yet, it is most dangerous for a wedding now, no?”
“It is,” Stevron Frey nodded slowly.
“And would you deny my lord father and lady mother their seat at the wedding as well?”
“House Frey would never commit such dishonor, of course.”
“When the war is won,” Robb declared sternly, “we shall all make merry.”
“A wedding, yes, no better way to celebrate a victory.”
And that was the matter concluded. Theon watched the knight depart, smirking.
“What do you intend to do once the battle is won?”
“The battle is not yet won,” he reminded Theon.
“You can send a pack of deer in that general direction and they will break,” Theon Greyjoy shrugged, amused.
“Be that as it may,” Robb took a horn of ale, offering another to the smiling youth, “no battle is won before it is fought.”
“Some are,” Theon pointed out. “Bring three dragons to a fight, and it is won before it is fought. Bring a wolf to a fight…”
Robb chuckled, relenting. “The Blackfish was impressed by your bow arm.”
“Was he?” Theon’s shock seemed genuine.
“I believe he said ‘it was passing’”, Robb smiled.
“Praise as high as a mountain,” Theon finished the ale. “I had… thought that you would send me to the Iron Islands, to speak with my father.”
Robb’s lips parsed into a thin line. “I might have.”
“What changed?”
“The king.”
“Stannis?”
“King Stannis,” he reminded. “Writing demands to King’s Landing is one thing…”
“Sending a hostage back is another?” Theon’s smile was stiff.
Robb frowned. “No. You are my brother, as much as Jon and Bran and Rickon. We fought together. The king has no love for your father.”
“I can persuade him,” Theon pointed out. “From sea and land, Greyjoy and Stark, Lannisport will fall. The west will follow.”
Can you? Robb wondered. Never before had a letter from Balon Greyjoy come to Winterfell, no matter how much ink Theon spent. “I would prefer you by my side, Theon,” Robb said instead. “It may be that my father and the king would send an envoy to the Iron Islands in the moons to come. Should that be, I would have you return victorious, with glory at your belt.”
“I understand,” Theon relented. He glanced at the battleaxe at Robb’s back. The heft was made of ironwood, near as strong as steel, and the steel was dark and sharp as night. “Why did you start using that? You hardly trained with one back in Winterfell.”
“Hardly,” Robb admitted. The longsword hanging from his hip was the weapon that Rodrik Cassel trained him most. He still remembered the spars he had with Jon, the two clashing with wooden sticks, each pretending they were heroes and conquerors. I have won two battles, Robb thought, mayhaps Jon has been playing the hero.
“That duel with the Kingslayer,” Theon continued. “Why use the axe? He was more cat than lion to be sure, but he still had claws.”
“I know not how to explain it, Theon,” Robb told him earnestly. It felt right. Mother was furious afterwards, but she only expressed it in a single, stern look.
“As you say,” Theon shrugged. “I can hear the songs they will sing for this battle already, ringing in my ears.”
“Write one more for me then.”
“I am a singer of a different sort, Stark,” Theon laughed, leaving. “My arrows sing a song of steel for me when they pierce flesh, as do the maidens when I pierce them.”
Robb shook his head. He drew the axe from his back, laying it on the table before him. The battleaxe was a few inches shorter than usual to compensate for his height, and he had been training with it. Two hours each day; with the Karstark boys, Theon, Smalljon, Dacey. Riverrun’s smiths had forged it for him, in honor of his victory over the Kingslayer. Ironwood from the North, dark iron from the riverlands.
He tested it often; against Torrhen Karstark’s shield, against Smalljon’s greatsword, against Dacey’s mace. Each day, he brought it to bear against another warrior, another weapon. Each day, he learned. Today, it will seep at blood, he thought.
Grey Wind eyed the axe curiously, tilting his head.
“Are you going to ask me why as well?” Robb eyed his wolf, who only huffed. After his mother’s quiet reprimand, for lords could not be scolded like children, he was not foolish enough to ride into battle with only the axe. His longsword hung from its usual position; and a dagger on the other hip, and a dirk in one boot.
Dusklight found him mounted amidst over a thousand riders.
They were some distance north of Oxcross; far enough that Stafford Lannister’s host could not spy them, but close enough that they could be ready to charge at a moment’s notice. The Greatjon was to his right, mounted on his shaggy horse, and Rickard Karstark solemn on his left. Grey Wind circled them slowly, almost lazily.
“Shall we take Lannisport after this, Lord Robb?” the Greatjon wondered.
“It may be that it is too fortified,” Robb frowned.
“No matter,” Lord Karstark grunted. There was no news of Harrion Karstark, his eldest, who had fought at the Green Fork. All assumed him dead. “The west is ripe. These lords are fat and not prepared. All they have sown in the riverlands, the fire and death, they will reap.” The time for grief was over, it seemed, and Rickard Karstark’s eyes were fixed onto the camp just beyond the hill.
“Young Wolf,” Greatjon Umber said bluntly, though Robb heard no disrespect in his voice. “You are unmarried. I have daughters close to your age, beautiful and strong.”
“Strong, I wager…” Karstark muttered under his breath. If Alys Karstark were not betrothed to Daryn Hornwood, he knew the Lord of Karhold would speak the same.
“I am not yet Lord of Winterfell,” he reminded them. “I am only acting in my father’s stead. You may speak to my father for matters of marriage.” Or my mother.
“Ah, Ned,” the Greatjon was at a loss for words. Rickard Karstark’s lips twitched.
Robb eyed the ancient warhorn at Greatjon’s belt, and at the setting sun. The sun was bleeding into the horizon, staining the sky in shades of crimson and gold. The hills of the West, once bathed in the bright glare of day, were now smoldered in the dying light, their edges softened by the creeping gloom. Across the fields and forests, shadows stretched long, flickering and dancing, like the grasping fingers of death inching towards the camp of Stafford Lannister.
A warm breeze stirred the tall grass and trees, whispering through the leaves. He was reminded of the Whispering Wood. In the distance, fires were flickering to life, small pinpricks of orange dotting the far field, as men prepared for a night of rest.
Grey Wind was prowling, his amber eyes catching the last glimmers of daylight, his breath steady, his form tense. Behind them, the men were waiting in silence. No war cries nor jests nor boasts; these men had fought at the Whispering Wood, then for Riverrun. Many had fought when the Greyjoys came, and one in four had fought at the Trident. Blooded veterans all, grim ghosts in the fading light, poised to strike the instant the sun’s last embers faded into black. The world was growing quiet; he could hear the tightening of gloved fingers around spear shafts, the shifting of weight in saddles, the quick sip at a flask for courage, and murmured prayers to gods.
Soon, the night would come, and with it, death.
He found his thoughts drifting; north and south.
North, to Winterfell; where Bran sat as the Stark in Winterfell. They are just boys, Robb thought grimly. They should be playing in the snow, and reading tales, not governing the North. Jon’s face came to him, somber and solemn. Even now, Jon Snow was freezing on the Wall. He found himself missing his brother fiercely.
South, to Storm’s End; where his mother rode to find his lord father and their new king. And King’s Landing, where his sisters were. He prayed that they were safe. There are three kings there, Robb lamented, and they are caught between all three.
Though he was sitting tall in the saddle, Grey Wind was near the same height. The dire wolf padded close, his massive form barely making a sound in the dim light. Grey Wind’s smoky fur rippled as he moved, a sea of smoke, and his keen amber eyes flickered up to meet Robb’s; watching, knowing, and clever.
Without a word, his companion pressed his muzzle against Robb’s hand. The warmth of his breath seeped through the leather of his gloves. Robb let his fingers brush through the thick fur, feeling the steady rise and fall. The direwolf lingered, nuzzling him once, twice, before turning his gaze south again. And so did he.
Night was falling in silence around them, wrapping the hills in a cloak of shifting shadows and cold air. The last traces of sunset was fading away; the gold giving way to only the faintest sheen of silver on the distant hills, where the stars had begun to pierce the night sky. The land belonged to the dark now. And to the wolves.
Robb raised a gloved hand, and the world fell silent.
He pointed it south.
His stallion took a step forward, and another, barely stirring the dirt beneath them. All around, men whistled in the call of snowshrikes, birds native to the cold North as their steeds followed. Beside him, Greatjon Umber was a giant in the dark, a hulking shadow in steel and fur. Rickard Karstark was to his other side, silent and grim, a red-eyed ghost. His sons were just as grim too. Grey Wind loped ahead, a wraith in the gloom, his ears twitching, his nose smelling.
For a moment, the world was a haze of color and scents; horseflesh, clean iron, old fur, unwashed bodies, smoke, dried blood. He shook his head.
To the south, and east, and west, snowshrikes called to them as well.
Clop, clop, clop, their horses trotted forward slowly. Thousands of hooves pattering against the soil, like a slow rain of flesh. His gloved hands were loose on the reins as his stallion shifted beneath him. His thoughts were on his dreams. As of late, they were plenty; and often, he dreamt of wolves and snow.
A shrine in a blizzard of white, and a mighty black battleaxe wreathed in white fire before the cold stone, and white wolves watching him.
Some nights, he saw a massive warrior with long and wild black hair, flowing unbounded, with a thick black beard, silvered by hoarfrast. On his back was a silver-grey wolf-skin cloak, and in his hands was the battleaxe. How the warrior fought, axe in hand and wolves by his side! One night, he even spied the warrior smiting the top of a mountain with naught but the butt of his axe.
Clop, clop, clop, clop, Robb tightened his grip on the reins. His heart was pounding in his chest; the beat slow but growing strong and fast, pounding with the sound of the hooves. The Greatjon let out a low chuckle, anticipation rumbling in his throat like thunder, distant and close. Rickard Karstark growled like an angry beast. Their horses moved as one, their steps lengthening, their muscles tensing. Behind them, grim-faced men in mail and furs rode, with spear and lance and axe and sword.
Then, they broke into a gallop.
“Now,” he commanded, drawing the sword from his hip. The axe would be too unwieldy on horseback, and heavy.
The Greatjon raised the warhorn to his lips, his broad chest swelling as he let out a deep, thunderous blast that shattered like glass the silence of the night. The sound was low and fierce, like the roar of some ancient beast, rolling over the hills and through the field below. Grey Wind was ahead, his howling mournful and haunting.
The wind roared past them like shrieking ghosts. Hooves were drumming against the earth, faster and faster and faster. The land was trembling, the world was blurring. The cries were rising over the hills, sharp and wild. He heard a voice roaring "WINTERFELL!", and realised that it came from him.
“LAST HEARTH! ” The Greatjon answered, roaring like an unchained giant.
“KARHOLD! ” came the anguished cry from Rickard Karstark.
They could see the Lannister camp now, messy and disorganised as the Blackfish had promised. There were confused voices, the rustle of men scrambling from their tents, half naked and drunk. Then, another horn answered.
To the west, Maege Mormont’s warhorn sounded, sharp and wild, like the cry of a hunting hawk.
To the east, Galbart Glover’s call rose, strong and sure and solemn, echoing through the trees like the whisper of steel being unsheathed.
And then, from the south, where Ser Stevron Frey lay in wait, came the last horn; long and deep, the last note of fate closing around like a tightening noose.
And they were upon them.
The first through the camp was neither man nor horse. Grey Wind leapt past the sentries, tearing the throat of one man open, blood spilling all over his smoky fur. With a single howl tearing through the night, the horses were plunged into a panic, prey running before a predator. Hundreds of mad mares were crashing through cookfires and tents, trampling knights and smallfolk alike, braying wildly and loudly. Men were emerging from their tent, half awake and terrified. Some wore mail, most were clad in only tunics and breeches, struggling to find their swords or put on their helms. His sword came swinging through the air, and a head soared.
All across the camp, men rose, and men fell.
From the north, he led the charge, the sword flashing through the night. Grey Wind was a snarling shadow in the chaos. The Greatjon was laughing, that ugly slab of iron in his hands crashing this way and the other. Rickard Karstark led his fist of iron to the left, lances and spears impaling themselves upon terrified men. Again, Robb’s sword fell, and each time it did, men died.
From the west, it was Maege Mormont’s riders, cutting through the ranks with axe and mace and hammer. The North poured its fury upon the night there and then, splitting shields and skulls and sinew alike. He spied Maege Mormont’s spiked mace breaking a knight’s shield, then his wrist, then his shoulder, and his face.
From the east, Galbart Glover’s riders swept in like a fiery blade, torches flickering as they burnt and hacked through the chaos. Red tents erupted into red flames, black smoke curling like fingers towards the night sky. Confusion spread like wildfire; half-dressed men stumbling out of their burning tents, only to be cut down where they stood, or trampled before a horse, or impaled on a spear.
And from the south, the last hammer fell. Riders with Frey banners poured in, lances lowered, their charge smashing through the rear of a regiment of spearmen that had been forming up. Stafford Lannister’s camp was hemmed in on all sides, and he spied the banners of the golden lion trampled in the dirt.
He led an iron fist of riders towards the centre of the camp. His sword was bloodied but Robb paid it no mind. This is no battle, he thought, frustrated. This is a slaughter. Riders were cutting through panicked men, bright swords flashing in the firelight. Under the glow of the pale moon, men died in droves, like cattle. Tents were collapsing beneath their own weight, burned black or stained red with blood. Here, a pack of squires threw down their swords but spears found their way into their bellies. There, sellswords tried to turn their cloaks but axes took their heads anyway.
Many were running; throwing down their swords and spears, shrugging off their shirts of mail, flinging their golden helms to the ground, crying for mercy and the Mother and their mothers. From a grand pavilion, he spied a gaggle of lords panicking through the smoke.
“There!” He roared, pointing with his sword.
When his sword came down, it was met by steel.
A knight stood facing him; a large, broad-shouldered man with the heavy build of a fighter. A black boar roared defiantly on his surcoat and, unlike most, the man was clad in steel. Robb found himself smiling. “I would have your name, ser, before I take your head,” he told the boar knight.
“Tell your old gods that Roland Crakehall sent you to them, boy.”
Robb laughed, dismounting, to the dismay of the men around him.
“My lord,” the Smalljon muttered. “Let me fight this one for you.”
“No,” Daryn Hornwood protested. “Give me the honor.”
Torrhen and Eddard Karstark both looked ready to argue.
“I will be no spectator,” he told them. No, his place was in the fire of battle, where the wolves awaited to take the dead to their rest. The dream came to him again, of the mighty warrior with the axe in hand. “Do not tell my mother,” he said gingerly.
He buried the longsword in the soil, and hefted the axe carefully.
All around the camp, men were dying, but enclosed here was all that mattered. Roland Crakehall watched him carefully with his longsword in hand.
Axe and sword met, ringing.
The knight was just as armored as he was; chainmail over leathers, plate, mailed gloves and both lacked a helm. Roland Crakehall was skilled with his sword, and the blade came biting like a steel snake. Each time, Robb met him with the dark steel of his axe or the ironwood heft. They danced amidst the smoke of the burning camp, and under the gaze of the pale moon, their steel clashing without end.
The Lord of Crakehall was older than him; taller, bigger and stronger-built. Yet, where Roland Crakehall’s swings grew more sluggish, Robb’s grew fierce and more savage. With each thrust and cut and parry, the Lord of Crakehall was slower. I should be the one slowing down, Robb wondered. Our armors are the same, my weapon is heavier… Yet, he felt not an inch of exhaustion. Why? Why?
Then, his axe bit deeply against Roland Crakehall’s wrist, and his sword went soaring through the smoky air. To his credit, the Lord of Crakehall did not flinch, nor yield. Instead, he charged, bringing his heavy weight towards Robb.
A smoky blur crashed into him, and Robb watched dispassionately as Grey Wind feasted on Roland Crakehall’s face, snarling and biting and crunching.
The sound of fighting was dying; the battle was over as quickly as it had started.
Everywhere he looked, he saw bodies unmoving on the ground and burning tents. Hundreds of men were being put to the sword. His orders were clear. There would be few prisoners; only the lords and knights. The rest would be butchered unless they had yielded immediately. Those who did, young boys mainly, were herded at bloody spearpoint away from the camp, stripped of what arms and armor they had not already stripped away from themselves in their fright and panic.
He looked around for Stafford Lannister, but his men only brought him a broken corpse with a mangled face. Rickard Karstark had found him running after a horse, and trampled the Lannister knight under the steel hooves of his own. By the time dawn touched the hills, there was nothing left at the camp but corpses and crows.
They had stripped it bare, and took what they could carry; food, gold, steel. They left behind grim devastation, ruin and smoke in their wake. Crushed tents and burned wagons littered the field, smoldering in the wake. Thousands of soldiers were scattered across the field, some lifeless in their own blood, some trampled and crushed, some burnt to a crisp. The rubble of armor and weapons were everywhere.
Dawn found him and his lords watching over nearly three thousand young men, sullen and terrified. Even now, his outriders were still combing through the countryside, slaying with arrow and sword those who had run. Without horses, escape was near impossible but there were always those who ran faster than others.
Else, the Battle of Oxcross had been an overwhelming victory. Of the ten thousand men who had been gathered by Stafford Lannister, close to six thousand were butchered without mercy. Near three thousand, levies who had been farmhands and apprentices, were gathered in the field before him. The rest were the hostages of knights and lords, or were scattered across the land and hunted by the Blackfish.
He had lost three-and-thirty good men.
“I have little desire to show you mercy,” he told the three thousand gathered before him, bluntly and coldly. “I have three thousand of you here. I do not wish to feed you, nor do I trust you. You are my foe. Still, my father taught me honor. So, choices I will give you. Many of you were farmhands or apprenticed to different trades, never meant to fight. You were forced into this war, as was I! I give you this one day to choose. Take up those spears to fight for me, or pick up your hammers and hoes and needles and pans to work for the North and the Riverlands, or die.”
Eight hundred chose to fight, the rest agreed to work and toil. Unsurprisingly, none chose to die.
From the village of Oxcross, he made his plans. A tavern was taken, albeit with recompense for the innkeep, and there, his lords found him.
“Ser Lymond Vikary and Lord Antario Jast, Martyn Lannister, the third son of Kevan Lannister. Half a hundred other knights and lords,” Galbart Glover reported. “We have them in chains and watched carefully.”
Outside, men were tending to their wounds, cooking their meals, and cleaning their arms and armor. The sound of fire and sharpening steel and the songs of victories flooded in, as did the waft of bread and meat. Grey Wind was away, busy eating.
Ignoring the smell of blood in his nostrils, Robb listened.
“We chased them as far as you ordered,” the Blackfish grunted. “They will flock to Lannisport now, no more than a thousand.”
“Good.” He wanted the realm to know.
The Greatjon laughed deeply. “That was a glorious victory,” he boomed. “We ought to follow it with another, hit the Lannisters before they can even react. We’ve got them on their heels, and there is no better time than now to strike!” He thumped his fist against the table. “Let us take the Golden Tooth next! That’ll cripple old Tywin’s control, and we can cut off any supply or movement.”
Rickard Karstark frowned. “The Tooth is fortified. Lannisport is exposed.”
“Its walls are still high,” reminded Galbart Glover, calmly. “We cannot risk the men. Who knows what might happen with the Baratheon kings.”
“Ah, he is right,” Mormont declared. “The countryside is ripe for the taking. The richest realm, ripe for the taking.” The hoary old woman was cackling.
“It is,” Robb rose, his gaze fixed upon the map of the west. The gate was shattered and now they would feast upon the plunder. “Greatjon is right, we must press this advantage, but both the Tooth and Lannisport are too well-guarded. My lords, remember our goal. We are to lure Tywin Lannister out of Harrenhal, not reap glory by taking Casterly Rock. This is what we will do.”
He turned to Theon. “You will take Ashemark and the Crag with a thousand riders.” Theon Greyjoy’s eyes widened in shock.
“Lord Karstark, you will have a thousand riders as well. Set the coast on fire from Kayce to Crakehall. Take the holdfasts if you believe you can do so without great loss.” Rickard Karstark gave him a grim nod.
“Lady Mormont, you will reap every village and farm with a thousand riders. Gold and livestock both, flood it back to the riverlands.” The Lady of Bear Island cackled.
“Lord Umber, you will have eight hundred riders. Take the gold mines at Nunn’s Deep, Castamere, and in the Pendric Hills. Though I recall you mentioning your little love for Lannister gold…”
“I’ll take it happily all the same,” Umber guffawed. “Although, you have given me two hundred fewer riders than the others, my lord.”
The pride of his northmen was prickly. “Merely because you are worth two hundred by your lonesome, I believe.”
“Ser Brynden, Lord Glover, you will ride with me. We will take Sarsfield with the rest of the riders. Far be it for us to let them think they are forgotten.”
“What will we do with those three thousand boys?” Brynden Blackfish wondered.
“Ser Stevron will hold them here with two hundred men, and continue the training of those eight hundred,” he mused. “We will keep the wounded here as well. Once we take Sarsfield, we can start the process of moving those farmhands and smiths and cooks along those goat trails.”
The Riverlands were burnt and ravaged, and the North had always been the most barren of the kingdoms bar the Iron Islands. The gold of the west will feed us, he thought, satisfied, and its fields and livestock.
“We will make camp here for the day and the night,” he told his lords. “Tend to the wounded, feast, celebrate. Come dawn, we ride and the west will burn.”
“Two hundred,” Lady Mormont jested towards the Greatjon, “aye, you smell and drink and eat enough for two hundred mayhaps!”
The hoots and jests and banter continued even as they left the smoky hall of the tavern. Only Theon lingered, eager as the others were for mead and meat.
“You want me to take Ashemark?” Theon asked thickly. “And the Crag…”
“Do you think you are not yet ready?”
“No,” Theon said immediately.
“Ser Brynden believes so as well,” Robb smiled. “As do I. Ashemark is the seat of House Marbrand. With most of their numbers away or dead, it is ripe for the taking. Do not linger there for long. I want you to take the Crag as well. That should be no great trouble, it is more ruin than castle, I hear. Gawen Westerling was captured at the Whispering Wood.”
“They will fall,” Theon promised. “Both of them.”
The Crag sits by the sea, Robb wondered. Close to the Iron Islands.
His tent was empty now, but he remained seated, frowning at the map. Sarsfield first, we bypass the Golden Tooth after. From there, it is a swift ride to Riverrun. His gaze glided along the green paints and blue lines. If Tywin Lannister wants to march to protect his lands, and he has to, he has to cross the Red Fork.
That was not new to him. Even before he rode from Riverrun, Ser Edmure was tasked with rallying all the swords and spears he could. Eight thousand foot and three thousand riders, Edmure promised. Robb would bring him another two thousand mounted men, not that the Old Lion would know. He sat alone in the dark, heavy in his thoughts; Kayce and Feastfires, Ashemark and the Crag, Sarsfield and the Golden Tooth, Riverrun and Harrenhal.
Try as he might, his gaze was drawn to Winterfell as well, and to King’s Landing.
“This will not do,” he reminded himself. King’s Landing is far, as is Winterfell and Storm’s End. Mother, Father, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon, Jon, they are all far and away. He glared at the map of the west before him. The west was close and near.
And the West would burn.
That night, in his dreams, he was closer to the shrine than ever.
The winter wind could not stop his tread, nor the sea of knee-high snow. Even in the biting cold, he felt warm. A white fire burnt around him, though it did not melt the snow, only bringing warmth to him. Grey Wind was by his side, curious and alert. Together, they stood before the shrine of the wolf. They were not alone.
The warrior watched him sternly, a fierce look in his dark eyes, shadowed under the wolf-skin cloak. In his hands was the battleaxe, black and mighty and ancient. White wolves surrounded them, howling into the white night. The world was white as well; all he could see was the axe and wolves, all he could hear was the howling of winter. And when Robb Stark woke again, his hands were cold and covered in hoarfrost.
Notes:
For all the Robb fans, many of his chapters in this arc are going to be battles; planning, fighting, aftermath. Fitting for the Young Wolf and Ulric's chosen. And battles there will be plenty in this arc, all culminating in what you all are no doubt waiting to see...
As of now, he is the champion that is 'putting in the most work' when it comes to delivering on their god's domain, I think. War, check. Wolves, check. Winter, check. It is almost as if House Stark and Ulric are meant for one another. Thus, he is amongst the first to receive little 'gifts'. Although, the others will not be that far behind.
As a refresher:
Ulric, the God of War, Winter, and Wolves - Robb
Morr, the God of the Dead and Dreams - Bran
Manann, the God of the Sea - Asha
Rhya, the Goddess of Love, Fertility, and Motherhood - Catelyn
Taal, the God of the Wild - ?Shallya, the Goddess of Mercy, Healing, and Compassion - Sansa
Ranald, the God of Luck, Thieves, and Freedom - Arya
Verena, the Goddess of Wisdom, Justice, and Learning - ?
Myrmidia, the Goddess of War, Battle, and Civilisation - ?I have already decided on the three ?, but they will only be revealed much later on. Also, don't take this to mean that the fic is a Stark wank. True enough, as it stands, the Starks have a better fate than in canon. However, one, it doesn't take much to have a better fate than in canon. Two, the real horrors and conflicts are yet to come. Three, I chose the characters because I deemed them to be the most fitting. I mean, just look at how often mercy and doves come up for Sansa in text, for example.
Anyways, I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Next one will be a bonus chapter set in King's Landing, before we return to Sansa. After that, we fly back to Storm's End...
Chapter 75: The Stag's Son
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The alleyways of King’s Landing were a maze of filth and shadow.
Mirelle had learned that much in the few days since she had come to the city. Her father had owned fields not too far from Sow’s Horn, two days north. Her mother tended to the house; cooking, sewing and cleaning. Her three brothers, eight-and-ten, six-and-ten, and nine, worked the fields tirelessly with her father.
In spring and summer, she remembered running along the kingsroad with her brothers after a bountiful harvest, giggling and playing in the breeze under the warm sun. That was when King Robert ruled, when there was peace in the land.
Then, King Robert died, and the crows came to pick apart the corpse of the land.
Men in red and gold came to take her father away, Burton and Calor too. They took the hoes and shovels from their hands away, and gave them swords and spears instead. A pregnant woman, a girl of two-and-ten, and a boy of nine were left to tend to their fields of barley and wheat and cabbage, to milk the cows and feed the chickens. We will be back, her father promised, just wait, my dear.
They never did come back.
Men came in their stead; rough, dark men with cruel smiles and leering grins.
They took the silvers her father kept under their beds, for they had no gold. They took the bread and eggs, and carried away their chickens. For three days and nights, they stayed in their home. Seven men with daggers and swords, and there was naught they could do. The seven ate away at their food, took her mother, and forced Damon and her to clean their boots, wipe their swords and brush their horses.
Mirelle had been raised on the tales of the Seven; of the Father’s justice and the Mother’s love, of the Crone’s wisdom and the Warrior’s courage, of the Maiden’s mercy and the Smith’s labor. When the seven men left, she knew only the Stranger.
They took her mother once more, and when Damon rushed at them weeping with a knife, they gave him a brutal beating, and left him with a red smile from ear to ear.
They left, laughing.
Her mother was alive, but unblinking and unmoving and unliving. She almost thought that she had forgotten how to breathe. It was only the slow rising and falling of her chest that told Mirelle her mother yet lived. The men had taken everything , bar the small pouch of silver that she kept under the floorboards.
With that, and a handful of cold, hard bread, they walked south. Two broken ghosts joining the river of misery on the gloomy march to King’s Landing.
A day past Brindlewood, her mother collapsed, pale and silent. She was a walking wraith already, dead before her time. And there and then, she did not rise again.
A weeping, broken girl found King’s Landing with nine silver stags. The gold cloaks at the gate took seven from her. Within the walls, she was safe, she told herself.
She was safe from the war but not from hunger; nor thieves and evil men.
She lost her two silvers within the hour of stepping into the city. The last thing she had from the farmstead, the last thing that her mother had given her. In despair, she found the nearest building that she thought was a whorehouse, but they sent her away with pity in their eyes. Too young, they told her, thinking it was mercy.
She starved for that. It had been four days since, and Mirelle had only eaten a raw pigeon. She drank rainwater for her thirst but it had only rained twice.
Footsteps pounded behind her; too fast, too close.
She told herself that she was back at the farm, that it was her brothers chasing her. She told herself that it was the fields of wheat swaying in the sunset to her right, and not the cold giants of stone. The alleyway was so dark that she thought she was running into the maw of some great, hungry creature. There are worse things.
She turned a corner too sharply and stumbled, catching herself against the damp, dark stone of a wall. The alley was a dead end, and she felt her world end.
She spun around, stepping back as the three men filled the mouth of the alley.
The first, and the one in the middle, was fat and smiling, with hungry eyes that leered at her. A wooden club, tipped with iron, hung from a loose leather belt. The man to his right was tall and lanky, with shaggy brown hair and a rusty knife. The last, to the left, was short and ugly, with a cruel sneer to his crooked face, and a crooked blade.
“Long chase you led us on,” the fat, bald one rasped.
“Go away,” she whimpered.
“Runs fast this one,” the short, ugly one snarled, waving his knife. She did not know which one was uglier. “We’s should cut off her legs. See if she runs then.”
“I like the look of those legs,” the tall, lanky man smirked.
They were on her then, tearing and leering and laughing.
She could not scream, nor shout, nor cry, nor whimper. Fat, sweaty hands tore at her cloth and dress, stained by travel and tragedy as they were. Her eyes peered at the darkening sky above with a glassy emptiness, tears slowly falling down her cheek.
The bald brute licked at her neck with a yellowed, slimy tongue. She felt the knife tearing away at her dress, cutting and sawing. The ugly one pressed his knife against the inside of her thighs, leering at her with a crooked, cruel smile.
The tongue flicked at her again, and again, then he was howling and his tongue was sharply pointed, dripping blood, longer than any tongue should be. It slid from his mouth, out and out and out, red and wet and glistening, it made a hideous sight.
His tongue is a foot long, Mirelle was blinking, like a sword.
When the fat corpse fell, a silent ghost in steel was standing where he stood. The demon was armored all in mail and plate, though she could not name them. She saw a long shirt of dark mail, steel boots and gauntlets, and a helm shaped like a bull. In one hand was a hammer, though it looked more like a smith’s forging hammer.
The hammer smashed against the tall man to the right, and teeth clattered onto the filthy ground in the alleyway. Blood was dripping, and dripping, and dripping.
“Fuck!” The ugly, snarling beast charged, knife in hand.
The hammer fell, and with a horrid crunch, the knife fell as well. Only the pale moonlight was illuminating the alley, and all she saw was a blur of steel in the dark.
With an angry roar, the hammer smashed against the man’s face. The sound of steel was so deafening that she thought the world had ended, destroyed by the hammer.
Then, the alleyway was silent, but for the sound of the knight removing his helm.
Oh, Mirelle realised. He could not be older than Calor, her brother of six-and-ten. She wondered if he was fighting as well as the man before her, wherever the men in red and gold had taken him, and Burton, and her father. A dark stubble covered his cheeks and chin, and his hair was a thick black mop that grew down past his ears. And his deep blue eyes brimmed with a cooling anger, like the hissing, red sword fresh from a forge being plunged into cool water. “Are you alright?” He breathed.
“I am now,” she told him, a voice no more than a whisper. “Thank you…”
“Gendry,” her hero introduced himself, smiling tiredly. “I’m just a smith.”
Notes:
Taking after his old man, Bobby B would be proud. Just a short, sweet chapter to fill in for what Gendry has been doing. I also wanted to give a face and name to the suffering and misery of war inflicted upon the Riverlands. And yeah, the sword scene is a reference to how Gendry saved Brienne in canon from Rorge.
Next up, Sansa.
Chapter 76: Sansa III
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“You must hurry,” Jeyne urged, “the longer you keep him waiting, the worse it will go for you, Sansa.”
Sansa did not hurry. Her fingers traced along the buttons and trailed along the knots. She smoothed the white cloth down. The fabric was growing tight across her chest. The gowns of red and gold that the queen had provided her were untouched. In their place, Sansa oft preferred grey or white, adorned with cold silver at most.
“I will return soon,” she promised a worried Jeyne Poole.
“Should I…”
“No,” Sansa said, gently. “It is me that Joffrey wants. So, he shall have me.”
When she emerged, Sansa walked on Mandon Moore’s left. The knight was as silent as ever, a grim ghost who did not bother to greet or gaze at her. “Please, ser. Will you tell me what I have done?”
“Not you,” Moore’s voice was no more lively than ever.
“My brother?”
“The traitor.”
“He is,” she lied. “I had no part in whatever he did.” By the Maiden and… Shallya, don’t let it be the Kingslayer. Tales of what the northmen had done at High Heart were fluttering around the court. If Robb had harmed Jaime Lannister, it would mean her life or her torment. She thought of Ser Ilyn, and how those terrible pale eyes stared pitilessly out of that gaunt pockmarked face, and Ice in his hand.
“As you say,” Mandon Moore grunted.
He conducted her to the lower bailey, where a crowd had gathered around the archery butts. Men moved aside to let them through. She could hear Lord Gyles coughing. Loitering stablehands eyed her insolently, but Ser Horas Redwyne averted his gaze as she passed, and his brother Hobber pretended not to see her. A yellow cat was dying on the ground, mewling piteously, a crossbow quarrel through its ribs.
Sansa felt ill. Meeting the dying cat’s green eyes, the pain was disquieting. I am sorry, creature, she thought. She wanted to reach out to the poor feline, to soothe its pain with gentle words and touch, but she could not. I might be next.
Joffrey stood in the center of the throng, winding an ornate crossbow. Ser Boros and Ser Meryn were with him. The sight of them was enough to tie her insides in knots.
“Your Grace.” She knelt, with all the grace she could muster.
“Kneeling won’t save you now,” the king said darkly. “Stand up. You’re here to answer for your brother’s latest treasons.”
“Your Grace, whatever my traitor brother has done, I had no part. You know that, I beg you, please—”
“Get her up!” The fool, Ser Dontos, pulled her to her feet, not ungently. He was on his broomstick horse; since he’d been too drunk to mount his destrier at the tourney, the king had decreed that henceforth he must always go horsed.
“Ser Lancel,” Joffrey said, “tell her of this outrage.”
Sansa had always thought Lancel Lannister comely and well spoken, but there was neither pity nor kindness in the look he gave her. “Using some vile sorcery, your brother fell upon Ser Stafford Lannister with an army of wargs and horrors, not three days’ ride from Lannisport. Thousands of good men were butchered horribly as they slept, without the chance to lift a sword. By fur and fang, the savages of the northmen transformed into wolven monsters to slay men. Each and every was a horror to behold, with amber eyes. After the slaughter, the northmen feasted on the flesh of the slain and drank from the rivers of blood that they spilled.”
Sansa felt a cold joy in her, at the same time as the horror coiling around her throat. Robb’s victory meant the death of countless Westermen. The death of so many rankled her, but she preferred her brother’s bloody victory to his bloody defeat.
“You have nothing to say?” asked Joffrey. Joffrey lifted his crossbow and pointed it at her face. “You Starks are as unnatural as those wolves of yours. I’ve not forgotten how your monster savaged me.”
Has he forgotten? She wondered. “That was Arya’s wolf,” she said. “Lady never hurt you, but you killed her anyway.”
“No, your father did,” the king sneered at her with red wormlips that wriggled disgustingly. “I killed a man last night who was bigger than your father. They came to the gate shouting my name and calling for bread like I was some baker, but I taught them better. I shot the loudest one right through the throat. When your father comes before me, I shall put a quarrel between his eyes.”
“You are a good shot, your grace,” she assured him.
Frowning, he lowered the crossbow. “I’d shoot you too, but if I do, Mother says they’d kill my uncle Jaime. Instead, you’ll just be punished and we’ll send word to your brother about what will happen to you if he doesn’t yield. Ser Boros, Ser Meryn.”
Ser Boros seized Sansa. She was glad that Jeyne was not commanded to come.
“Leave her face,” Joffrey commanded. “I like her pretty.”
Boros slammed a fist into Sansa’s belly, driving the air out of her. When she doubled over, the knight grabbed her hair and drew his sword, and for one hideous instant she was certain he meant to open her throat. As he laid the flat of the blade across her thighs, she thought her legs might break from the force of the blow. Sansa did not scream, but tears welled in her eyes, hot and searing. It will be over soon. She soon lost count of the blows. Three, four …
“Boros, make her naked.”
Boros shoved a meaty hand down the front of Sansa’s bodice and gave a hard yank. The silk came tearing away, baring her to the waist. Sansa covered her breasts with her hands. She could hear sniggers, far off and cruel and mocking. “Beat her bloody,” Joffrey said, “we’ll see how her brother fancies—”
“What is the meaning of this?”
The Imp’s voice cracked like a whip, and suddenly Sansa was free. She stumbled to her knees, arms crossed over her chest, her breath ragged. “Is this your notion of chivalry, Ser Boros?” Tyrion Lannister demanded angrily. His pet sellsword stood with him, and one of his wildlings, the one with the burned eye. And there was another shadow with him, one in dark leathers. She met the young man’s eyes.
“What sort of knight beats helpless maids?”
“The sort who serves his king, Imp.” Ser Boros raised his sword, and Ser Meryn stepped up beside him, his blade scraping clear of its scabbard.
“Careful with those,” warned the dwarf’s sellsword. “You don’t want to get blood all over those pretty white cloaks.” The wildling placed a hand on his axe, and the thief lingered his pale fingers along his dark crossbow.
“Someone give the girl something to cover herself with,” the Imp said. Strangely, it was young Tyrek Lannister who stood forward. He handed her his bridegroom mantle of miniver and velvet, the finery he wore after his marriage with Ermesanda Hayford, the baby. He was a young man around her age, with a handsome face and long golden curls, though she found it hard to read his face.
Sansa clutched it against her chest, fists bunched hard in the mantle. It did not cover her fully, but it was a shield of silk nonetheless. Velvet had never felt so fine.
“This girl’s to be your queen,” the Imp told Joffrey. “Have you no regard for her honor?”
“I’m punishing her.”
“For what crime? She did not fight her brother’s battle.”
“She has the blood of a wolf.”
“And you have the wits of a goose.”
“You can’t talk to me that way. The king can do as he likes.”
“Aerys Targaryen did as he liked. Has your mother ever told you what happened to him?”
Ser Boros Blount harrumphed. “No man threatens His Grace in the presence of the Kingsguard.”
Tyrion Lannister raised an eyebrow. “I am not threatening the king, ser, I am educating my nephew. Bronn, Timett, Gaven, the next time Ser Boros opens his mouth, kill him. By sword or axe or bolt, it matters not to me.” The dwarf smiled. “Now that was a threat, ser. See the difference?”
Ser Boros turned a dark shade of red. “The queen will hear of this!”
“No doubt she will. And why wait? Joffrey, shall we send for your mother?”
The king flushed.
“Nothing to say, Your Grace?” his uncle went on. “Good. Learn to use your ears more and your mouth less, or your reign will be shorter than I am. Wanton brutality is no way to win your people’s love ... or your queen’s.”
“Fear is better than love, Mother says.” Joffrey pointed at Sansa. “She fears me.”
The Imp sighed. “Yes, I see. A pity Stannis and Renly aren’t twelve-year-old girls as well. Bronn, Gaven, bring her.”
Sansa moved as if in a dream. She thought the Imp’s men would take her back to her bedchamber in Maegor’s Holdfast, but instead they conducted her to the Tower of the Hand. She had not set foot inside that place since the day her father fell from grace, and it made her feel faint to climb those steps again.
Jeyne, she wanted to cry out. She wanted her friend.
“Stay strong,” Gunther whispered, as soft as silence.
Some serving girls took charge of her, mouthing meaningless comforts to stop her shaking. One stripped off the ruins of her gown and smallclothes, and another bathed her and washed her face and her hair. As they scrubbed her down with soap and sluiced warm water over her head, all she could see were the faces from the bailey. Knights are sworn to defend the weak, protect women, and fight for the right, but none of them did a thing.
Only the Imp did; and a sellsword, a wildling, and a thief.
After she was clean, plump ginger-headed Maester Frenken came to see her. He bid her lie facedown on the mattress while he spread a salve across the angry red welts that covered the backs of her legs. Afterward he mixed her a draught of dreamwine, with some honey so it might go down easier. “Sleep a bit, child. When you wake, all this will seem a bad dream.”
No, it will not, she thought sadly. She drank it hesitantly, and slept.
It was dark when she woke again, not quite knowing where she was, the room both strange and strangely familiar. As she rose, she found that the pain in her legs no longer stabbed at her. No, it was duller, as if cooled by ice. That was no maester’s work, Sansa thought uncomfortably. Someone had laid out a robe for her beside the bed. Sansa slipped it on and opened the door. Outside stood a hard-faced woman with leathery brown skin, three necklaces looped about her scrawny neck. One was gold and one was silver and one was made of human ears. “Where does she think she’s going?” the woman asked, leaning on a tall spear.
“Back to my chambers.” Jeyne was waiting for her. How long has it been? She must be worried…
“The halfman said you’re not to leave,” the woman said.
Reluctantly, Sansa dropped her eyes and retreated back inside. She realized suddenly why this place seemed so familiar. They’ve put me in Arya’s old bedchamber, from when Father was the Hand of the King. All her things are gone and the furnishings have been moved around, but it’s the same …
Oh, Arya, Sansa lamented. All the fights and squabbles she had with her sister seemed so trivial and meaningless now, the quarrel of children who thought summer never ended. But it does. Summer does end, knights are cruel, and queens and kings are wicked. She offered a prayer for her sister, and Jeyne.
A short time later, a serving girl brought a platter of cheese and bread and olives, with a flagon of cold water. “Take it away,” Sansa commanded, but the girl left the food on a table. She was thirsty, she realized. Every step sent dull ringing through her thighs, but she made herself cross the room. She drank two cups of water, and was nibbling on an olive when the knock came.
Anxiously, she turned toward the door, smoothed down the folds of her robe. “Yes?”
The door opened, and Tyrion Lannister stepped inside. “My lady. I trust I am not disturbing you?”
“Am I your prisoner?”
“My guest.” He was wearing his chain of office, a necklace of linked golden hands. “I thought we might talk.”
“As my lord commands.” Sansa found it hard not to stare; his face was so ugly it held a queer fascination for her. His heart is not as black as the others but he is a Lannister still, she reminded herself, Joffrey’s uncle and Hand.
“The food and garments are to your satisfaction?” he asked. “If there is anything else you need, you have only to ask.”
“You are most kind. And this morning ... it was very good of you to help me.”
“You have a right to know why Joffrey was so wroth. Six nights gone, your brother fell upon my poor uncle Stafford, encamped with his host at a village called Oxcross not three days’ ride from Casterly Rock. Your northerners won a crushing victory and slaughtered thousands. We received word only this morning.”
Robb will kill you all, she thought, as grimly as a girl of three-and-ten could. “It’s ... terrible, my lord. My brother is a vile traitor.”
The dwarf smiled wanly. “Well, he’s no fawn, he’s made that clear enough.”
“Ser Lancel said Robb led an army of wargs ...”
The Imp gave a disdainful bark of laughter. “Ser Lancel’s a wineskin warrior who wouldn’t know a warg from a wart. Your brother had his direwolf with him, but I suspect that’s as far as it went. The northmen surrounded my uncle’s camp and struck at night whilst they were drunk, slumbering, and unaware. His direwolf howled for a panic. Even war-trained destriers went mad. Knights were trampled to death in their pavilions, and the rabble woke in terror and fled, casting aside their weapons to run the faster. Ser Stafford was slain as he chased after a horse. Lord Rickard Karstark drove a lance through his chest, or so I hear. Others seem to think that it was the bear woman’s spiked mace. Red was his fate all the same. Your brother slew Lord Roland Crakehall in single combat, or so I hear, and his wolf had boar for supper. Ser Rubert Brax is also dead or captured, along with Ser Lymond Vikary, and Lord Jast. Half a hundred more have been taken captive, including Jast’s sons and my nephew Martyn Lannister. Those who survived are spreading wild tales and swearing that the old gods of the north march with your brother.”
“No sorcery, then, my lord?”
Lannister snorted. “Sorcery is the sauce fools spoon over failure to hide the flavor of their own incompetence. My mutton-headed uncle had not even troubled to post sentries, it would seem. His host was raw; apprentice boys, miners, field hands, fisherfolk, the sweepings of Lannisport. The only mystery is how your brother reached him. Our forces still hold the stronghold at the Golden Tooth, and they swear he did not pass.” The dwarf gave an irritated shrug. “Well, Robb Stark is my father’s bane. A greater thorn, he has never felt in his saddle, I am sure. Meanwhile, Joffrey is mine. A royal thorn. Tell me, what do you feel for my kingly nephew?”
“I love him with all my heart,” Sansa lied at once.
“Truly?” He did not sound convinced, only amused. “Even now?”
“My love for His Grace is greater than it has ever been.”
The Imp laughed aloud. “Well, someone has taught you to lie well. You may be grateful for that one day, child. You are a child still, are you not? Or have you flowered?”
Sansa blushed. It was a rude question, but the shame of being stripped before half the castle made it seem like nothing. “No, my lord.”
“That’s all to the good. If it gives you any solace, I do not intend that you ever wed Joffrey. No marriage will reconcile Stark and Lannister after all that has happened, I fear. Not after all the hard work my nephew has put in. Too much blood has stained the silk, if you understand. More’s the pity. The match was one of King Robert’s better notions, if Joffrey hadn’t mucked it up.”
She knew she ought to say something, but the words caught in her throat.
“You grow very quiet,” Tyrion Lannister observed. “Is this what you want? An end to your betrothal?”
“I ...” Sansa did not know what to say. Is it a trick? Will he punish me if I tell the truth? She was growing tired of Lannister lies. She stared at the dwarf’s brutal bulging brow, the hard black eye and the shrewd green one, the crooked teeth and wiry beard. “I only want to be loyal.”
“Loyal,” the dwarf mused, “and far from any Lannisters. I can scarce blame you for that. When I was your age, I wanted the same thing. I prayed for darker things too, and I pray that you do not tell my sweet sister.” He smiled. “They tell me you visit the godswood every day. What do you pray for, Sansa?”
I pray for Father and Mother to come. I pray for Robb’s victory and Joffrey’s death ... and for home. For Winterfell. “I pray for an end to the fighting.”
“We’ll have that soon enough. There will be another battle, between your brother Robb and my lord father, and that will settle the issue.” The Imp did not seem half convinced himself, in truth. Robb was not yet the Lord of Winterfell. Her father was still alive, and with a king the Lannisters seemed to dread.
Robb will beat him, Sansa thought. He beat your uncle and your brother Jaime, he’ll beat your father too.
It was as if her face were an open book, so easily did the dwarf read her hopes. “Do not take Oxcross too much to heart, my lady,” he told her, not unkindly. “A battle is not a war, and my lord father is assuredly not my uncle Stafford. Though, neither is Stannis, I would imagine. The next time you visit the godswood, pray for peace, my lady. If it is a golden peace, I mean to send you home, with certain terms and agreements made in place, of course. If it is a wolven peace, mayhaps you will offer some words to stay my head from the axe, I would ask of you.” He hopped down off the window seat and said, “You may sleep here tonight. I’ll give you some of my own men as a guard, some Stone Crows perhaps—”
“No,” Sansa rejected, as firmly and gently as she could. If she was locked in the Tower of the Hand, guarded by the dwarf’s wild men, what would happen to Jeyne? How would Gunther ferry her Arya’s letter when they were both surrounded at all times?
“Would you prefer Black Ears? I’ll give you Chella if a woman would make you more at ease.”
“Please, no, my lord, the wildlings frighten me.”
He grinned. “Me as well. But more to the point, they frighten Joffrey and that nest of sly vipers and lickspittle dogs he calls a Kingsguard. With Chella or Timett by your side, no one would dare offer you harm.”
“I would sooner return to my own bed. And… I have Jeyne with me. This tower was where my father’s men were slain, where her father was killed. Their ghosts would give me terrible dreams, and I would see their blood wherever I looked.”
Tyrion Lannister studied her face. “I am no stranger to nightmares, Sansa. Perhaps you are wiser than I knew. Permit me at least to escort you safely back to your own chambers.”
She did.
The Imp did not like silence much. “Your father and brother have both declared for Stannis Baratheon, I hear.”
She had heard. “They have, my lord.”
“Joffrey did not take that well, I imagine?”
“The king despises treason.”
“All three of them do, I would think. Most inconvenient for you, is it not? Your father and brother fight for Stannis while you love Joffrey so.”
“Loyalty is important to me, my lord.”
“As I am sure your lord father has taught you,” The Imp grinned.
Teardrops almost welled in her eyes but she refused to weep before him. “House Stark values honor and loyalty,” she assured.
“Honor is ever so strange, no?”
“What… what do you mean, my lord?”
“The musings of a man with too much time in his youth,” Tyrion Lannister mused. “Take my brother, Jaime. The Kingslayer is a name that follows him like a ghost, one that stains his ‘honor’ like spilled wine. What could he have done otherwise, then?”
She found that she did not know. “I see, my lord.”
“Do you?” he smiled. “I hope so. You are a clever thing, Lady Stark.”
“I… have been taught well, Lord Tyrion.”
“By your septa?”
The mention of Septa Mordane sent another storm within her. “And others, my lord.”
They were leaving the Tower of the Hand now. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the harsh glare of the sun. “Your cousin, my lord, he was kind.”
“Young Tyrek? Ah, I suppose he was. He must have grown tired of his bridegroom mantle, I would wager. His lady wife does not make for good conversation.”
They had wed Tyrek Lannister to Ermesande Hayford to claim the castle of Hayford and its lands, she remembered, though the lady had not even seen her first nameday. Sometimes, she could hear the crying of the little baby lady. The squires had taken to calling the new, young lord of Hayford ‘Lord Wetnurse’.
“Mayhaps marriage has softened his heart,” the Imp wondered. “Mayhaps there is an air to you that lends to men wishing to treat you kindly.”
If so, Sansa wanted to laugh, then a storm is needed to make Joffrey do so.
“I would hope so, my lord,” she said instead, with a lady’s courtesy. “Ladies need the chivalry of knights and kings to shield them from evil.”
He watched her with mirth. “Yes, our most chivalrous knights and kings shall safeguard you well against all the horrors of the known world.”
All the horrors were here in the Red Keep.
“I spoke with your brother on our travels,” he continued, smiling. “A bastard and a dwarf. A stranger pair there was not, not since Ser Duncan the Tall travelled with a prince for a squire, I think.”
Jon, her half brother’s solemn face sprang to her mind. She was never close to him, for her lady mother had never bore any love for this child who was not hers. That chill courtesy had cooled her feelings for Jon Snow, though she was never discourteous. She found herself rueing her folly. The songs are not true. Kings are cruel, knights are wicked. Jon was kind, kind and sad and lonely.
“I pray he was a courteous companion, my lord.”
“Near as courteous as your mother,” Tyrion Lannister was amused. “He set his wolf upon me once, though I suppose I brought those snarling fangs on myself.”
Sansa did not know whether she should be surprised, or wish that Ghost had ripped the Imp’s throat out, or if she should be horrified. “He…”
“No matter,” Tyrion waved a hand. “I dare say we were good friends by the time I left the Wall. Bastards and dwarfs have much in common, I believe. Have you ever been to the Wall, Lady Stark?”
“No, my lord.”
“A pity, for the Wall. Your beauty might send a shiver down its spine.”
“My lord is too kind.”
“Kind is not a word many have used to call me.”
“What do they call you, my lord?” She dared to ask.
He gave her a crooked smile. She could see the doors to her chamber down the hall. “I believe you know.”
“A pity, my lord,” she offered a lady’s courtesy. “I believe you are a giant amongst men.” Of the Red Keep.
Mismatched eyes of green and black peered at her quizzically. “I heard those words recently, my lady, from a wise, blind man at the end of the world. You must pardon my wonder.”
She placed a pale hand on her door. “I shall pray for you, my lord. A Hand has many duties. I shall pray to the Father.” Her father was always tired, especially after each argument with king and council. She missed him, and those summer days where all her worries were of tourneys and songs.
“The Father,” Tyrion smiled, “of judgement and justice.”
“I shall pray for justice.”
“I pray you do,” Tyrion Lannister inclined his head. “You may survive us yet, Lady Stark.”
I intend to. She said nothing, but gave the Imp a curtsy.
Jeyne was pale as a ghost but the smile on her face when she saw Sansa was one that could have lit up the night. “Sansa,” she nearly wept, embracing her tightly. “I feared… that-that…”
“Hush,” she said gently, rubbing her back. “I am here, Jeyne. I am fine.”
“Joffrey… did he?”
“It matters not,” she murmured.
A soft hand trailed along her cheek. Sansa took it. “Truly, Jeyne,” she assured, “I feel fine.” She did. The pain was naught but a dull, faint ringing, a distant bell.
Shallya is a goddess of mercy, Gunther explained, discomfort plain on his face that night. From the… east. The bard can tell you more if, when, you ever see him.
The dove was the symbol of Shallya, the thief told her. And it was the dove that came to her in her dreams. She eyed the white feather on the table.
It is more than a dream.
“Would you like to know what happened?” Sansa asked.
Jeyne nodded slowly.
“Robb beat another Lannister army,” Sansa told her, excitement growing fondly within her. “Stafford Lannister. At Oxcross, in the Westerlands.”
“Truly?”
“Truly,” she took Jeyne’s hands, leaning in to whisper. “Robb will win.”
There was something moist in Jeyne’s eyes. And she recalled the moist-eyed glances she oft gave to Robb whilst in Winterfell.
How many moons has it been? She wondered. It felt like a lifetime since she had seen Father, let alone her brothers. She prayed that they remembered her. Robb fighting at a war, Bran, her little brother of eight, ruling Winterfell, and Rickon.
“Sleep, Jeyne,” she urged her friend. “It is late.”
Jeyne must have been exhausted, Sansa realised. Within minutes, she was asleep.
Sansa lingered quietly, stroking Jeyne’s dark hair as she slept. Where Sansa oft wore white or grey, Jeyne wore only the grey of grief. Her gowns of blue and pink and silver were left forgotten, remnants of spring. It was only in slumber was Jeyne Poole at peace. For a queer reason, Tyrion Lannister’s voice rang in her head.
What is sleep but a little taste of death?
She disagreed.
It is like winter. It comes and it leaves. As spring comes in winter’s wake, dawn comes, always. The morning always comes.
It must have been near the hour of the wolf when she found the serene silence of the godswood once more. She was not the only shadow there.
“How are you?” Gunther glanced at her, his voice hesitant.
“I am well, ser,” she bowed her head. “You were very brave.”
“The Imp was the bravest,” the thief shook his head.
“All the same,” she told him as she sat against the snarling bear. Strangely, she felt safe by its maw. “I feared that I might not find you here.”
“Why not? Uh, my lady.”
“Please, just call me Sansa,” she smiled at him. In the dark, he seemed a walking shade. “With the work you are doing with Lord Tyrion…”
“He doesn’t care what I do outside of what I do.” There was a strange look upon Gunther’s face, half between scorn and satisfaction. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Ask away,” she said.
“That servant, Anna, where can I find her?”
She blinked. “I… I am not sure.”
“No matter,” the thief waved. “I’ll find her.”
“Do you have business with her?” Sansa was worried. “On behalf of Lord Tyrion?”
“For the Imp,” he grinned at her, “no.”
She gave him an impatient look. “You may keep your secret, then.” She looked at the moon hovering above. “He offered to place me in the Tower of the Hand.”
“And…”
“I told him the truth,” Sansa said. “There are many ghosts there.”
The young man was uncomfortable. She gave him the mercy of conversation. “How fares my sister?”
“Restless,” he said at once. “If you wonder why her letter was short, it’s because she has little to tell you about. I haven’t let them out in weeks. Streets are unsafe.”
Indeed, the short script that she had memorised before throwing in the fire spoke much. Sansa, her sister wrote messily, I have been throwing knives against the wall. I am getting better, much faster than Len. I learnt how to fry eggs, they taste incredible with bacon grease. They have taught me some dice games too, Sansa, I keep rolling sixes. Luck, I think.
She did not know how to feel towards that. Horror?
She slipped the small, rolled letter to the thief. Arya, she wrote, I am relieved to hear that you have learnt how to throw knives, fry eggs, and dice. Heartened as I am to hear that fortune is smiling upon you, I do not think that our lady mother would feel the same. I will keep your secret for you, a sister’s mercy to the other.
He took the letter and slipped it into one of his pouches. “Farewell, then. Do not expect me to be here frequent.”
“Wait,” she urged. “I… wanted to ask you something.”
“Yes?”
“How did you come to know this Shallya? You said she was from the east. Is she from the Free Cities, or further east? And… you must have travelled with Andrei, and those others, yes? But, you are young, and I pray you do not take offense.”
“Of course not,” he licked his lips. “All I know, the damned bard told me. He talks a lot, you see, and sings plenty too. And we did not travel together for that long. They were travelling long before I met them, you see.”
“I see,” Sansa nodded. She did not know how to feel. Could this Shallya truly be the dove she saw in her dreams? Her mother had raised her in the light of the Seven. What would Mother think of this? What would… the Septa think of this?
“Why would she appear in my dreams?” Sansa wondered. This talk and thought frightened her more than she wanted to admit. Being in the eye of gods and goddesses, Sansa thought, was terrifying.
“Why would a goddess of mercy show herself?” Gunther shrugged. There was a look of extreme discomfort on his face.
Could it be the Maiden and the Mother? Sansa worried. Knights and lords misliked it when their names were mistaken for another. How might a goddess react?
“It is late, Sansa,” Gunther broke the silence. “You should go back.”
“I should,” she agreed, reluctantly. “Tell my sister … tell her that I miss her. Tell her to be safe, and to be patient. It will all be over soon.”
“I will,” he promised. Like a moving shadow, he left.
It was almost dawn when she found her way back to her chambers. Jeyne was deep in her dreams when Sansa found her. Despite the hour, she did not feel as tired as she feared she might. As the night ended, and the sun rose again, she stood before the window, watching the black give way to the gold. And Sansa prayed, to the Maiden and the Mother … and to Shallya.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Sansa III, ACOK
I always thought it strange that Tyrion never talked about Jon to Sansa. Also, don't you just love fantasy deities and how much they can overlap with each other?
Next chapter reveals what is going down south.
Chapter 77: Lucia II
Summary:
Light and shadow come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Without the bard about, she saw little need to speak.
The smile on Lorenzo’s face was strained when they departed. She was armed and armored in full, as ever, and mounting her horse when he came. King Renly had sent forth the call most urgent, breaking the loud merriment of the feast. Stannis has sieged Storm’s End, the king told the court, who will ride with me?
The hall roared their fury for their king, though she was busy eying a rack of ribs.
Then came a whispered word, and she was told to ride with the knights of summer to Storm’s End, to swing her mace by the king’s side. She would have told the poor bugger to piss off, but she could hardly do that to a queen. Lorenzo will stay here, Queen Margaery smiled to her that very night, a queen needs singers as a king needs warriors. A poor queen’s shadow, Lucia had made, though she cared little.
“Most unfortunate,” Lorenzo remarked, as she was saddling her brown mare.
“Yes,” she grunted. “No matter.”
“Why so?”
“After the battle,” she shrugged, “they’ll send for the queen and a singer to sing for victory, they always do.” They sing before the battle too, she left unsaid.
“I pray,” his smile was tight. She had not seen him this tense for some time, not since the gloom of the Reikwald. “Look to your prayers, Lucia. I have dreamt of shadows, writhing in the night. That and more. An eagle with sapphires in its gold talons, slaying biting hounds and speaking to a green giant.”
“Giants?”
“Signs,” he told her. “Portents, omens.”
She knew well by now. In truth, she did not know if it were blessing or curse what the singer dealt with. Then came the call to ride, the sound of horns and trumpets. She did not know what to say in farewell. “ Buena suerte,” she told him.
Good luck, though she knew not why she felt the need to say so.
“We will meet again, my friend,” the fair, green-eyed ghost told her, giving her a stare so intense she thought his eyes were flaming emeralds. “I have seen it.”
And so they rode.
The King had set a gruelling pace, riding late into the dark of night and rising early when the dawn came. From Bitterbridge they rode, following the Roseroad into the Kingswood. The forest was both comfort and caution for her. Last she had traversed through woods was the Reikwald, where Beastmen and Greenskins and other horrors lurked behind every dying tree or bush. No grunting Ungor or snivelling Goblin met them on the road though, for the Kingswood was quiet and lifeless.
Even the world has grown quiet at our ride, the Knight of Flowers declared one day whilst the sun hung low and fat and gold, fearing our lances.
Lucia found that laughable, though she had little desire to laugh. Lorenzo’s words tugged at her like the pull of some invisible string. Shadows writhing in the night.
Through the Kingsroad, they thundered through rows of tall naked trees; old and quiet and lean. The songs and jests grew only louder as they waited to cross the river that she heard called the Wendwater. A single old bridge could only allow so many riders through, and it took two full days for their host to ride past.
No baggage train rode with them, nor camp followers; smiths and stablemasters, fletchers and cooks, healers and paymasters. Food, they found in the Kingswood; deer and hare and boar that men hunted with bow and spear. Water, they sipped at from rivers and streams. In his haste, Renly Baratheon had left behind all the flesh and blood of an army, bringing with him the bright colored steel of the bones.
It was an impressive host, Lucia could not deny. Near twenty thousand cavalry; knights in steel plate with barded steeds for the most, squires given their first mounts, flocks of sellswords and hedge knights looking to earn gold and glory. While armies and mercenary companies were everywhere in Estalia, she had seldom seen such a mighty host of horse. And the foot that was left behind was even more grand.
Though, that was the issue. Why leave behind just a big army?
Renly’s host of infantry was akin to a slothful giant, languishing while feasting plenty from the fat of the land. She had never seen such richness in meat and fruit and wine, and tens of thousands of men were ravaging through that by the day.
The jests grew only louder and more boisterous when they passed Bronzegate. Stannis has an army of fishermen, a young knight with a red apple on his shield laughed, they shall be most shocked when twenty thousand steel fishes come for them. That had sent a spill of laughter through the king’s tent, one of the nights they had stopped for a longer rest. I hear Stannis has a knight of onions, another declared, with a fox on his surcoat, mayhaps we shall all be weeping when we slice him apart, or mayhaps Stannis will weep the hardest!
“My good sers,” Renly told them with a smile, “ I have never known my brother to weep. I pray that you might be the first terror he faces.”
Lucia spoke little during the ride. The first and only time she bothered was when she spied Brienne of Tarth sitting alone by a fire, quietly chewing on cold bread. Though the warrior maiden had been elevated to a king’s blue shadow, none of her brothers in arms seemed eager to share a fire with her, or a wineskin, or even words.
When Lucia sat across her, the Maid of Tarth watched her with blue eyes that shone with a child’s curiosity. And a child she was, Lucia thought, no older than twenty. Though it was hard to remember at times, she was a year older than Lorenzo and four years ahead of Gunther, though her twenty-four years paled like snow against Andrei’s thirty-eight. And she felt all her twenty-four years when she met Brienne’s bright blue eyes. “Who taught you to fight?” Lucia asked over the fire.
Brienne was uncomfortable with words, near as much as she was. “The master-at-arms at Evenfall Hall. Ser Goodwin.” There was a curiosity burning deeply in those sapphire eyes. “And… you, my lady?”
Lucia let out a bark of laughter. “Do I look like one to you?”
“No,” Brienne smiled uncomfortably.
“An old fighter,” Lucia told her, wondering if there were gladiators here. Surely, there must be. “An old, skilled warrior who taught me the mace.”
“Ser Goodwin was old as well.” The girl was wistful.
“Old warriors fight the hardest,” she said, thinking of the Kislevite. Beware the old man, thought Lucia, in a world where men die young.
“They do,” Brienne nodded. “Ser Barristan, the Blackfish, all legends who fought in wars that raged before we were even born. How… old are you, my-”
“Lucia,” she said. “Twenty-four.”
“Where do you hail from, Lucia?” Brienne asked. “You have some features of Dorne, but you speak with a slight accent that may come from the east.”
Lucia drank slowly from her waterskin, thinking. “I was a bastard from one of the cities,” she told her, for that was not a lie. “I just wandered about.”
Brienne broke the bread in her hand in half, and offered one to her. She accepted it gratefully. “How is it that you came to be the queen’s guard?”
There was no envy in her voice, merely wonder and curiosity. “I found my way to Highgarden. I rode with Ser Garlan who was returning after slaying a den of bandits. I sparred with him plenty there, and the queen saw some of our bouts.”
She did not deign to mention the honeyed words that Lorenzo sang to the queen.
“Ser Garlan?” Brienne wondered. “The Gallant?”
“Yes,” Lucia said awkwardly. “He was so.”
As far as knights went, there were worse. She had killed some of them.
“You fight well with the morningstar,” Lucia told her. “Is that your preferred weapon?”
“For melees,” Brienne nodded. The girl came to life when the talk was of weapons. “Ser Goodwin taught me the axe as well, and the longsword, for that is the weapon of knights.” There was a dream in her voice and eyes.
She had broken swords with her mace before, and it made no difference whether the wielder was brigand or knight. She did not mention it. “The mace, for me.”
“That is a heavy shield,” Brienne noted.
It was. A fine hunk of thick metal, the kite shield was. With the eagle emblazoned across its front, she oft felt she could withstand the world’s end with it.
And then they came upon Storm’s End.
She had never seen a castle more mighty. It was a monument to divine warcraft, she thought. Even the walls of Magritta might have trembled before this bastion forged for the storm. Built to last against siege and sea, Storm’s End seemed the fist of a stone god, enduring and powerful. It was a marvel of masonry, of seamless stone joints. For a brief, mad moment, she wondered if the Dwarfs had a hand in its forging. Yet, there was something that gave her pause.
There was no sign of stress on the inner bastions, as far as she could tell, despite centuries of weathering storms. It seemed a fortress first as well, and a home second. Even from the outside, it did not seem to compare against the siege-proof cities of Estalia, where temple engineers designed both for battle and life. Local stones, steep rooflines, she analysed, but where are the drainage canals? The counterweights and pulleys? The elevated signal towers?
There was a sore lack of complex engineering; aqueducts, pulley lifts, signalling beacons. Storm’s End was an ancient giant of stone and storm, a brutal fort of war. This place is old, thought Lucia.
Just outside of the gates was an army. A paltry one, compared to Renly’s host, but an army nonetheless. A siege, Lucia noted, the bread of war.
There was an order in the camp of Stannis Baratheon; straight, neat rows of tents and fires, a quiet muttering as opposed to the boisterous laughter of life that she had endured, grim-faced sentinels standing behind lines of trenches and palisades. Stannis had not been idle, she could tell. His men had been put to work. The woods had been cleared, trees shifted into spikes and arrows and towers and rams.
No siege tower can be built as high as those walls, she wondered. If so, it will be so unstable that a gasp of wind can knock it down. A siege by attrition was no way to win a war, not least for the devout of Myrmidia. The Muse of Battle frowned upon the old ways of war. No, it was bold maneuvers and ingenuity that won the Eagle’s favor, Pythus taught her. And with the old gladiator’s words hovering in her mind, she watched. He starves himself to starve them, Lucia realised. This Stannis was a man of iron, true, but a commander must outthink, not merely outlast.
Good siege warfare required calculated pressure, not shared suffering. If Renly and his knights shared her sentiments, they did not seem to agree.
“Look,” the red apple knight laughed again when they saw the army, “brave fishermen from the Narrow Sea!”
The only lords that seemed to see the army for what it was were the two oldest lords; a grim-faced man that men called Tarly, and the stout lord with the golden tree on his snowy doublet. though the king spurned their advice to meet his brother on the field of parlay. She was one of the seven that Renly brought to meet his brother.
Across was a king most grim. Where Renly wore bright green and smiles, his brother was a darker, dour sort; with a heavy brow, a tightness to his face, and a clenched jaw. With him rode a pale woman all in red, that she knew at once wielded magic. There was a lord with a long face and long brown hair, with a direwolf by his side. Lord Stark, she heard the name muttered. And his lady wife, the Lady Catelyn, who was beautiful with fair skin, thick auburn hair and deep blue eyes.
And Andrei.
For the first time, the Kossar’s face was of shock, hidden by his helm as it was. Lucia snorted in amusement. She offered him a tilt of her helm. All the realm knew that he was riding with Lord Eddard Stark, but fewer knew of Margaery’s iron shadow.
What now? She was musing whilst the kings talked, their words fading into faint whispers to her for all it mattered. Renly has the numbers.
She locked eyes with a grim-faced Andrei again, and the Kossar did not seem to have the answers for her, stoic as he was. Do we flee before the battle? During? After? Where to? No man here could slay the old warrior, that was for sure, but what were they to do on opposite ends of the field?
Lucia clenched her fists tightly, cursing quietly.
When the parlay ended, she and Brienne accompanied Renly back to the royal pavilion at the heart of his encampment. Inside the walls of green silk, his captains and lords bannermen were waiting to hear word of the parley. “My brother has not changed,” their young king told them as Brienne unfastened his cloak and lifted the gold-and-jade crown from his brow. “Castles and courtesies will not appease him, he must have blood. Well, I am of a mind to grant his wish.”
“Your Grace, I see no need for battle here,” Lord Mathis Rowan put in. “The castle is strongly garrisoned and well-provisioned, Ser Cortnay Penrose is a seasoned commander, and the trebuchet has not been built that could breach the walls of Storm’s End. Let Lord Stannis have his siege. He will find no joy in it, and whilst he sits cold and hungry and profitless, we will take King’s Landing.”
“And have men say I feared to face Stannis?”
“Only fools will say that,” Lord Mathis argued. Renly looked to the others. “What say you all?”
“I say that Stannis is a danger to you,” Lord Randyll Tarly declared. “Leave him unblooded and he will only grow stronger, while your own power is diminished by battle. The Lannisters will not be beaten in a day. By the time you are done with them, Lord Stannis may be as strong as you ... or stronger.”
Others chorused their agreement. The king looked pleased. “We shall fight, then.”
Eager for the fight, she noted, though she could not truly fault him.
“Lord Mathis, you shall lead the center of my main battle. Bryce, you’ll have the left. The right is mine. Lord Estermont, you shall command the reserve.”
“I shall not fail you, Your Grace,” Lord Estermont replied.
Lord Mathis Rowan spoke up. “Who shall have the van?”
“Your Grace,” said Ser Jon Fossoway, “I beg the honor.”
“Beg all you like,” said Ser Guyard the Green, “by rights it should be one of the seven who strikes the first blow.”
“It takes more than a pretty cloak to charge a shield wall,” Randyll Tarly announced. “I was leading Mace Tyrell’s van in wars when you were still sucking on your mother’s teat, Guyard.”
Brienne was watching them with some consternation on her face. She wondered why.
A clamor filled the pavilion, as other men loudly set forth their claims. Renly raised a royal hand, smiling calmly. “Enough, my lords. If I had a dozen vans, all of you should have one, but the greatest glory by rights belongs to the greatest knight. Ser Loras shall strike the first blow.”
The greatest knight? Lucia suppressed her laughter.
“With a glad heart, Your Grace.” The Knight of Flowers knelt before the king. “Grant me your blessing, and a knight to ride beside me with your banner. Let the stag and rose go to battle side by side.”
Renly glanced about him. “Brienne.”
“Your Grace?” She was still armored in her blue steel, though she had taken off her helm. The crowded tent was hot, and sweat plastered limp yellow hair to her broad, homely face. “My place is at your side. I am your sworn shield ...”
“One of seven,” the king reminded her. “Never fear, four of your fellows will be with me in the fight. And there are other iron shadows as well.” Renly’s gaze flickered to her, with slight amusement shining in those blue orbs.
Brienne dropped to her knees. “If I must part from Your Grace, grant me the honor of arming you for battle.”
Lucia saw the truth. The poor girl loves him.
“Granted,” Renly said. “Now leave me, all of you. Even kings must rest before a battle. Even Robert did so, I imagine. I want every man in place by first light, armed, armored, and horsed. We shall give Stannis a dawn he will not soon forget.”
His eyes were on her, and she knew to linger.
When the tent was silent bar the king and her, he spoke. “Lady Lucia,” he smiled genially. “I was curious, you see. I spoke to your companion, the singer, before we had to ride here. A most curious sort, he is; blond-haired, green-eyed, and so fair.”
She stared at him blankly. “Yes.”
He watched her, and in the glimpse of the mirror behind him, she saw what the king’s eyes could see; cold olive eyes on a hard, blank face, the only flesh that could be seen beneath the suit of heavy steel.
“Where did the two of you meet?” The king wondered.
“Some city in the east,” she shrugged.
“Which one?”
She recalled Lorenzo’s lies. “Myr, I think.”
“Myr,” Renly was amused. “A city of invention.”
“I was passing through.”
“As you say,” Renly nodded. “I will be frank. I do not think you are telling the full, naked truth. You and your companion, I sense there is something more.”
If it comes to it, Lorenzo told her the night before they parted, disturb them with words they rather not hear.
“I was from Volantis,” Lucia said angrily. “The daughter of a slave woman and a fighter. She sent me away before they could chain me. Is that enough ?”
Renly blinked, tilting his head. “Very well,” he hummed. It felt strange to see a king younger than she was. He is of the same age as Gunther. “You may go. Though, I wish for your presence before the battle comes. Come with Brienne. It may be that you can be her friend. There is one in sour need of a friend. There is much that the two of you have in common, I dare say.”
She said nothing, bowing stiffly.
It was dark when she found her own tent, barren and dull. She did not bother with removing her plate, nor her helm. She had slept in harsher places, with wet mud for a bedroll and stony ground for a pillow. Yet, sleep did not come easy for her.
Come dawn, a battle would come, one which she had never seen the scale of.
The dawn will bring death, Lucia thought as she drifted asleep.
It was not a peaceful slumber.
She was in a grove of ancient trees, each as tall and lumbering as a giant. Even with her plate and shield and mace, she felt ill. The world was dark and quiet, as if life and light had not yet been born. And there were eyes watching her, each as red as blood. Where am I? She was in the middle of a clearing, and the trees circled her like vultures. The swaying dark branches grew closer, and closer, and closer.
Then, the world was bright, blindingly so, and she woke.
It must have only been three hours or four, but she felt rested enough. The nervous whinny of horses and the clank of steel guided her back to Renly’s camp. The long ranks of men and horse were armored in darkness, wreathed in shadows, as black as if a god had hammered night itself into steel. There were banners to her right, banners to her left, and rank on rank of banners before her and beyond her, but in the predawn gloom, neither colors nor sigils could be discerned.
There was a tall shadow making its way to Renly’s tent, and she knew at once who it was. “Brienne,” she greeted.
The girl twisted her head towards her, blinking. “Lucia,” she said, nodding, “the king wishes for you to be by his side?”
“For now, at least.”
The candles within Renly’s pavilion made the shimmering silken walls seem to glow, transforming the great tent into a magical castle alive with emerald light. Two of the Rainbow Guard stood sentry at the door to the royal pavilion. The green light shone strangely against the purple plums of Ser Parmen’s surcoat, and gave a sickly hue to the sunflowers that covered every inch of Ser Emmon’s enameled yellow plate. Long silken plumes flew from their helms, and rainbow cloaks draped their shoulders.
She did not care to learn their names, yet she heard them all the same.
Within, they found the king poring over a table of maps while the Lords Tarly and Rowan spoke of dispositions and tactics and numbers. Brienne made to armor her king for battle. It was pleasantly warm inside, the heat shimmering off the coals in a dozen small iron braziers. Brienne fit backplate to breastplate over his quilted tunic. The king’s armor was a deep green, the green of leaves in a summer wood, so dark it drank the candlelight. Gold highlights gleamed from inlay and fastenings like distant fires in that wood, winking every time he moved.
“Why wait for daybreak? Sound the advance.” Mathis Rowan was saying.
“And have it said that I won by treachery, with an unchivalrous attack? Dawn was the chosen hour.”
“Chosen by Stannis,” Randyll Tarly pointed out. “He’d have us charge into the teeth of the rising sun. We’ll be half-blind.”
“Only until first shock,” Renly said confidently. “Ser Loras will break them, and after that it will be chaos.” Brienne tightened green leather straps and buckled golden buckles. “When my brother falls, see that no insult is done to his corpse. He is my own blood, I will not have his head paraded about on a spear.”
A dignified death is a death still, Lucia thought.
“And if he yields?” Lord Tarly asked.
“Yields?” Lord Rowan laughed. “When Mace Tyrell laid siege to Storm’s End, Stannis ate rats rather than open his gates.”
“Well I remember.” Renly lifted his chin to allow Brienne to fasten his gorget in place. “Near the end, Ser Gawen Wylde and three of his knights tried to steal out a postern gate to surrender. Stannis caught them and ordered them flung from the walls with catapults. I can still see Gawen’s face as they strapped him down. He had been our master-at-arms.”
Lord Rowan appeared puzzled. “No men were hurled from the walls. I would surely remember that.”
“Maester Cressen told Stannis that we might be forced to eat our dead, and there was no gain in flinging away good meat.” Renly pushed back his hair. Brienne bound it with a velvet tie and pulled a padded cap down over his ears, to cushion the weight of his helm. “Thanks to the Onion Knight we were never reduced to dining on corpses, but it was a close thing. Too close for Ser Gawen, who died in his cell.”
Renly nodded. “See to your battles, my lords ... oh, and if Barristan Selmy is at my brother’s side, I want him spared.”
“There’s been no word of Ser Barristan since Joffrey cast him out,” Lord Rowan objected.
“I know that old man. He needs a king to guard, or who is he? Yet, he never came to me, and I do not hear of old legends with the Starks, only new ones. So, where else but with Stannis? He could not have turned sellsword.”
“As you say, Your Grace. No harm will come to him.” The lords bowed deeply and departed. Brienne swept his cloak over his broad shoulders. It was cloth-of-gold, heavy, with the crowned stag of Baratheon picked out in flakes of jet.
“Lucia,” Renly smiled at her, “you shall fight with Rowan’s centre.”
“As you say,” she responded, her voice ringing in her helm.
“Once the battle is done,” Renly took his gauntlets and greathelm, crowned with golden antlers, from Brienne. “We shall speak once more.”
“As you say.”
Renly pulled a lobstered green-and-gold gauntlet over his left hand, while Brienne knelt to buckle on his belt, heavy with the weight of longsword and dagger.
“And-” Renly began, but he froze. His eyes were wide.
His face bore a glimmering light, for some queer reason, as if a sun was shining upon him. But it is dark, Lucia thought, confused. His blue eyes were upon her, his mouth agape. Brienne was watching as well, her hand on her sword’s hilt.
Then, she saw the light. Brilliant gold was shining from each of her strictures. The blank ink upon the yellowed parchment, each waxed upon the cold steel of her plate with scarlet wax as red as blood, were all glimmering like the break of dawn.
She knew each of them by heart.
Act with honor and dignity in all matters.
Respect prisoners of war and never kill an enemy who surrenders.
Show no mercy to the unrepentant enemies of humanity.
Obey all honorable orders.
Preserve the weak from the horrors of war.
And each of them was glaring gold.
She could not even blink before a sudden gust of wind flung open the door of the tent. She thought she glimpsed movement, and she drew her mace, but when she turned her head, it was only the king’s shadow shifting against the silken walls. She heard Renly beginning to speak, but his shadow was moving and lifting a sword.
Black on green, candles guttering, shivering, something was very wrong.
Lucia raised her mace. Her eyes caught the shine of the sun. No, she realised. The light was coming from the gilded head of her flanged mace. The steel was glowing like it was fresh and raw from the forge, but it was not red. No, it was the gold of gods. When the shadow passed her, she brought the light down.
And there came the most horrid sound she had heard in her life. Shadows can scream, Lucia realised, and the sound was dread. The king’s shadow screamed with a thousand tongues, each darker than the other. The sound was legion, as if a crowd of horrors were speaking all at once. It was a screech, and a roar, and a cry, and a shiver, all at once. The shadow dispersed, like black mist, like the fog of morning.
Then, it was whole again, evil pooling before the king.
Lucia thundered forward. The world was so bright, she had never seen such light in her life. No, she saw it, she saw it in her dreams, just hours past.
The light was blinding but the evil was there, a black blot upon the world.
“Cold,” said Renly in a small puzzled voice, his face was awashed with golden light. He sounds so young, Lucia realised. The steel of his gorget parted like cheesecloth beneath the shadow of a blade that was not there. He had time to make a small thick gasp before the blood came gushing out of his throat. “Your Gr—no!” cried Brienne the Blue when she saw that evil flow, sounding as scared as any little girl.
Lucia brought her mace down.
The shadow dispersed.
With a violent pulse of golden light, her mace met Renly Baratheon’s head. And King Renly was no more.
Her mace caved in the very top of the skull, like a rotten gourd. One blue eye bursted from its socket in a slick trail of blood and nerve. The other was simply gone. His jaw was shattered and crushed instantly and violently, teeth flying like shattered porcelain. Blood sprayed in a wide arc, misting the air with red as fragments of bone punched through the skin. What remained of the head sagged, more pulp than flesh.
Headless, the king fell to his knees, a sheet of blood creeping down the front of his armor, a dark red tide that drowned his green and gold. His legs collapsed, and only Brienne’s strength held him up. She threw back her head and screamed, wordless in her anguish. She had never heard a voice so sad and mad with grief, not since the day she found her own mother dead of the pox.
A shadow, Lucia was horrified. Something dark and evil had happened here, she knew, something that she was beginning to understand. Sorcery. Death came in that door and blew the life out of him as swift as the wind snuffed out his candles.
Only a few instants passed before Robar Royce and Emmon Cuy came bursting in, though it felt like half the night. A pair of men-at-arms crowded in behind with torches. When they saw Renly in Brienne’s arms, and her drenched with the king’s blood, Ser Robar gave a cry of horror. “Wicked woman!” screamed Ser Emmon, he of the sun-flowered steel. “Away from him, you vile creature!”
“Gods be good, Brienne, why?” asked Ser Robar.
Brienne looked up from her king’s body. The rainbow cloak that hung from her shoulders had turned red where the king’s blood had soaked into the cloth. “I ... I ...”
“You’ll die for this.” Ser Emmon snatched up a long-handled battleaxe from the weapons piled near the door. He was snarling at her. “You’ll pay for the king’s life with your own!”
The madness was upon them all. They rushed forward with shouts and steel.
Lucia met them. She had no time to draw her heavy shield strapped to her back, but she met Emmon’s axe on the downswing with her mace, the gold light having faded as if the sun had set. A spark flashed blue-white as steel met steel with a rending crash. Another man was charging, thrusting the flaming torch at her, but Brienne was there. She spun and cut, longsword in hand, and torch and hand went flying. Flames crept across the carpet. The maimed man began to scream.
Lucia brought her mace down upon the knight before her, who raised the battleaxe. Fool, she thought, as the mace shattered through the iron heft. The knight fumbled for his sword but it was too late. The mace slammed into the knight’s helm with a thunderous clang. The light was gone, but her strength was not. Metal met metal in a violent blast of sparks and force. The rounded steel buckled inward like a dented tankward, the ornate visor crumpling against the man’s face with a sickening shriek.
Inside the helmet, the impact ricocheted through his skull. The knight’s neck snapped back violently, spine straining against the weight of the bow. The force must have rattled his brain like a stone in a jar. Blood poured from the visor’s seams as teeth cracked and a short, sharp gurgle escaped.
He staggered once, knees buckling, gauntlets grasping at air before he fell.
The mace is a weapon for death, Pythus told her once. There is no glory, honor, chivalry or beauty in its wielding. Not for it is the mercy of the dagger to the heart, the glory of the longsword clashing, or the grace of the rapier. No, it is meant to kill, to maim, to crush, to shatter. We will start with the mace, and move on to others.
They never did manage to move on from the mace, for she had to flee Magritta.
The second man-at-arms was lunging at Brienne, but she parried well enough, and their swords danced and clanged against each other. Ser Robar was hanging back, uncertain, but now he reached for his hilt. And she was upon him.
Her mace fell, and he caught it with his blade, though the young knight winced at the shock. She spun around, faster than a towering woman in steel should have been capable of. Her mace crashed against the pauldron on the other side, and the rainbow knight yelled in pain. His sword came snaking at her.
She smacked it aside with the tip of her mace.
“We did not kill Renly,” she shouted.
“Lies!” He exclaimed, slashing at her. She took a step back. Behind her, the blades continued to clash. She swung her mace in a wide arc. More angry men would be bursting in on them any instant now, steel and fire in their hands.
I dreamt of shadows, Lorenzo’s voice haunted her.
She glanced back, saw the second guardsman fall, his blade dropping from limp fingers. The fire had reached the wall and was creeping up the side of the tent.
The brave young knight roared his rage, raised his blade, but steel came jutting forth from his mouth. It was the glistening tip of a sword, shining with red.
When the knight fell, and the sword was slickened away, she saw a ghost before her. Loras Tyrell leapt at her, howling and sobbing. Just as he had done at the melee, he charged, but this time, there was murder in his eyes. His sword came soaring and she met him with her mace. They clashed once, twice and again. She feinted with her mace, and the knight raised his blade, and she smashed her armored feet against his breastplate. He hardly seemed to notice. Two more men were rushing in.
The Knight of Flowers darted past her, towards a wide-eyed Brienne.
“No,” Lucia started, but a spear was jutting towards her. As she had done with Oberyn Martell, she seized the heft with her left hand. Her right was already swinging, and the mace broke the spear in twain. Splinters went soaring through the air, each a shard of wooden rain.
The jagged half of the spear was not meant to be a weapon, but in her hands, it became something far more savage. The shaft, splintered and raw, was driven forward with a grunt of effort, its broken end catching the man-at-arms just beneath the chin. There was a wet, ripping sound as wood tore through flesh and muscle, bursting through the back of his neck in a splatter of blood and spit. His eyes widened in shock, mouth working silently, gurgling around the shattered shaft impaling his windpipe.
His hands clawed at it instinctively, fingertips slipping on the slick, bloodied wood. The point had not pierced clean, it shredded its way through, leaving torn sinew and splinters jutting from the wound like jagged teeth. He sank to his knees, twitching, throat bubbling with a last, rasping breath before the light drained from his eyes. The broken spear stood there, quivering, like a cruel banner planted in the corpse of war.
The other man was upon her, a blade flickering through the air. He was not as skilled as any of the knights of the rainbow. Her mace met him once, again, and the third strike found his shoulder. The mace came down in a blur, heavy, deliberate, and inevitable. It struck the man's shoulder with a deep, meaty crunch, the flanged head punching through chainmail like a hammer through a sack of bones. The mail rings held barely but the flesh and bone beneath did not.
He shrieked, staggering back, sword clattering from numb fingers. Blood seeped through the links of his mail in slow, dark rivulets. He clutched at the ruined joint, gasping, legs going soft beneath him as the pain took hold. The arm dangled like a puppet with cut strings; still attached, but no longer his.
She silenced him.
Lucia turned her attention to the duel across the burning tent. Ser Loras was howling as his sword darted and bit at Brienne, who was holding her own but barely.
He never saw it coming.
One moment, Loras was firm and furious; sword raised, breath heavy behind his visor. The next, a dull thunk cracked against the back of his helm. The blow must have rang like a bell struck too hard. His legs buckled, his grip loosened, and his sword slipped from numb fingers. The sword fell, as did the Knight of Flowers, like a wilted rose under the storm. He hit the ground hard, face-first.
She slipped her mace through the loop in her belt, and seized a cloth of gold hanging from a wooden stand. With a single wipe of her plate, the gold was stained scarlet. She swiped at Brienne’s blue as well, for good measure. All the while, Brienne only stared, silent and haunted.
“We have to go,” she told the wide-eyed and pale-faced girl. She seized the sword that was Loras Tyrell’s. A slash, and the green silk parted. They stepped out into the darkness and the chill of dawn. The dark was starting to part, giving way to the faintest glimmer of dawn light. Loud voices were coming from the other side of the pavilion. “Slowly,” she urged, “but walk with importance.”
This was far from the first murder she would be accused of doing, nor the first time she had to flee. In the dark, the two of them were as if knights.
Brienne thrust her sword blade through her belt and fell in beside her. The night air smelled of rain and tears. Behind them, the king’s pavilion was well ablaze, flames rising high against the dark. No one made any move to stop them, for the world was so dark and the camp was chaos. Men rushed past them, shouting of fire and murder and sorcery. Others stood in small groups and spoke in low voices. A few were praying, and one young squire was on his knees, sobbing openly.
Renly’s battles were already coming apart as the rumors spread from mouth to mouth. The nightfires had burned low, and as the east began to lighten, the immense mass of Storm’s End emerged like a dream of stone while wisps of pale mist raced across the field, flying from the sun on wings of wind.
“I never held him but as he died,” Brienne said quietly as they walked through the spreading chaos. Her voice sounded as if she might break at any instant. “He was speaking one moment, and suddenly the blood was everywhere … Lucia, I do not understand. That shadow, that brilliance… how?”
“I do not know,” she muttered. “Sorcery for the shadow.” Faith for the light.
“But how? Who?”
She thought the answer was clear enough, but she did not speak. The camp was stirring. Twenty thousand men and their horses. The world was loud; men were shouting, braying in rage, roaring in accusation. She thought she heard the sound of steel clashing from some distance away. Horses were whinnying nervously.
If Stannis attacks now, Lucia realised grimly, he may well win.
“Where… where are we going?”
“We take a pair of horses,” she murmured, “and ride.”
“To where?”
“Anywhere but here.”
South was naught but mountains. East was the sea. West would bring them back into the Reach, where thousands of men would be hunting for them. North.
Two horses they stole amidst the chaos. One bore black and storm-green for its barding, and neighed quietly when Lucia mounted it. The other wore the green and gold for Tyrell, and snorted when Brienne sat upon it. Lucia would have laughed, if not for the horror of it all. I never did name that brown mare, she remembered.
They started with a slow trot, unnoticed amidst the chaos of a camp falling to madness and despair. Then, they cantered, breaking north for the Kingswood. As dawn broke, they galloped away, like the hounds of hell were nipping at their heels.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Catelyn IV, ACOK
And so the first king falls.
Boy was I bubbling with excitement to get this one out. I am sure I do not need to announce the butterfly effects coming from this, but you will see in the coming chapters anyways. Now, I know that Lucia has probably been the least popular of the four (or five, it doesn't matter) since she hasn't gotten the time and chance to do much, unlike Andrei and Gunther, nor does she wield the mystique of Lorenzo. Definitely, she has been stifled by Highgarden and the plot. But, her true storyline is beginning now, and I do have cool stuff in mind. Apologies for any (?) Renly fans out there!
By the end of this arc, when every character has had more time to shine, then, I will properly ask you all who your personal favorite is. Though, at the moment, I am curious to see who you are most excited to see? Andrei kicking ass? Robb warring in the Riverlands? Gunther's subterfuge? Asha's maritime adventures? Lorenzo's mysticism? Go ahead, let me know. There have been many times where a comment actually gave me ideas to write or stuff to add. Or if you have an idea for a bonus chapter, in the way that I did for Wynafryd, Thoros, and Gendry, you can let me know as well! No promises, of course.
Meanwhile, Melisandre: Well, I did not see that coming. [pulling off the sickest puppeteering move ever]
Since I do not want to leave the Storm's End saga in a cliffhanger for you, short as it was, next chapter will feature the return of an old POV that I am sure you all have missed. Why, is it not just the perfect time for a Ned POV?
Chapter 78: Eddard I
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
When dawn came, it was not a mighty host of knights that met them.
Ned had expected a bloody battle the like of the Trident; thousands of armored riders crashing against lines of pikes, palisades, and trenches. When the dawnlight flickered through his tent, Cat in his arms, he heard the sound of trumpets. He wore furs and leathers, and strapped a sword to his hip, though he knew he could fight as well as a drunk squire at the moment. “What are you doing?” His lady wife asked of him.
“Preparing for a battle,” he told her.
“Will you fight with cane in one hand, and sword in the other?”
Winter huffed from the foot of the bed, as if amused. He gave them both a dry, wry smile. “The Lord of Winterfell cannot be seen unarmed and unarmored.”
“As you say, my lord,” Cat nodded. Though she smiled, he could spy the fear and tension in her. He placed a gentle hand against her cheek, and kissed her hair. For a moment, he lingered. Then, forlorn, Ned left the tent as if marching for the block.
The trumpets were blaring, the horns roaring fiercely. The lines had been dug deep and wide, filled with shards sharp and lethal. Men stood firm and grim, with pike and spear and bow. He found Andrei awake, around the fire with the rest of the northmen. They were each sharing wine and tales, grimly determined.
“Your wife,” Andrei told him as they marched for the king’s tent; lord and warrior and wolf. “Lady… told me to protect you.”
Eddard frowned. There was no persuading his lady wife at times. “Very well.”
The king’s tent was dark and dour, with nothing grand about it. It was a soldier’s tent of heavy canvas, dyed the dark yellow that sometimes passed for gold. Only the royal banner that streamed atop the center pole marked it as a king’s. That, and the grim guards without; queen’s men leaning on tall sharp spears, with the badge of the fiery heart sewn over their own. He thought it fitting. These men have all given their hearts and souls to this god of flame, thought Eddard.
Stannis Baratheon sat silent in the shadows, gaunt and glaring at the map before him. A red wraith lingered to the king’s side, and the Lady Melisandre was smiling. He did not know what to make of it, but he found himself misliking the glow in her eyes. Beside him, Andrei was stiff, and Winter was growling softly. Listen well to your wolf, Cat’s voice rang in his mind, Grey Wind has never failed Robb.
“Lord Stark,” the king said, “the wolf was not invited to council, though she may be more wise than some of my knights and lords.”
He bowed his head. “Your Grace, the battle…”
“Has been won,” the red woman told him, smiling a red smile.
He looked at her. “I did not realise that Renly’s host had rode away.”
“Oh, they are riding, my lord,” Melisandre said, amused.
Stannis was unsmiling. “My lords and knights are preparing to receive the knights that once belonged to my brother.”
He did not understand. “For their charge?”
“For their coming,” the king ground out.
“Your Grace-”
“The pretender king has died,” Melisandre declared.
Ned felt a shudder run through him. Renly dead? “How?”
“He was slain in his own tent,” was all Stannis said. The king was frowning, as if perturbed, but his eyes were glaring at the map before him, the Seven Kingdoms sprawled across in yellowed parchment.
Melisandre’s red eyes were boring into him, unblinking. There was no real warmth in them, only fire, and something ancient to it. A sort of madness took over him. “Did you kill him?” Ned demanded. He could not deny that this red priestess wielded power, and a most dark and fell one. “Did you?”
Renly had fled King’s Landing in his time of need, and made to usurp his brother’s rightful throne, raising banners and ambition in place of loyalty. Still, Ned did not bear him ill will. He was young and foolish, but never cruel. He was Robert’s brother.
And Stannis’.
“Enough, Lord Stark,” the king shook his head. “The wine has been spilled. The Lady Melisandre had no part in this. Renly died to treason.”
Wine? It was blood that was spilled, his brother’s blood, if the Red Woman’s words were true. Died to treason, Ned did not understand. “Treason?”
“The traitor has died of treason, yes,” declared Melisandre, smiling. “All faiths, even the false ones, teach that the wicked man meets a wicked end.”
“I will hear no more of this,” said Stannis. “He was mine own brother still.”
“And who was his end?” Eddard asked.
“We will be told,” promised the priestess.
“Tell your lady wife that she need not fear your harm,” Stannis told him gruffly. “There will be other battles to come, but not one this day. Be mounted within the hour.”
He could scarcely start to wrap his head around the matter. “As you say, your grace,” Ned forced himself to say.
And true to Stannis’ word, the men who came were not snarling hounds eager for slaughter. No, they were beaten curs; masterless, hollow-eyed, lost and afraid. Under the harsh glare of the morning sun, the king received them, new knights, lords, and their ragged men, beneath the silent, brooding shadow of Storm’s End.
They had once borne Renly’s colors, shouted his name proudly. Now, they marched in solemn silence, as if for the noose. Would Robert have wept for Renly?
Alester Florent was the first to kneel.
The Lord of Brightwater Keep came bearing gold aplenty, grain, and hundreds of heavy horse. All fine gifts in times of war, but none so precious to Stannis as the young man chained and bound behind him, Ser Loras Tyrell.
He was pale, bloodied, and beaten, his ornate armor stripped away, but even in chains, the young man radiated defiance. The Knight of Flowers glared from behind a dirty gag, his fury unspoken but burning in his eyes.
“We found him amidst fire and blood, my king,” Lord Florent said as he bowed low. “He claims that Renly was slain by his women guards. A foolish notion, I always told your foolish brother, though he would not listen. The Maid of Tarth and the foreigner, the sellsword woman, they struck him down with sword and mace.”
Florent hesitated, then added, “We… we have his body, Your Grace.”
Stannis did not flinch. His eyes were unreadable, as if carved from the same stone as the castle around them. Ned was lost. Each word that Lord Florent spoke only deepened the fog in his mind. He looked at Loras again. There was blood at the corner of his mouth, dried and dark. His wrists were raw from the chains, but it was not pain in his eyes. It was grief and rage.
No man chained like that lies, Ned thought. Renly, slain by his own guards…
“Forgive me, my king,” Lord Alester went on. “I have always meant to declare for you, in truth. It was my intent to speak sense to your brother…”
“As you say.” Stannis did not smile.
The next to kneel was the king’s own grandfather, the venerable and wrinkled Lord Estermont. He moved stiffly, age and shame bowing him more than duty. He did not meet his royal grandson’s eyes, his ancient neck bowed.
“You are my mother’s father,” the king said brusquely.
“I am, your grace.”
“You chose Renly.”
“A folly… I…”
“Rise,” there was nothing warm or welcoming in the king’s voice. “Join your men.”
One by one, they came. More, and many more.
The Lords Errol and Varner. Jon Fossoway and Bryan Fossoway, each with heads bowed, their sigils dulled by soot and surrender. Lord Caron, and Ser Guyard of Renly’s Rainbow Guard, eyes hollow as he laid down his sword. Morrigen and Mullendore. Varner and Crane. Stormlanders and Reachmen alike.
Each lord, each knight, knelt with shame in varying measures but kneel they did, all the same. They came like broken men to the block, not loyal vassals to a king.
Stannis watched them all with the same hard stare, unmoved, unflinching. Judgement, not mercy, sat upon his brow.
“Four in five are gathered here, Your Grace,” Lord Florent was saying, ever eager. “Lord Tarly sought to retrieve Ser Loras, but my men fought fiercely. Tarly and Rowan escaped with the fifth; Tyrell knights among them. Hightower. Footly. Dunn. Cuy…”
Ned stood apart, silent. This was no triumph. No songs would be sung of this day, that was for sure. He watched these new lords and knights with gloomy eyes, thinking of how Robert won men to his side with cheer and drink.
“With Ser Loras taken,” Stannis declared, “Mace Tyrell will not act.”
“He will not, your grace.”
“Yet, there is still a muster of men at Bitterbridge. Sixty thousand foot, I hear.”
“There is, my king,” Alester Florent nodded.
“Tarly will be racing to Bitterbridge,” the king was frowning.
“Your Grace,” Ser Parmen Crane knelt. He was Renly’s purple just the day prior, a knight who had sworn to guard the king with his life. “I beg the honor of riding to Bitterbridge. I shall bring you the foot.”
“I doubt even Robert could sway the Tyrells to desire loyalty,” the king grunted. “You will ride, nevertheless, with Ser Erren Florent. Tell the tale. Bring me what foot you can. You will have a hundred riders.”
Loras Tyrell was screaming something but gagged as he was, none listened. Ned glanced at the boy with some pity. It was not too long ago that he stood before the throne room in the Red Keep, and Loras Tyrell had begged to ride out against the Mountain. What would have happened if I sent him? Would the Tyrells be fighting the Lannisters right now, if I had done so? He did not want to dwell upon it.
As the king received his new knights and lords, Ned turned to Andrei, by his side as ever. “These men cannot be trusted.”
“No,” the Kossar agreed. “Switch … cloak once, do again.”
But they were here, for the nonce at least. Over fifteen thousand men were gathered in the field before them. With Stannis’ existing host, that was twenty thousand.
Enough to take King’s Landing, he prayed, enough to save my daughters.
That night, as king and council convened beneath the stone shadow of Storm’s End, Ned felt a dull pounding behind his eyes.
“We must storm the walls at once,” urged Lord Monford Velaryon, his voice sharp as sea wind. “The defenders are rattled by the death of Renly, without a shadow of a doubt. They know that no aid will come to them. A wave of good men with grapnels and scaling ladders will take the fort by dawn.”
“Storm’s End is ever strong,” Lord Alester Florent countered, ever cautious. “They know Renly has fallen. They’ll be braced for us, and Penrose is stubborn.”
“No matter,” Monford Velaryon sniffed, waving a dismissive hand. “Their hearts are broken. Penrose is an old man.”
“A grave matter, this,” said old Lord Estermont, reluctant and slow to speak. “We have the bones of a siege. Let us give it flesh. Starve them out.”
Stannis' voice cut in, cold and iron-sharp. “As Tyrell and Redwyne once tried with me?”
Estermont had no answer. His silence was heavy in the room.
Lord Caron bristled with the fire of youth. “We do not have the time to spare for a siege. Every day we linger, we risk losing what ground we’ve won.”
“And we do not have the men for an assault,” Estermont replied, quietly but firmly.
“Not before,” Velaryon said, leaning forward. “Now we do.”
“We need the men to take King’s Landing,” reminded Lord Estermont.
The voices clashed like swords in a melee, each lord speaking over the other. Only Stannis sat still, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed forward. Then he spoke. “Lord Stark,” the king said. “You have been silent.”
All eyes turned.
“What do you suggest?”
Ned downed the cup of cool water before him, feeling its chill settle in his gut. The room was heavy with the weight of their words, but his voice cut through, steady.
“Your lords speak true,” he began slowly, watching them all. These were all proud, prickly men. “Storm’s End cannot be left behind in the march to King’s Landing, not with the two thousand men holed up inside. A siege will cost too much time, and an assault too much blood. Call for a parlay, Your Grace.”
“A parlay,” Stannis frowned, his lips pulling tight.
“Penrose has no other choice,” Ned pressed. “His men know it. It may be that Storm’s End will yield without bloodshed.”
Stannis stared at him for a long moment, and then gave a sharp nod. “It may be,” he said reluctantly, as if the words left a bitter taste. “Very well. Do you have any grievances against this?” His gaze swept across Velaryon and Estermont.
Monford Velaryon’s scowl deepened, but he nodded begrudgingly. Lord Estermont, on the other hand, was less circumspect.
“That is the path of wisdom, Your Grace,” Estermont said, a slow, reluctant approval in his voice. “But…” His hands fidgeted with the folds of his cloak. “This flaming heart, my king, I beg you, allow me to fight beneath the crowned stag of old. The people will rally to it, and so too will the men.”
Stannis’ gaze hardened, a touch of disdain in his eyes. “You flocked to Renly’s stag of flowers easily enough.”
The words hung in the air, sharp as a lash.
Courtesy was not a gift that Stannis Baratheon was wont to offer, Ned thought.
“The king has taken to his sigil the fiery heart of the Lord of Light,” Melisandre was smiling. “Mayhaps you should do so as well, turtle lord.”
She was the only face that smiled in the tent, and her smile was as cold as the flames she worshipped. Frowns were abundant, etched deeply into the faces of every knight and lord. They could not hide their disdain for this foreign priestess who dared to lecture a lord with such ancient lineage. When the lords shuffled out of the tent, their mutterings were impossible to ignore.
Ned heard it clearly, and so did Stannis but the king paid it little mind, his gaze fixed ahead as if the weight of the world lay solely upon his shoulders.
“A parlay,” the king mused, voice low and contemplative. “And should it fail, Lord Stark?”
Ned looked the king squarely in the eyes. “Then you will have to leave behind a force. One in five men, perhaps.”
Stannis’ lips thinned in irritation, but Melisandre spoke before he could. “That will not be necessary,” she said, her voice a smooth, confident whisper. “I have seen victory in the flames.”
“As you say,” Ned responded. “Your Grace, Lord Estermont had the right of it. The men will rally better to the crowned stag, the black and gold of Baratheon. That is the sight that the people know to mean peace, your grace, the king’s peace.”
“Robert’s peace,” snorted Stannis, “do they take it to mean wine and feasts too? Still, you speak the sense of it.” The king exhaled. “Doubtless, the vaults of Storm’s End have many bolts of beaten gold and faded black. Estermont shall have his banners.”
Stannis’ fury was palpable when the first day passed without response. “I offered him a parlay,” the king fumed, pacing in the dim light of the tent with clenched fists. “A king’s parlay. And Penrose ignored it.”
Ned, exhausted by the same pattern, could only sigh. “A deliberate choice, Your Grace. He means to provoke your ire.”
The second day was silent as well. Ned spent the morning in council with the king and his lords, arguing their plans. The afternoon was spent with his northmen, listening to their woes and sharing meat and mead. He spent the evening with Catelyn, quietly watching the sea, and they spent the night together as well.
Still, he could not shake the tension in his chest. The days were dragging with dull dread, one after the other, and each silent morning bled into the next. A dead weight seemed to hang over the camp, as though the world itself had paused.
On the third day, nothing had changed.
Catelyn’s soft voice broke through his thoughts as they ate their morning meal. “How long do you think he will continue?” she asked, concern shadowing her gaze.
Ned’s response came slowly, a tired sigh escaping his lips. “I do not know.”
She frowned. “While we tarry here, Robb wars in the Riverlands.”
Ned’s jaw tightened, the weight of his son’s struggles pulling at him. He is so young. But he squeezed Catelyn’s hand, offering a smile meant to be reassuring. “I know,” he said softly. “We will not be long.”
The fourth day passed in the same quiet tension, save for the arrival of Ser Davos. The Onion Knight met with the king in private, with only Ned as an audience.
“Ser Davos,” Stannis said stiffly, with a bare hint of welcome in his eyes.
“Your Grace,” Davos Seaworth knelt.
“Rise,” the king was impatient, “speak.”
“As you commanded, I delivered the letters to Gulltown, the Fingers, the Three Sisters, and White Harbor,” Davos began, “While we were amongst the people, they shouted for King Stannis. I cannot speak for what they said once we had sailed.”
“You do not think they believed?”
“Some do, for sure. White Harbor was one such. Lord Stark’s words lent much weight.” The Onion Knight bowed to Ned. “Your letter has been delivered to Lord Wyman, my lord. I waited out a storm in port, and spent it in conversation with Lord Manderly. He shall obey your commands, and begin construction of a new fleet.”
“Good,” Ned nodded. Wyman Manderly was a most clever and cunning sort, but loyal without doubt. He wanted no other man in charge of the task. The wealth of White Harbor was secondary.
“It is high time the North wielded a fleet,” Stannis muttered. “This Brandon the Burner… Folly, I say, to burn your own fleet.”
Of all men, it was the Baratheon brothers who bore the right to call the Burner a fool. Stannis saw his parents drown before his eyes, yet he still served as Master of Ships for Robert, Ned remembered.
“Why has the North never constructed a fleet again?”
“In truth, the cost,” Ned admitted. “Every Lord of Winterfell dreams of restoring the North to rights and might. To build a fleet on the western coast, to rebuild Moat Cailin and all of its towers, to repair all the abandoned keeps and castles and find smallfolk to tend to the fields. It is easier said than done, your grace. The North is the largest of the kingdoms, and the most barren. Our struggle is against the winter, our gold and silver goes to that fight; for salt and furs, dried food that can be stored for years. We do not have the hands to labor the towers and keeps, nor saw the planks needed for a hundred ships, or build them and crew them.”
“That must be put to right,” Stannis grumbled, unhappily. “The North will be given coin and men when the war is done. That, you shall have.”
Ned bowed his head.
“The castle must fall. But how to do it quickly?” Stannis brooded on that for a moment. Under the steady clop-clop of hooves, they could hear the faint sound of the king grinding his teeth. “Lord Alester urges me to bring old Lord Penrose here. Ser Cortnay’s father. You know the man, I believe?”
“When I came as your envoy, Lord Penrose received me more courteously than most,” Davos said. “He is an old done man, sire. Sickly and failing.”
“Florent would have him fail more visibly. In his son’s sight, with a noose about his neck.”
Ned felt the disgust in him swell.
Ser Davos was of the same mind. “I think that would be ill done, my liege. Ser Cortnay will watch his father die before he would ever betray his trust. It would gain us nothing, and bring dishonor to our cause.”
“Aye,” Eddard agreed. “If we were to slaughter old men, hang them in sight of their sons, we would be no better than Tywin Lannister.”
“Would you have me spare the lives of traitors?” Stannis demanded.
“You have spared the lives of those behind us,” Ser Davos pointed out.
“Do you scold me for that, smuggler?”
“It is not my place.”
The smuggler could not speak so much to his king, but Ned had argued with Robert Baratheon. “You have rewarded treason, your grace,” he pointed out bluntly. “What message will you send if you punish loyalty so harshly?”
“Loyalty to a dead usurper.”
“Loyalty all the same,” Ned argued, “and your brother.”
And Stannis laughed. A sudden gust, rough and full of bite. “I told you, Melisandre,” he said to the red woman as she entered, “they tell me the truth.”
“Much wisdom comes from their tongues,” the red woman said.
“Davos, I have missed you sorely,” the king said. “Aye, I have a tail of traitors, your nose does not deceive you. My lords bannermen are inconsistent even in their treasons. I need them, but you should know how it sickens me to pardon such as these when I have punished better men for lesser crimes. And you, Lord Stark, you speak the truth of it. I will take your advice.”
On the fifth day, the trumpets blared, and they met on the field of parlay.
Ser Cortnay Penrose wore armor of plate. He sat a sorrel stallion, his standard-bearer a dapple grey. Above them flapped Baratheon’s crowned stag and the crossed quills of Penrose, white on a russet field. If the size and splendor of the king’s party impressed him, it did not show on that weathered face.
They trotted up with much clinking of chain and rattle of plate. The great lords glittered in the morning sun. Silvered steel and gold inlay brightened their armor, and their warhelms were crested in a riot of silken plumes, feathers, and cunningly wrought heraldic beasts with gemstone eyes. The King looked out of place in this rich company, garbed in plain wool and boiled leather as he was. Ned was in his leathers as well, Andrei in his armor, and Cat in a gown of blue and grey.
Though, the king’s circlet of red and gold lent him a certain grandeur. Sunlight flashed off its flame-shaped points whenever he moved his head. Yet, his face was dark. He looks older than when we sailed from Dragonstone, though it has only been no more than two moons.
And it was the Lady Melisandre who shared his pavilion. He knew not what to think of that. That woman is more shadow than fire, Cat told him one night, and more fire than woman. Neither his wolf nor his men seemed to trust the red woman.
Focus, Ned told himself. The last he was here, he came to relieve a siege. Then, a young Stannis Baratheon offered his thanks stiffly and coldly, gaunt and grim as the gallows. And here I am again. King Stannis halted beneath the thick walls of Storm’s End, a few feet from Ser Cortnay and his standard-bearer. “Ser,” he said with stiff courtesy. The king made no move to dismount, his face stern.
“My lord.” That was less courteous, but not unexpected.
“It is customary to grant a king the style Your Grace,” announced Lord Florent. A red-gold fox poked its shining snout out from his breastplate through a circle of lapis lazuli flowers. Though Stannis had left his queen on Dragonstone along with her uncle Axell, the queen’s men were more numerous and powerful than ever, and Alester Florent was the foremost.
Ser Cortnay Penrose ignored him, preferring to address Stannis. “This is a notable company. Lord and Lady Stark.” The knight nodded. “The great lords Estermont, Errol, and Varner. Ser Jon of the green-apple Fossoways and Ser Bryan of the red. Lord Caron and Ser Guyard of King Renly’s Rainbow Guard ... and the puissant Lord Alester Florent of Brightwater, to be sure. Is that your Onion Knight I spy to the rear? Well met, Ser Davos. I fear I do not know the lady.”
“I am named Melisandre, ser.” She alone came unarmored, but for her flowing red robes. At her throat, the great ruby drank the daylight greedily. “I serve your king, and the Lord of Light.”
“I wish you well of them, my lady,” Ser Cortnay answered, “but I bow to other gods, and a different king.”
Her eyes were full of pity as if to say, your king is dead and your gods are far.
“There is but one true king, and one true god,” announced Lord Florent.
“Are we here to dispute theology, my lord? Had I known, I would have brought a septon or seven.”
“You know full well why we are here,” said Stannis. “You have had days to consider my offer. Storm’s End stands alone, and I am out of patience. One last time, ser, I command you to open your gates, and deliver me that which is mine by rights.”
“And the terms?” asked Ser Cortnay.
“I will pardon you for your treason, as I have pardoned these lords you see behind me. The men of your garrison will be free to enter my service or to return unmolested to their homes. You may keep your weapons and as much property as a man can carry. I will require your horses and pack animals, however.”
“And what of Edric Storm?”
“My brother’s bastard must be surrendered to me.”
“Why?”
Ned spoke. “For proof of the queen’s incest. Edric Storm is living proof of that sin, him and all of Robert’s other… natural children. When Edric and all others with Robert’s blood stand, the vile blood within Joffrey shines.”
Lord Alester Florent cleared his throat. “Ser Cortnay, His Grace means the boy no harm. The child is his own blood, and mine as well. My niece Delena was the mother, as all men know. If you will not trust to the king, trust to me. You know me for a man of honor—”
“I know you for a man of ambition,” Ser Cortnay broke in. “A man who changes kings and gods the way I change my boots. As do these other turncloaks I see before me. Lord Stark is the only one amongst you with honor.”
An angry clamor went up from the king’s men. He is not far wrong, Ned thought tiredly. Only a short time before, the Fossoways, Guyard Morrigen, and the Lords Caron, Varner, Errol, and Estermont had all belonged to Renly, swearing their blades and hearts to his cause. They had sat in his pavilion, helped him make his battle plans, plotted how Stannis might be brought low. And Lord Florent had been with them. Though he was Queen Selyse’s own uncle, that had not kept the Lord of Brightwater from bending his knee to Renly when Renly’s star was rising.
Bryce Caron walked his horse forward a few paces, his long rainbow-striped cloak twisting in the wind off the bay. “No man here is a turncloak, ser. My fealty belongs to Storm’s End, and King Stannis is its rightful lord ... and our true king. He is the last of House Baratheon, Robert’s heir and Renly’s.”
“If that is so, why is the Knight of Flowers not among you? And where is Mathis Rowan? Randyll Tarly? Lady Oakheart? Why are they not here in your company, they who loved Renly best? Where is Brienne of Tarth, I ask you? ”
That sent a wave of laughter.
“Ser Loras is here, good ser,” Ser Guyard Morrigen laughed. “In chains.”
Not a week ago, Loras Tyrell was his lord commander and brother in arms.
“And Brienne of Tarth?” He continued. “She ran. As well she might. Hers was the hand that slew the king, and the other one, the foreigner.”
“So Ser Loras is your hostage,” Ser Cortnay said. “His father will not be pleased.”
“He will not,” Stannis broke in. “He can be displeased from Highgarden.”
Penrose frowned. “I knew Brienne when she was no more than a girl playing at her father’s feet in Evenfall Hall, and I knew her still better when the Evenstar sent her here to Storm’s End. She loved Renly Baratheon from the first moment she laid eyes on him, a blind man could see it.”
“To be sure,” declared Lord Florent airily, “and she would scarcely be the first maid maddened to murder by a man who spurned her. Though for my own part, I believe it was the foreigner. Lucia, I believe her name was. An assassin from the east mayhaps? She might have follied the mind of the Maid of Tarth. She wields a mace, you see, and we found Renly’s corpse bearing the wound of a mace.”
“It was them,” insisted Lord Caron. “ You have my oath on that, Ser Cortnay.”
Contempt thickened Ser Cortnay’s voice. “And what is that worth? You wear your cloak of many colors, I see. The one Renly gave you when you swore your oath to protect him. If he is dead, how is it you are not?” He turned his scorn on Guyard Morrigen. “I might ask the same of you, ser. Guyard the Green, yes? Of the Rainbow Guard? Sworn to give his own life for his king’s? Your green sickens me, ser. If I had such a cloak, I would be ashamed to wear it.”
Morrigen bristled. “Be glad this is a parley, Penrose, or I would have your tongue for those words.”
“And cast it in the same fire where you left your manhood?”
“Enough!” Stannis snapped. “My brother has died. His death will be avenged in time. There is a war to fight.”
“A war,” Ser Cortnay agreed. “I have heard your proposal, Lord Stannis. Now here is mine.” He pulled off his glove and flung it full in the king’s face. “Single combat. Sword, lance, or any weapon you care to name. Or if you fear to hazard your magic sword and royal skin against an old man, name you a champion, and I shall do the same.” He gave Guyard Morrigen and Bryce Caron a scathing look. “Either of these pups would do nicely, I should think.”
Ser Guyard Morrigen grew dark with fury. “I will take up the gage, if it please the king.”
“As would I.” Bryce Caron looked to Stannis eagerly.
The king ground his teeth. “No,” he muttered, his tone final as a bell’s toll. He turned his hard gaze to Eddard Stark, and smiled a grim smile. “I would borrow your man, Lord Stark. The one who defeated the Kingslayer.”
Ned’s eyes flicked briefly to Andrei, whose face was blank and bored. The Kossar blinked drearily at the attention, threw his empty wineskin aside, and grunted. “Where and when?” He asked gruffly.
“Here and now,” Ser Cortnay dismounted, fearless.
The wind was howling off the sea, as men gave space for the two to fight. Salt was in the air, and storm clouds were gathering, black as soot. There was a ring of silent watchers; king and lord, knight and lady. Ned could hear the whisperings. He beat Jaime Lannister, some were saying. Tales and lies, others argued.
Ser Cortnay Penrose stood tall, his armor plain but clean, the crowned stag of Storm’s End proud upon his tabard. He took his helm from his steed, set it upon his head with solemn grace, and drew his sword. The blade caught the sun, gleaming. This is a brave man, thought Ned.
Across from him, Andrei stood rigid as stone. Where the knight wore plate and mail, the Kossar bore a brigandine of thick leathers layered with mail and scale. In one hand, he held a notched axe. In the other, a stout kite shield emblazoned with a crowned bear, roaring defiance.
“In the sight of gods and men,” Lord Eddard Stark spoke, voice clear and steady across the field, “let this duel seal the fate of Storm’s End.”
Winter howled. With a roar, both men charged.
Ser Cortnay moved with a knight’s grace, sword arcing in precise sweeps, probing for weakness like a snake tasting for blood.
Andrei met him as a storm unleashed; shield raised, axe tight, feet planted. The first clash rang out sharp and brutal, sword against shield, with a jolt that echoed through both men. Andrei's axe swept high and vicious, biting against the knight’s pauldron, scraping steel with a bright flash of dancing sparks.
Ser Cortnay retaliated with a swift thrust, the blade flashing toward the Kossar’s chest but Andrei knocked it aside with his shield and surged forward. His axe crashed into Penrose’s helm, ringing loudly like a bell struck too hard.
Another blow came, but the knight parried, dancing back, keeping distance. He caught Andrei with a glancing cut, slicing through mail and leather. Blood splashed onto the mud, but Andrei did not flinch. He stepped in, smashing his shield against Penrose’s breastplate with a thunderous crack, sending the knight staggering.
The duel grew uglier. Steel clashed wildly. Both men began to grunt like beasts, each strike heavier than the last. Andrei roared and brought his axe down hard, denting Penrose’s shoulder guard. The knight lashed out with a flick of cold steel, drawing a red line across Andrei’s chest. Still, the Kossar did not blink.
Then came the opening.
Cortnay lunged. Andrei saw it.
The blade came for him, fast, but he caught it on the edge of his shield and pushed. In that heartbeat of exposed balance, Andrei stepped into Cortnay’s space and slammed his shoulder into the knight’s chest. Penrose grunted, reeling. Before the knight could raise his sword again, Andrei dropped his shield, seized his wrist, and pressed the edge of his axe against Cortnay’s neck.
Ser Cortnay was frozen. The axe’s cold kiss was at his neck, his wrist trapped in a vice-like grip. All were silent.
“Yield,” came the voice, gruff and quiet.
Cortnay Penrose was solemn. His defeated eyes met Eddard Stark. “Swear on your honor, Lord Stark. Swear that Edric will be safe. Swear it.”
“I swear it,” Ned told him grimly, “on my honor.”
All the world was quiet as Ser Cortnay Penrose stared at him. “I yield, then.” Ser Cortnay hung his head.
And that night, king and council met in the lord’s solar of Storm’s End. It was no place for comfort. Thick stone walls loomed like cliffs around them, the narrow windows admitting only slivers of soft sea-stained light. A single hearth burned low, its fire barely enough to chase the chill from the damp air. The scent of smoke, old parchment, and wet wool lingered like ghosts.
Stannis Baratheon stood at the head of the long oaken table, hands braced against the carved edge, jaw clenched tight as a mailed fist. No one sat, not until he did.
Around them were the lords bannermen. Lords Celtigar, Farring, Sunglass and Velaryon. Lords Caron and Crane and Florent, Lord Estermont, and Ser Guyard. Both Fossoways. Melisandre sat on the king’s left, while he sat on Stannis’ right. To Ned’s right was Ser Davos, and then Andrei. Though he was no lord or knight, his victory against Cortnay Penrose won him the seat at the king’s council, and none of the lords or knights were eager to speak against that. Not after that fight.
“We hold Storm’s End,” Stannis began, his frown less severe now, almost imperceptibly curling into something like a smile. The two maps, one of Westeros, the other of King’s Landing and its outskirts were pinned on the table by daggers. “Now we must take King’s Landing,” declared the king.
“The Blackwater Rush stands between us,” Lord Estermont pointed out.
Stannis gave him an impatient look. “I am well aware, Lord Estermont.”
“If we enter the Rush,” urged Velaryon, “we can land troops by the River Gate.”
Celtigar was frowning. “We do not have so many ships for twenty thousand men.”
“We can attack by land and sea,” Lord Velaryon said. “The Rush is not so wide. A series of rafts can form a bridge for the men on the south side.”
“The Lannisters will know we are coming, my lords,” Estermont warned.
“Of course they will,” Ser Guyard scoffed with disdain. “Your Grace, I beg the honor of leading the vanguard.”
“No,” Bryce Caron disagreed stubbornly. “You are but the younger brother of the Lord of Crow’s Nest. Let me have the honor, my king.”
Ned wondered if the two had begged Renly for the honor of leading his van.
“Enough,” Stannis glared. “You forget yourselves. This is war, not a tourney. You chatter like magpies, and with less sense. I will have quiet.”
He saw the looks that passed between the lordlings, proud men from houses whose names were old in honor. Somehow, he knew that Renly had never chided them in such a fashion. The youngest of the Baratheons had been born with a gift for easy courtesy that his brother sadly lacked. It is one that he needs must learn soon.
“Lord Stark,” he demanded. “What would you advise?”
He took the time to think. “We cannot tarry for long, that is true. The more time we waste here, the more time King’s Landing has to prepare. I did not spend much time in King’s Landing, my lords, so I cannot claim to know the city well.”
He pressed his finger at the spot of blue by the Iron Gate. “Yet, it seems to me that we can land half the ships here, to take the Iron Gate. Surely, it will not be so well-armed and reinforced as the southern gates. The other half can sail into the Rush to ferry the men across the river, and take the River Gate.”
He remembered the stench, the fire, and the screaming. Even as he spoke, he could smell the charred flesh, bloated corpses, and the sour stink of baked blood. It did not feel so long ago that he had ridden through the carcass of King’s Landing amidst the lion’s sack. He remembered the smoke and the screams, the Red Keep’s halls slick with gore and bodies, and Jaime Lannister upon the Iron Throne.
And he remembered the children.
Dragonspawn, rang Robert’s voice, cold as ice.
“-from both Gates,” he heard himself saying. “With Ser Loras here, the Tyrells will surely not dare to act against us. Tywin Lannister is busy in the Riverlands. It may be that we cannot storm the Red Keep.” Sansa’s face came to him, frightful. “And so, we have to be prepared to siege it.”
“Aye, quickly,” Stannis clenched his jaw. “Doran Martell has called his banners and fortified the mountain passes. His Dornishmen are poised to sweep down onto the Marches. And Highgarden is far from spent.”
“Aye,” said Ned, “Mace Tyrell must still have tens of thousands of swords, gold, and grain in plenty too.”
“Lord Oaf treads on ice,” declared Alester Florent. “The vines of Tyrell do not have so strong a hold upon the Reach as Mace might wish. Lord Tarly is as fierce a soldier and general as any. Lord Hightower is rich and powerful. Lord Redwyne commands a large fleet. Lord Rowan dreams of raising the prominence of his house once more. Mace must play peacekeeper with each of his lords, else the House of Tyrell will fall. With his son captured, he will be frozen with his flowers.”
“Who shall lead the fleet then, your grace?” Monford Velaryon’s other question was clear as day. Will I lead it?
“One half will be under your control,” the king declared after a pause. “You shall take the River Gate. The other half will be under Ser Imry, who shall take the Iron Gate. Lord Caron, you shall have the vanguard. Secure the Kingswood.”
“It shall be done, my king,” Lord Bryce Caron bowed his head.
“Ser Gilbert Farring shall hold Storm’s End with three hundred men,” Stannis continued. “We will march in two days. Lord Velaryon, Ser Imry, you will leave at dawn to see to your ships.”
When the room was barren of the lords and knights, Ser Davos spared the red woman a doubting gaze. “Will you be there for the battle, my lady?”
“The Lord of Light determines where I go, good knight.”
That answered nothing, Ned thought. The king was frowning. “You have something you wish to say, Davos, say it. My lady, I shall send for you when I require you.”
“As the king commands.” Melisandre bowed.
When she was gone, Ser Davos spoke. “Your Grace, I know not how your brother died but…”
“He died of treason,” the king declared. “These lords who flocked to my brother’s banners knew him for a usurper. They turned their backs on their rightful king for no better reason than dreams of power and glory, and I have marked them for what they are. Pardoned them, yes. Forgiven. But not forgotten.” He fell silent, brooding. And then, abruptly, he said, “What do the smallfolk say of Renly’s death?”
“They grieve. Your brother was well loved.”
“Fools love a fool,” grumbled Stannis, “but I grieve for him as well. For the boy he once was, not the man he grew to be.” He was silent for a time, and then he asked, “Do you grieve for him as well, Lord Stark?”
“I did not know Renly, Your Grace,” he told the king earnestly. “When I saw him in the Rebellion, he was a child. I never saw him during the Greyjoy Rebellion. I knew him as Robert’s brother, in truth.” And I hardly knew Robert by the end.
“Robert could piss in a cup and men would call it wine, but I offer them pure cold water and they squint in suspicion and mutter to each other about how queer it tastes.” Stannis ground his teeth. “If someone said I had magicked myself into that boar to kill Robert, likely they would believe that as well.”
“You cannot stop them talking, my liege,” Davos said, “but when you take your vengeance on your brothers’ true killers, the realm will know such tales for lies.”
“Aye,” Ned agreed. “It was Cersei whose hand marked Robert’s death.”
“I will have justice for him,” Stannus muttered. “And Jon Arryn as well.”
“And for Renly?” Ser Davos said. Ned found himself admiring this lowborn smuggler, with the bravery to speak truth and sense to his king. Andrei was watching the king as well, his face strangely pale and stiff.
For a long time, the king did not speak. Then, very softly, he said, “I dream of it sometimes. Of Renly’s dying. A green tent, candles, a woman screaming, light so bright it was blinding. And blood.” Stannis looked down at his hands. “I was still abed when he died. Your Devan will tell you. He tried to wake me. Devan says I thrashed and cried out, but what does it matter? It was a dream. I was in my tent when Renly died, and when I woke, my hands were clean.”
Ser Davos nodded and said, “I see.”
Ned was frowning.
“Renly offered me a peach. At our parley. Lord Stark saw it well. Mocked me, insulted my daughter, defied me, threatened me, and offered me a peach. I thought he was drawing a blade and went for mine own. Was that his purpose, to make me show fear? Or was it one of his pointless jests? When he spoke of how sweet the peach was, did his words have some hidden meaning?”
The king gave a shake of his head, like a dog shaking a rabbit to snap its neck. “Only Renly could vex me so with a piece of fruit. He brought his doom on himself with his treason, but I did love him. I know that now. I swear, I will go to my grave thinking of my brother’s peach.” The king’s face was tight with tension.
“I mean to have justice,” the king continued. “Justice for Jon Arryn, Robert, aye and Renly too. His knights swear on their lives that his head was split apart by a mace, his neck pierced. If his killers truly were those two women, then I shall have justice for them as well. Cersei, the Kingslayer, Tywin Lannister. All of them.”
“My brother left the greater part of his power at Bitterbridge, near sixty thousand foot. I sent Ser Errol with Ser Parmen Crane to take them under my command. We cannot wait for them. We must march with the assumption that no further men will be joining us. For the sake of the realm, we must take King’s Landing.”
For the sake of my daughters, Ned thought.
“And the Lady Melisandre?”
“You do not love the woman. I know that, Davos, I am not blind. My lords mislike her too. Estermont thinks the flaming heart ill-chosen and begs to fight beneath the crowned stag as of old. Ser Guyard says a woman should not be my standard-bearer. Others whisper that she has no place in my war councils, that I ought to send her back to Asshai, that it is sinful to keep her in my tent of a night. Aye, they whisper and mutter... while she serves.”
“Serves how?” Ned asked, for the knight was dreading the question.
“As needed,” the king told him.
“Men will whisper,” Davos warned him. “They will talk…”
“Of what?” Stannis demanded. “They whisper of you, Onion Knight, of your low birth. They will whisper of Lord Stark’s wolf. They whisper of her in dread. Let them, I say. And when I sit the Iron Throne, the whispers will die.”
“As you say, Your Grace,” Ser Davos said reluctantly. “Where will you have me in the battle to come?”
“You will lead your ship under Florent,” the king told him. “Lord Stark, has your leg healed?”
“Soon,” he said.
Stannis frowned. “No matter, you shall take my side during the attack. You are no common pikeman to be storming the walls. I will not have you die to a stray bolt or a mace, as Aemon Targaryen did and Baelor Breakspear. Yeltska, your name is spreading from one ear to another. I have no finer warrior, I would think, no matter how my knights and lordlings may argue otherwise. Will you take the walls?”
Andrei turned his head towards Ned. Eddard raised a brow.
“I will.”
“Good,” the king sighed deeply. The lines on his face were even more pronounced. “When King’s Landing falls, Lord Stark, I will return your daughters to you. ”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Go,” the king told them. “See to your son, Davos, and your lady wife, Lord Stark. A city under siege will be no place for her,” he warned.
Eddard understood at once. “You mean to send her to Dragonstone?”
“Only a fool would ride through a land torn by war, and Lord Tywin is ravaging the Riverlands with the Mountain and vile sellswords. Your lady wife came south with a strong escort, and I cannot spare such numbers.”
“I understand,” he nodded. “I will speak with her.”
“And Davos,” Stannis muttered, “Edric Storm will go with her. Ser Loras too.”
“Your Grace?”
“A city fought over is no place for women and children,” Stannis said gruffly.
“Aye,” Davos said with a smile. “I will see to it, your grace.”
Eddard was by the door when Stannis spoke again, as mournful as a king could be. “What would you have done, Lord Stark?”
“Your Grace?”
“If you were as I was, if your own brother waged war against you?”
Ned met his king’s gaze. “I…” If Benjen was warring against him, what would he have done? He found that he did not know. “I cannot say, your grace, in truth.”
The king snorted. “How can any man know? Go, Lord Stark. Go to your wife, have a rest within these ancient walls. War comes soon.”
Aye, it does, he thought sadly. “Two wars we have fought, your grace. One against the Targaryens and another against the Greyjoys. Both of those were good wars, to put the realm to rights. A third we are fighting now, and it is no less righteous.”
A ghost of a smile flickered over the king’s face. “Aye, to put the realm to rights.”
To King’s Landing, then, Ned thought as he left the king to his thoughts.
He made his way down from the colossal drum tower gingerly. The cane kept him steady but he was weaning away from it. Winter had taken a fierce liking to his wife, and the direwolf had abandoned him to spend the night in the lordly chambers that he shared with Cat, no doubt by the hearth. For a beast named after the coldest of the seasons, the mother wolf adored the warmth of hearthfire much.
Andrei left him by the entrance of the godswood. “Go have your rest now,” he told the ever-watchful warrior. “It is late and on the morrow, there will be more work and quarrels to sit through, I have no doubt of that.”
“Aye,” Andrei grunted. He spared the dark of the godswood a cautionary glance.
“There will be no cutthroats in here,” Ned smiled. “Only leaves and wind.”
“Night is dark,” Andrei shrugged. “Red woman says it is full of terrors.”
“I think, my friend,” Ned offered him a wry look, “you and her are the greatest terrors in our midst.”
Andrei chuckled lowly. “Rest… well, Ned.”
The face of the heart tree was solemn, as if long in mourning. The sound was solemn as well, with an ancient quality to it, cloaked in the heavy salt air from the sea. The wind was shivering through thick, storm-hardened trees; mostly old oaks, gnarled and stubborn from years of braving the gales. The branches creaked and whispered as they swayed, never still, like shadows murmuring forgotten secrets. Far from the tranquil rustle of Winterfell’s godswood, here, the tension of storms past and storms yet to come lingered. The distant crash of waves against the sheer cliffs was a constant pulse, like the heartbeat of the Stormlands itself.
Birdsong was sparse, and when it came, it was sharp and quick. The birds know not to linger. The air smelled of rain, moss, brine, and salt. The solemn face was watching him. He wondered if Robert had ever stood before its weeping face.
Unlikely, he thought. The only god Robert Baratheon had ever cared for was the Warrior; the brave god of war and battle. Somehow, he could not see Renly, young and smiling as he was, here. Nor would Stannis, for his god was fire now.
In council, the red woman had made queries on the godswood.
“How old is this grove, your grace?”
Stannis could not say for certain. “No one knows how old for certain, just as no one knows the true age of the castle.”
“It is ancient?”
“It is.”
“Then, it holds power,” Melisandre said with a smile. “If we burn it…”
Ned was on his feet at the moment, his hand upon his blade. Andrei had risen with him. He remembered the stern glare that his king fixed him with. “Rest your blade, Lord Stark,” the king told him, “there will be no burnings.”
“As you say,” Ned had grudgingly sat, a cold glare upon Melisandre of Asshai.
“The Northmen declared for me as their king,” Stannis said unhappily. “Some houses in the riverlands worship the old gods. There will be no burnings.”
“As you say, my kind,” the red woman relented. And that was the matter done.
He found that he could not meet the gaze of the solemn, weeping face on the heart tree for over long. Did Durran Godsgrief carve this face? Did Orys Baratheon wed Argella Durrandon here? The weight of ancient history was heavy here.
Beneath the dark canopy of wind-bent trees, Eddard Stark prayed.
Old Gods, watch over my House and my family, he prayed.
Give your blessings to my wife, she is a good woman and mother. She loves her children, as do I. Let her see all her sons and daughters again. Keep my daughters safe, watch them with wind and stone, by air and river. Watch our sons well. Protect Robb as he fights, and give wisdom and peace to Bran and Rickon.
He offered a prayer for all the good men and women slain at King’s Landing, who had died for his folly. He prayed for his brother at the wall, and for Jon. Jon…
Gods, he realised with a sudden halt. If he had died at King’s Landing… When this is over, Ned promised, I must speak with him and tell him the truth.
He prayed for Robert as well, though he knew how his friend would react. Ned, Robert would guffaw and clap his shoulder, take a drink for me instead. Take your sword too, and as I did at the Trident, kill a few of them for me.
He smiled. He prayed for Jon Arryn, though the man worshipped different gods. He prayed for Renly as well, though the boy was no friend to him. War has come again, Ned thought grimly. Winter is coming. Old Gods, watch over us all. The King, Ser Davos, the little princess, and… watch over me. I want to see my family again.
And when he rose, the wind rose as well; strong and sudden and swift.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Davos II, ACOK
Damn, 9k words. Spent a long time working on this and I must say, it is good to finally get back to Ned. He is just a classic, especially in the changing world. We are also inching ever closer to the climactic battle soon to come and I eagerly look forward to that. I want to thank everyone for the great response to the previous chapter. That is also why I wanted to get this one out quicker. Hope you enjoy!
Next chapter will start the Northern horror show. I did promise that it would not be all songs and glory...
Chapter Text
One prince fades away, another comes.
The words haunted him, in his sleep and when he was awake. Ghostly and whispered, the words came to him over and over. One prince fades away, another comes. One prince fades away, another comes. One prince fades away, another comes. It rang like echoes in the crypts, slow and dull and wistfully.
Who? Bran was frustrated. Unlike the crow, the figure in black hardly spoke to him, preferring cryptic visions and hazy sights. And when it did speak, it was a low, quiet litany of sad words that made him shiver to remember.
We have come, it told him, the first time they spoke in that garden of black.
“Who are you?” Bran had asked.
The figure never made to answer. Instead, a skeletal hand gifted him a rose as black as night. Bran took it hesitantly, somehow feeling the coldness of the petals.
The next night, the figure spoke again.
Your sisters, it said solemnly. They learn well mercy and freedom.
“Sansa? Arya? How are they doing? Are they alright?”
His answer was silence, to Bran’s growing frustration.
On the third night, his dreams were within the dark garden again. Ravens cawed ominously on old, gnarled trees as Bran fiddled with a black rose. There were two moons in the sky; a fat white one, and a baleful green one that seemed to peer at him like some wicked eye. It made him uncomfortable, and it made him feel foolish at the same time. There is only one moon, he told himself, and moons do not blink.
“Who are you?” He demanded, before the figure could speak again.
This time, the silence was solemn but swift. Death…
“Are you the Stranger?”
Stranger to you, the voice rasped, but foreign not for long…
“What does that mean?”
Death, if it were so, did not see fit to soothe his curiosity with words.
Instead, he heard the rattle of bones as the figure in black pointed to the south. He saw a pack of wolves descending upon a lion, savaging it most bloodily. His eyes followed the flight of a white dove as it flew into a castle of blood. Outside of the castle, cats prowled and hissed in the night. He saw a creeping shadow crawling through a field of flowers. The shade was dispersed by a golden glow, but still, it plunged a dark dagger into the heart of a stag, crowned by a wreath of roses. The flowers burnt, and its ashes were scattered in a stormy wind. He saw the ashes fall over a grove of old woods, where a wolf with red eyes was solemn.
He saw the red hummingbird perched atop a black bridge. Its singing voice was low and mournful however, a litany of death and gloom. The bird raised its head at the coming of a storm, watching with bright green eyes. Before the rain descended upon the bridge, the bird flew away, and perched itself before pale dragonskulls.
He saw, amidst a violent crowd, unwashed hands reaching for a maiden in grey. And the world was white. So bright.
When he could see again, the figure in black was gone. He was somber for the whole day, to the maester’s worry. Each night after was no different.
Until this one.
Perched atop a dead tree was the three-eyed crow, with its head tilted.
“Who was that? Why does it keep appearing to me?”
“You will know,” the crow flapped its dark wings, “in time.”
“When?” He demanded.
“Come now, Brandon Stark,” the crow flew, and he flew along with it.
His frustrations melted away as he soared through the sky, the wind rushing past him. It was only in his dreams that he felt free. Unconfined to his chair or Hodor or his solar or Winterfell, he did not need to be the little Lord of Winterfell. In the night, he did what no knight or lord or boy could. He flew. From the Wall to Dorne, from Winterfell to King’s Landing, he flew. Over mountains and valleys and hills, he soared. Beneath him, plains and rivers sprawled lazily, and men were unto ants. He was as large as the giants of old, and as free as the birds and the dragons.
Only in my dreams, he thought mournfully. Only in my dreams can I walk like other boys, run like knights, and fly like birds.
“Who is the prince?”
“You were.”
“I can’t be a prince,” he said, confused. Tommen was a prince. He remembered sparring with the boy with wooden swords before…
But the letters say that he is no prince, no more than Joffrey is king…
“You are not.”
“That makes no sense,” he complained.
The crow huffed. “It does not need to.”
“Who is the other prince then?”
“I do not know.”
“You don’t?”
“I do not know everything.”
Bran was surprised. “I thought…”
“I know enough to teach you.”
They were silent after that. Bran could not recognise where they were flying over, but he could feel the cold. That made his head hurt to think about it. It was a dream, yet he felt cold enough to shiver. “Look,” the crow told him. And it did.
His left eye saw what his right could not, and his right saw what his left could not.
He did not understand.
His left eye saw a solitary hill, next to a milky river. The hill was like an ancient fist punching up from the earth, with bare earth slopes that looked like knuckles. The hill jutted above the dense tangle of forest, rising solitary and sudden, its windswept heights visible from miles off. All around, black tents sprouted like mushrooms after a rain, but there were no men within them, only crows. He saw a direwolf, white as snow, whose eyes watched him. One eye was a chip of pale ice, blue and barren, while the other was an orb of golden fire, bright and brilliant.
Bran’s right eye saw a different sight.
He saw a gaping chasm of contorted lava flanked by steep black cliffs of polished volcanic glass. Eerie wisps of black vapour gushed from vents at the base of the crags to form surging shapes against the darkened rock. And across the jagged emptiness, a battle was raging. Men clad in bronze and furs were bringing to bear bronze spears and axes and hammers against hulking monsters with green skins and crooked teeth. The men fought alongside short, stout figures; bearded folk, clad in mail. There was a warrior who stood out, a wild king in armor of bronze and fur, with a mighty hammer made of runed gold in his hand.
And from the king’s mouth came the roar, “UNBEROGEN!”
When Bran blinked, both worlds were gone.
He was staring at the smooth stone ceiling of his chambers. A fire was crackling in the hearth, but he still felt a chill. He should rise, he knew, but he could not. When he woke, he could no longer fly. He could no longer soar over kingdoms. When he was awake, he was just Bran, the broken Lord of Winterfell, who could not walk.
His morning was eventually interrupted by gentle knocking on the door.
“Enter,” he told them, his voice quiet.
Jeyne stepped through, Alebelly behind her, flushed and nervous.
“Maester Luwin would like to see you, my lord,” Jeyne bowed. “There has been a bird from your lord brother.”
“From Robb?” Bran was excited.
“Yes, my lord,” she gave him a small smile.
He did not wait for Hodor, but let Alebelly take him to the maester’s turret. He was a big man, though not so big as Hodor and nowhere near as strong. By the time they reached the maester’s turret, Alebelly was red-faced and puffing, though he was trying not to show it. How will he fight? Bran wondered.
“May I… escort you to the kitchen?” the guard asked Jeyne awkwardly as they left, and he heard the girl giggle quietly. Bran watched them leave with a smile.
Rickon was there before them, and both Walder Freys as well. Maester Luwin gave the passing pair a bemused smile before shaking his head. “My lords,” he said, “we have had a message from Lord Robb.”
“Tell us,” Bran said eagerly.
“Robb has won a great victory in the west, shattering a Lannister host at a place called Oxcross, and has taken several castles as well. He writes us from Sarsfield, formerly the stronghold of House Sarsfield.”
Rickon tugged at the maester’s robe. “Is Robb coming home?”
“Not just yet, I fear. There are battles yet to fight.”
“Was it Lord Tywin he defeated?” asked Bran.
“No,” said the maester. “Ser Stafford Lannister commanded the enemy host. He was slain in the battle.”
Bran had never even heard of Ser Stafford Lannister. He found himself agreeing with Big Walder when he said, “Lord Tywin is the only one who matters.”
“And Lord Robb writes that he has plans for that.”
“Tell Robb I want him to come home,” said Rickon. “He can bring his wolf home too, and Mother and Father.” In truth, Bran hoped for the same, but he knew they could not. Not until the war was won, or over. Still, his little brother was stubborn as only a boy of four can be. Bran was seven and wiser.
Bran was glad for Robb’s victory, but disquieted as well. He remembered what Osha had said the day that his brother had led his army out of Winterfell. He’s marching the wrong way, the wildling woman had insisted stubbornly.
“My lords,” Maester Luwin turned to the Walders, “your uncle Ser Stevron Frey was among those who fought at Oxcross. He is well, and holds a strong camp just days away from Lannisport, drilling the captives of the west who have turned their cloaks.”
Big Walder shrugged. “I’m surprised. He’s old. Five-and-sixty, I think. Too old for battles. He was always saying he was tired.”
Little Walder hooted. “Tired of waiting for our grandfather to die, you mean. Now he will have to keep waiting for that.”
Maester Luwin cut in sharply. “You ought to be ashamed of such talk, my lords. Your uncle is alive, and hale and hearty.”
“Yes,” said Little Walder. “And old.”
“And doing more than the two of you,” Bran muttered under his breath. He never learnt to enjoy their presence. He asked Maester Luwin to be excused. “Very well.” The maester rang for help. Hodor must have been busy in the stables. It was Osha who came. She was stronger than Alebelly, though, and had no trouble lifting Bran in her arms and carrying him down the steps.
“Osha,” Bran asked as they crossed the yard. “Do you know the way north? To the Wall and ... and even past?”
“The way’s easy. Look for the Ice Dragon, and chase the blue star in the rider’s eye.” She backed through a door and started up the winding steps.
“And there are still giants there, and ... the rest ... the Others, and the children of the forest too?”
“The giants I’ve seen, the children I’ve heard tell of, and the white walkers … if I had seen them, I would not be here.”
“Have you ever seen a three-eyed crow?”
“A crow with three eyes?” She laughed. “No, and I can’t say I’d want to.” Osha kicked open the door to his bedchamber and set him in his window seat, where he could watch the yard below.
“Have you ever seen a hill…” The question felt foolish as it left his lips. “Like a fist of stone jutting out of the eart-”
“Aye,” she said solemnly. “The Fist of the First Men… An old place. The crows like to use it for their rangings.”
“What about a chasm, of lava and black cliffs?”
Her rough face twisted in confusion at that. “None beyond the wall, little lord.”
“Oh.”
It seemed only a few heartbeats after she took her leave that the door opened again, and Jojen Reed entered unbidden, with his sister Meera behind him.
“Tell me the bad thing you dreamed,” Bran said, frowning. “The bad thing that is coming to Winterfell.”
“I see it clearer now, my lord. It is not tents and tarps that I have seen, but flesh flying in the frigid wind. An encampment of the skinless, an encampment of skins.”
Bran felt a shiver. He had seen something similar in his dreams.
Jojen went on. “I dreamt that a red sea had come to Winterfell. I saw waves of blood crashing against the gates and towers, and flayed fingers crawled over the walls. Men were standing in the yard, still and sullen. When I first dreamed the dream, back at Greywater Watch… I did not know their faces and names, but now I do. That Alebelly is one, the guard who called our names at the feast. Your septon’s another and your smith. The girl, Jeyne, and the old woman who tells tales.”
“Old Nan? Mikken? Septon Chayle?” Bran was as confused as he was terrified. “How can an army march without flesh?”
Jojen’s eyes were haunted. “In the dark of night, the blood will flow over these stone walls, and the fleshless will come. I have seen it. Six purple serpents slithering in the snow, shedding their skin as they come.”
“We have to tell them,” Bran said. “Alebelly and Mikken, and Septon Chayle, and Jeyne, and Old Nan and…”
“It will not save them,” replied the boy in green. He was mournful.
“You saw something else.”
“I did.”
“Tell me.”
Jojen did not blink. “As you say, my lord. I dreamt that foul things come to Greywater Watch. Ugly, laughing things with joyful voices even as their flesh falls apart. I dreamt that the sea crashed against a dying ancient with three stone fingers, but those things came for the sea as well. The sea wept. I can still hear their laughter.”
“We must… we must send word…”
Meera came to the window seat and put a hand on his shoulder. “They will not believe, Bran. It sounds madness to them.”
Jojen sat on Bran’s bed. “Tell me what you dream.”
He was scared, even then, but he had grown to trust them. “There’s different kinds,” he said slowly. “There’s the wolf dreams, those aren’t so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels.”
Those were the most pleasant. The world was quiet in those dreams. “And there’s the dreams with the crow and the hummingbird, though I seldom see him around these days. I soar over the land with the crow, and it shows me things. Talks to me as well. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. But…”
Meera gave his shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “What else?”
“I keep seeing this figure in a black cloak,” he admitted. “At first, it was far away and silent. Then, it grew closer. Beneath the black, I see bones and skulls. It talks to me as well, but it says little. And it shows me things that are … confusing.”
And terrifying, though he did not wish to admit.
“Warg,” said Jojen Reed after a silence.
Bran looked at him, his eyes wide. “What?”
“Warg. Shapechanger. Beastling. That is what they will call you, if they should ever hear of your wolf dreams.”
The names made him afraid again. “Who will call me?”
“Your own folk. In fear. Some will hate you if they know what you are. Some will even try to kill you.”
Old Nan told scary stories of beastlings and shapechangers sometimes. In the stories they were always evil. “I’m not like that,” Bran said. “I’m not . It’s only dreams.”
He could not believe that, not in truth.
“The wolf dreams are no true dreams. You have your eye closed tight whenever you’re awake, but as you drift off it flutters open and your soul seeks out its other half. The power is strong in you.”
“I don’t want it. I want to be a knight.”
“A knight is what you want. A warg is what you are. You can’t change that, Bran, you can’t deny it or push it away. You are the winged wolf, but you will never fly.” Jojen got up and walked to the window. “Unless you open your eye.” He put two fingers together and poked Bran in the forehead, hard.
When he raised his hand to the spot, Bran felt only the smooth unbroken skin. There was no eye, not even a closed one. “How can I open what is not there?”
“You will never find the eye with your fingers, Bran. You must search with your heart.” Jojen studied Bran’s face with those strange green eyes.
The singing bird had green eyes too, but those were brighter. Shimmering, piercing jadestones where Jojen’s were dull moss. “This figure in black,” Jojen continued. “I have seen it too, though only at a distance. I have glimpsed its figure, and the black roses that sprout in its wake.”
“What do you know of it?”
“Nothing,” Jojen admitted. “Only the crow knows. Are you afraid to seek him out?”
“Maester Luwin says there’s nothing in dreams that a man needs fear.”
The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid.
“There is,” said Jojen.
“What?”
“The past. The future. The truth.”
They left him more muddled than ever. When he was alone, Bran tried to open his third eye, but he didn’t know how. No matter how he wrinkled his forehead and poked at it, he couldn’t see any different than he’d done before. In the days that followed, he tried to warn others about what Jojen had seen, but it didn’t go as he wanted. Mikken thought it was funny and japed with him in response.
“Old Nan has been telling you too many dark tales, my lord,” the smith smiled at him. “Maybe I’ll fight them off, good steel can cut through all that, Lord Bran.”
“The gods will take me when they see fit,” Septon Chayle said quietly. “The Light of the Seven will dispel any shadow that comes.”
Though he had not learned as much from the septon as Sansa had, Bran liked the kind, soft-spoken man, who entertained his questions on the Stranger, and whether he wore a black cloak, and wielded a scythe, and handed black roses to broken boys. But he will not listen, Bran despaired, they will not.
When he went to find Old Nan, he found her asleep. Her toothless mouth was gnawing at something, but all he could hear was the sounds she made in his nightmares. He did not wake her. He could not find it in him either to tell poor Jeyne of fleshless monsters either. The girl had been through enough as was, seeing her father killed by wildlings was a nightmare come true.
Alebelly was the only one who listened. “Fleshless men coming to Winterfell?” The guard was horrified.
Bran nodded. “A sea of them… outside of Winterfell.”
“Maybe the Boltons are coming with more men?”
The sigil of House Bolton was the flayed man, on pale pink spotted with red blood drops. He did not know how he had forgotten that. He remembered Robb’s words of Roose Bolton, and the muttered whispering about the Bastard of the Dreadfort.
He shivered.
“I will speak to the other guards, my lord,” Alebelly told him, “but Ser Rodrik will have the matter handled, I am sure of it.”
Three days later, Ser Rodrik returned.
The horns blared at midday. He was in his chambers, playing a three-sided game of tiles with Meera and Jojen when it came. Hodor was in a corner, playfully poking at the fire with a long stick he had found, and Summer was huddled by his feet in a bundle of warm furs and slumbering contentment.
“Ser Rodrik has come, my lord,” Alebelly told him, when they found him in the hallway. Bran was on Hodor’s back, Summer trailing behind him, and the Reed siblings on either side. “Two riders on the road, from the east.”
“Two?” Bran was confused. “He rode with fifty.”
“Maybe they stayed behind to watch over the Hornwood, my lord, to garrison the tower,” the guard shrugged. “Maybe they are trailing behind?”
Bran turned to look at Jojen but, for once, the green-eyed boy could not meet his eyes. No matter, Bran thought, Ser Rodrik must have his reasons.
The twin riders were only coming at a casual trot, for when Bran and his companions took to the walls above the east gate, they could only see the faint speck of horse and men. No, Bran was puzzled, squinting. He could recognise the good knight to some degree, in his dull plate and with the banner of House Stark in one hand. The other rider was slim, frail, and unarmored, dressed in a red gown.
“Hodor?” Hodor was confused.
Meera’s eyes were better. “The Lady Hornwood,” she spoke, her tone befuddled.
“Did you see this?” Bran asked quietly.
Jojen was silent, his youthful and solemn face blank. “I saw riders, two of them but…”
He had never seen him so unsure. “But?”
“There was a haze over them, a red fog. I could not be sure.”
“Open the gates!” He heard Alebelly’s voice shout.
Bran felt cold, and not from the summer snows either. “Meera,” he whispered, “can you see them well? Are they unharmed?”
She narrowed her eyes and peered at the coming riders. “Clean and unharmed, my lord. The banner is white as snow, the old knight’s armor is pristine, as is Lady Hornwood’s gown. Untouched, both.”
That is not right, Bran could not speak the words. He felt as if his heart was wrenching free of its bony prison, as if his hands had turned to ice. The riders did not look clean to him, nor unblemished. The grey direwolf on the banner of white was gone. The field of pure white was dyed red with blood. Ser Rodrik’s armor was chipped and dented. His gauntlets were gone and Bran could see scarlet where his hands were. Lady Hornwood’s gown dripped with crimson as they rode, trailing the road with her blood, though neither rider nor mount seemed to notice or care.
And their faces had been flayed.
Bran wanted to scream.
Ser Rodrik had lost his helm, and the flesh on the face beneath it. The stern features were unrecognisable, as were the white whiskers and firm jaw. Where his cheeks once carried the weathered creases of age and loyalty, now there was only raw muscle and glistening sinew, exposed like butchered meat. His eyes were empty, red sockets like bleeding stars. He remembered the Lady Hornwood from the harvest feast, with her quiet strength and tragic dignity. Those had been stripped away. Her mouth was frozen in a red rictus of horror with torn lips and exposed gums, and a tongue that was hanging loosely and half severed, swaying wildly. Ser Rodrik’s smile was darker, with stretched lips that were in a grotesque parody of a grin, shattered teeth bared through blood-slicked muscle. Both were weeping blood.
“Meera!” He hissed.
“My lord?” She was confused.
He did not understand. With trembling hands, he took Hodor’s shoulders.
“Hodor?”
“Jojen,” Bran spoke, weeping. “Jojen, do you see it?”
“I do,” Jojen said solemnly, his eyes wide and white.
“See what?” Meera was confused and growing agitated.
Bran could barely hear her. The iron portcullis was groaning as it lifted, slow and grating. The chains were rattling in the gatehouse, like the low moan of ghosts. The hooves of the horses clopped steadily closer; clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.
“No,” Bran whispered, heart pounding. “No, no,” his voice grew louder. “Close it. Close the gate!”
Meera turned, startled. “Bran?”
“Shut it! Shut the portcullis! Don’t let them in.”
He wrestled at Hodor’s arms, trying to move, trying to stand, but his legs betrayed him. Summer was howling but Jojen was silent. The chains were still scraping against the walls. He faintly remembered Jojen’s sorrowful words; I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with eight grey stone chains. “Alebelly!” he screamed, his voice breaking with fear. “Close the gate! Close it! Don’t let them in! I command it, as the Stark in Winterfell!”
The portcullis shuddered to a halt halfway open. There was confused shouting ringing from the guards. He could hear Alebelly calling back, “My lord? It’s Ser Rodrik! And Lady Hornwood. They bear the Stark banners?”
But Bran no longer saw a Stark banner. He saw clearly the red-pink banner now, bleeding and twisted. Where once the grey direwolf of Stark ran proud on the snow, there was something else now, something darker. It rippled on the blood-soaked banner, catching the wind like wicked whispers. It was a spiral of curves and prongs, delicate and fluid, but coiled in upon itself like a serpent devouring its own tail. At first glance, it was almost beautiful, but the more he stared, the more wrong it became. The curves were too perfect, the shapes too sinuous. It seemed to shimmer with a malevolent air, even in the weak northern light of day. And there was a gaping eye, or mouth, or something in between, at the heart of the sigil that pulsed.
And as it flapped in the wind, Bran heard the sound of moaning and groaning coming from a thousand tormented tongues. He saw the ruin that had once been Ser Rodrik, the horror that had been Lady Hornwood, riding for Winterfell, trailing blood down the causeway like a second moat as their empty eyes watched him.
He did not understand, nor could he think, or breath, or blink.
The banner fluttered above the riders like a silken wound, too bright against the grey sky, too fluid in its motion. The moment his eyes found the symbol, something deep inside him recoiled; not just his thoughts, not just his heart, but something older and beyond. The wolf in him whimpered, tail tucked. The trees seemed to shiver. The godswood whispered with a voice he could not understand.
He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. His eyes stung, his skin itched, and his mouth was dry. The longer he stared, the more he felt watched; no, touched. As if unseen fingers slid across his skin and under it, teasing nerves he did not understand. A shame he could not name curled in his belly, coiling like a snake. His cheeks burned. His thoughts frayed. He could not think.
Bran gripped Hodor's shoulders, knuckles white, and whispered, “Make it stop.”
But it did not stop. Instead, it sang, not with sound but with feeling; a song of pleasure wrapped in pain, of joy twisted into revulsion. A song that promised nothing and everything, if only he would open himself.
He closed his eyes and saw it still; that swirling, seductive wound of a sigil.
The banner pulsed; pink and powerful and perfect.
Bran’s body shuddered, caught between terror and shame. He felt like he was folding in on himself, as the spiral writhed in the windless air. A great pressure was on him and he felt a sensation; too bright, too sharp, too near.
Would you like to walk again? A voice whispered to him.
Would you like to ride? To be a knight? It offered.
No more will they whisper ‘Bran the Broken’. No, they will call you… Bran the Magnificent… Just let us in and-
And then, it stopped.
The air was still, the world was silent, and the portcullis came crashing into the ground. Its iron tips speared into the cold soil, just as the riders were about to cross the threshold. The banner was no longer dancing in the wind. It hung, limp and lifeless, as if it had forgotten how to move and sway.
The color was drained from the world, the bleeding reds and pulsing purples leeching away, leaving behind only snow and silence and shadow.
From the corner of his eye, Bran saw a shadow watching them. It was not cast by sun nor the flickering of torches. He did not feel frightened at the sight.
Mourning black, it was cloaked in, and crowned with raven feathers. There was a stillness to its movement. The snow did not crunch beneath its feet. Time itself seemed to hold its breath, as the figure stood beside him. Only Bran seemed to see it, though Jojen was looking in their direction, frozen and muted. It pointed.
As a chime sounded, cold and distant away like some mournful dirge, he saw the banner withering away in black flames. The silken threads turned brittle, curling in on themselves like dead leaves until all that remained was a charred stalk. It was as if a hundred years had caught up to it within a single silent second.
Bran gasped, and found that he could breathe again. The invisible, sensual fingers that had been caressing his mind and numb legs withdrew, screaming into silence. The fire in his cheeks and the shame in his heart were gone, burned away by something cleaner and colder, that bore a sense of finality.
A black rose petal fell upon the wintry stone crenellation before him.
“You are not His to claim,” came the voice, imposed.
And the presence faded like a breath in winter, leaving only falling snow behind.
He was weeping. Meera was still staring at him, Jojen’s eyes were closed and he was muttering fervently, Summer was howling, and Hodor was whimpering.
He could hear the whispers in the courtyard.
“The Broken commands,” one of the Walders sneered.
“He must have gone mad,” the other one laughed.
“Ser Rodrik?” A guard was confused. “Why?”
“Lady Hornwood as well.”
“The lord commands.”
“The lord is a boy.”
“A cripple.”
“A cripple gone mad.”
He heard it all.
He rubbed his tears angrily. They were stinging, and burning, and his eyes hurt.
“Take me back,” he told Hodor quietly. “Tell the guards to keep the gates closed.”
“I will,” Jojen bowed, fixing him with a fervent stare.
The storm had passed, though no one had seen the clouds. Maester Luwin did not either. Bran was sullen as he sat before the maester, his legs wrapped in blankets. Summer was curled at his feet, and Hodor stood by the door.
Luwin poured him a cup of warm milk with honey. “My lord… You must be tired as of late. No one can blame you… but this matter of closing the gates to Ser Rodrik and Lady Hornwood…”
“I have given the command,” he said stubbornly, refusing to meet the maester’s eyes. “The gates will remain closed.”
“As you say, Bran,” the maester frowned. “You are the Stark in Winterfell, until your brother and your father return. They would not … understand this command.”
“They would if they saw…”
“And what did you see, my lord?” The maester pressed, not unkindly.
Bran stared into the cup. The fire crackled. Outside, the wind whispered against the stones of the tower. He did not think he should mention the flayed faces.
“There was a banner,” he said at last. “There was a sigil on it, like a snake. It wanted to get inside me.” He looked up, eyes wide. “Inside my head.”
Luwin had risen. He knelt beside the chair, concern written on his face. “Bran-”
“I’m not mad!” He snapped. Summer woke, his hackles raised. “I … I’m sorry, maester. But I know I saw it. Jojen saw it too.”
Maester Luwin frowned. “I spoke to the Reed siblings,” he sighed. “Meera shared her confusion but Jojen was … well, he did not speak much.”
“He saw,” Bran insisted. “We both did. And…”
He paused, breathing hard. “And then…” Bran’s voice fell to a whisper. “He came.”
Luwin frowned. “He?”
“A shadow. Taller than Hodor. In a black cloak. He didn’t walk, he just was.”
He glanced toward the window, half expecting the figure to be watching. “He told me that I was not… his to claim.”
Luwin said nothing for a long time. The candle beside him flickered.
Finally, he sighed, and spoke as gently as a father would to a frightened child. “Bran… the mind plays tricks when it is afraid… when we’re tired, or confused… we may yet see things, hear things, feel things that are not there.”
“I wasn’t afraid,” Bran said stubbornly, though he had been. “And I wasn’t alone.”
Luwin placed a hand on Bran’s arm. “I do not think you’re mad, my lord. But you have been feeling under the weather as of late, no? I can understand, Bran. You need rest..”
Bran did not respond, he could not. He stared into the fire. “The gates remain closed,” the Stark in Winterfell commanded.
“As you command,” Luwin said softly. “I am sure Ser Rodrik will understand.”
Bran said nothing more.
When he was alone again in his chambers at night, he found that he could not sleep. The night was dark and quiet, almost peaceful in a way, though his heart was not at ease. Shadows stretched long across his chamber as the night crept in, dark and heavy. The flayed faces haunted him, as did that feeling. The whispers followed him; some were mocking, others promised him things. He could not recognise the voices, but some felt familiar, others were foreign and frightening. He was shivering, despite the furs covering him and the fire dancing in his hearth. He was afraid.
…ok. Lo… came a whisper on the wind. Look…
And he did, turning and looking out the narrow window beside his head.
Outside the walls of Winterfell, just beyond the moat, two figures stood in the snow.
He thought they were smiling.
Bran felt frozen in the dark of his room.
Ser Rodrik Cassel stood with his hands clasped before him, white hair tousled by the wind. Bran could not understand why he could see the knight’s face, but he did.
And he wished that he could not.
His mouth was stretched in a grin that did not reach his eyes, for his eyes were gone. Hollow pits of darkness stared up at Bran and in them, he saw anger and sorrow and pain, and welcome.
Beside him stood Lady Hornwood, in her tattered gown soaked in red. Her face was rippling in the wind, and her eyes were still weeping with scarlet.
They did not move. They were as still and silent as corpses. Corpses that could ride and walk and smile. He did not know how long they had been standing there. He knew that they were smiling at him, and watching, and looking, and waiting.
Bran’s breath caught in his throat. He was sweating and shivering in fright. Summer lifted his head where he slumbered by the hearth. His wolf’s ears were flat against his skull, and he was growling low and deep in the shadows. Something older seemed to whisper to Bran, like the rustling of wind amidst branches.
Look away, it told him. Rest.
He blinked.
They were still there, smiling.
Ser Rodrik raised a hand and waved, stiffly, like a puppet. Lady Hornwood followed, blood dripping from her sleeve and onto the snow.
They wanted him to come. They were welcoming him.
Bran slammed his eyes shut. Summer had come to him, and he buried his face in the warm fur, trembling. “Go … go away,” he muttered, shaking.
“Go away…”
He did not open his eyes. He did not want to, ever again.
Peace came at last when he fell asleep. His dreams were not so bright that night, but they were not as frightful and dark as reality had been. He dreamt of ravens circling over a dark garden of solemn statues, and the tall figure in mourning black silent beneath a gnarled, dead tree; watching and waiting. “Brandon of House Stark,” it rasped to him, “fear not the prince. Ravens watch where winter falls.”
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Bran V, ACOK
I did promise a horror show. Don't worry, things are only going to get darker. Slaanesh, the Chaos God of Excess and Hedonism, is known as the Dark Prince or the Perfect Prince. Three guesses for who received their attention.
RIP to Ser Rodrik Cassel and Lady Hornwood. I've always liked those two, loyalty and dignity respectively. Still, named characters will be dying in this fic. Some characters will meet better fates than in canon, some worse, some debatable. Still, we are a long way from there.
Next up, a Small Council meeting with Tyrion, Cersei, Varys and their new Master of Coin! Take a guess for who that might be.
Chapter 80: Tyrion IV
Summary:
I love Small Council chapters.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Varys stood over the brazier, warming his soft hands. “It would appear Lord Renly was murdered most fearfully in the very midst of his army. He was stabbed through the heart or neck and his head was shattered by a mace as if it were a gourd.”
“By whose hand?” Cersei demanded.
“When a king dies, fancies sprout like mushrooms in the dark,” Varys tittered. “Yet, in this case … many birds sing the same tune. All agree that women did the fell deed, but cannot agree on who. A maid whom Renly had spurned, claims one. A camp follower brought in to serve his pleasure on the eve of battle, says a second. Many seem to point to the Lady Brienne of Tarth, and some foreign sellsword.”
“Brienne of Tarth?” The queen was confused.
“Lord Selwyn’s only, homely daughter,” Varys told her. “A lady who prefers mail and steel to silk and gems. One of Renly’s seven guards.”
Cersei sniffed in disgust. “A freak of nature. Fitting for Renly, I suppose.”
“One that killed a king,” Tyrion mused, “if the tales are true.” His brother was far from the only Kingslayer in the realm these days; first, the boar and now, these women… Briefly, he wondered how Jaime would take the news. Laugh, thought Tyrion.
“Most-” Gyles Rosby hacked a bloody cough. He was the latest addition to the Small Council, Cersei’s latest wilful whim. His sister, as wise as ever, had decided that having an old, dying fool on the Master of Coin’s seat was better than having air and dust upon its cold surface. “Most… dreadful,” the old lord contributed helpfully.
That was near the sum of the grand contribution he would make that day, Tyrion predicted. What with the heavy taxes Cersei had levied on King’s Landing, she wanted a pliable fool to march around to collect and count the gold. The noble lord of Rosby tallied the coppers and silvers and gold. His greatest, and only, work was to tell the queen that they had barely enough for the city’s defences.
Still, he would not scorn the old lord much. All matters related to the Iron Bank and the Crown’s debt now flowed like a flood to poor Gyles Rosby. There was a certain black amusement in watching the pale Braavosi banker haunt the coughing lord of Rosby like a gold ghost. Where most ghosts cursed and wailed and shrieked, he was sure that Augus Telares whispered to the Master of Coin a different tale.
Where is our coin, the Iron Bank oft demanded through their pale mouthpiece.
“Might this be some ruse?” asked Cersei suspiciously.
“If so, it is a ruse of surpassing cleverness,” said Varys, bowing his head. “It has certainly hoodwinked me.”
Tyrion had heard enough. “Joff will be disappointed,” he said. “He was saving such a nice spike for Renly’s head. But whoever did the deed, it matters not. The gain is Stannis’.” He did not like this news; he had counted on the brothers Baratheon decimating each other in bloody battle. He could feel his elbow throbbing where the morningstar had laid it open. It did that sometimes in the damp. He squeezed it uselessly in his hand and asked, “What of Renly’s host?”
“The greater part of his foot remains at Bitterbridge.” Varys abandoned the brazier to take his seat at the table. “Most of the lords who rode with Lord Renly to Storm’s End have gone over banner-and-blade to Stannis, with all their chivalry. Lord Alester was the first to bend the knee. Many others followed.”
“Many,” Tyrion said pointedly, “but not all?”
“Not all,” agreed the eunuch uncomfortably. At least some of his discomfort was genuine. “Randyll Tarly and Mathis Rowan have led a fifth or so of Renly’s knights away, rather than bend the knee to Stannis but…”
“But?” Tyrion pushed, feeling a pit growing in his gut.
“Ser Loras Tyrell has been captured by Stannis,” Varys said, no longer tittering. “Or rather, Alester Florent brought him over in chains, a prize worthy of a king.”
The silence was dread. “And Storm’s End has fallen,” Varys went on. “Ser Cortnay Penrose held the castle in Renly’s name, but met Stannis on the field of parlay days after his death. The good knight demanded single combat, and he received it.”
“Who fought it?” Cersei clutched at her goblet.
“The same man who fought your brother, your grace.”
Tyrion closed his eyes momentarily. “Penrose is dead then?”
“Yielded,” Varys looked mournful. “The rumors were indeed accurate as well, my lords. Lady Catelyn Stark was present alongside her lord husband, bringing with her some few hundred northern riders, riverlanders too. The North and the Riverlands are most adamant in professing their loyalty to Lord Stannis, it appears.”
Tyrion chose not to glance over at his sister. “What of Tarly?”
“My birds have not yet flown, my lord,” Varys told him. “Stannis has sent riders to Bitterbridge as well…”
Tyrion leaned backwards. “With Ser Loras captured…”
“The oaf of Highgarden will be furious,” Cersei said.
“And fearful, my queen,” Varys reminded. “His daughter is there, Renly’s widowed queen, as well as a great many soldiers who suddenly find themselves kingless. Which side will they take now? A ticklish question. Many serve the lords who remained at Storm’s End, and those lords now belong to Stannis.”
Tyrion leaned forward. “There is a chance here, it seems to me. We cannot win Highgarden to our war, not with their prized flower wrapped in iron chains. Yet, we cannot afford them to go over to Stannis either. They have little love for him true, but fear might weigh enough.”
“Is their love for us any greater?” asked Cersei.
“Scarcely,” said Tyrion. “They loved Renly, clearly, but Renly is slain. Perhaps we can give them good and sufficient reasons to prefer Joffrey to Stannis ... if we move quickly. Or at least commit to neutrality.” He prayed for that at least.
“What sort of reasons do you mean to give them?”
“A golden reason,” he told her. “Renly’s queen is now a widow, no?”
Varys understood the quickest. “You think to wed King Joffrey to Margaery Tyrell.”
“I do.” Renly’s young queen was no more than fifteen, sixteen, he seemed to recall ... older than Joffrey, but a few years were nothing, it was so neat and sweet he could almost taste it. Almost. The fruit was a kingdom away. It would be a tempting fruit held at arm’s length for now, a promise for a future that may not come.
“Joffrey is betrothed to Sansa Stark,” Cersei objected. “And you said so yourself, Loras Tyrell is a prisoner.”
“Marriage contracts can be broken. What advantage is there in wedding the king to the daughter of a traitor? And prisoners can be freed.”
“They better,” she said, and he knew she was not talking of the Knight of Flowers.
“This talk is empty until we have a soul brave and glib enough to treat with the Tyrells,” Tyrion wondered. “And the roads are dangerous these days. Which of us shall go to Bitterbridge in the name of king and council? We must be fast about this. If both Tarly and Stannis’ riders are racing there, we might find naught but dust.”
“You mean to send one of the council?”
“I can scarcely expect the Rose of Highgarden to treat with Bronn or Shagga, can I? The Tyrells are proud.”
His sister wasted no time trying to twist the situation to her advantage. “Ser Jacelyn Bywater is nobly born. Send him.”
So quick to sweep the court of my friends, sister?
He could play that game as well, better than Ned Stark and Jon Arryn and Robert Baratheon. Tyrion shook his head. “We need someone who can do more than repeat our words and fetch back a reply. Our envoy must speak for king and council and settle the matter quickly. There is a war about, sweet sister.”
“The Hand speaks with the king’s voice.” Candlelight gleamed green as wildfire in Cersei’s eyes. “If we send you, Tyrion, it will be as if Joffrey went himself. And who better. You wield words as skillfully as Jaime wields a sword.”
Are you that eager to get me out of the city, Cersei? “You are too kind, sister, but it seems to me that a boy’s mother is better fitted to arrange his marriage than any uncle. And you have a gift for winning friends that I could never hope to match.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Joff needs me at his side.”
“He does,” he agreed happily. “The king needs his mother. We must send someone that you trust most dearly.”
Varys met his mismatched eyes with a smile. Gyles Rosby could not.
“Lord Gyles!” Tyrion exclaimed. “The queen can trust you, can she not?”
“I… The queen… yes, trust… I…” And he coughed bloodily into his red silk.
Cersei’s emerald eyes watched him furiously as Tyrion continued, smiling. “Our honorable master of coin, of the king’s own council, and a noble lord of the Crownlands. Mace Tyrell bears you no enmity, I believe and hope. There is no better man here, in this room, more suited for the task!”
There are no other men in the room, Tyrion thought wryly, the queen, the dwarf, and the eunuch.
“I… hack… my lord, I… koff!”
“So the matter is settled then?” He asked Cersei.
She sneered at him. “An escort will be needed.”
“I can spare a hundred gold cloaks,” Tyrion said.
“Five hundred.”
“Two hundred.”
“My lords…” Gyles Rosby said weakly. None turned to him.
Cersei understood well the threat of the Tyrell swords, Tyrion realised. She knows that someone has to bear our seal and ride to them. Between having her pet in the council and swaying Highgarden to not march for Stannis, Cersei chose the latter.
Two hundred gold cloaks, Tyrion thought, and the most corrupt amongst them. The fattest, the weakest, the oldest. He could make use of this as well.
“We shall need warriors to go along with them,” Cersei said, glaring. “Some of your clansmen would do.”
“Why,” Tyrion was bemused. “We might as well send two thousand starving farmhands as well? No, for House Tyrell, we must have a knightly tail for our good lord here, twenty knights and their squires, I would think.”
Cersei did not protest that. “Agreed.”
“The Redwyne twins too, I think.”
“No,” the queen balked. “Are you mad? The Arbor would have declared for Renly with all the rest, except that Redwyne knew full well his whelps would suffer for it.”
“Renly is dead,” he pointed out. And how strange it was, he could still remember the voice and laughter of the youngest Baratheon brother. Many more shall die soon. “Neither Stannis nor Lord Paxter will have forgotten the siege of Storm’s End. Well, the first one. Restore the twins and perchance we may win Redwyne’s love.”
Cersei remained unconvinced. “The Others can keep his love, I want his swords and sails. Holding tight to those twins is the best way to make certain that we’ll have them.”
Tyrion had the answer. “Then let us send Ser Hobber back to the Arbor and keep Ser Horas here. Lord Paxter ought to be clever enough to riddle out the meaning of that, I should think.”
“Horses, gold,” Tyrion went on. “A document as well, signed by Joffrey and every member of this council,” all that is left, “bearing all our seals.”
Utter folly, he knew. It made no matter whether they sent this coughing, dying lord to Bitterbridge or not. The Tyrells fancied themselves the patient kingmakers. Why else would Mace Tyrell have sat his mighty host at Storm’s End, where even a tenth of his army could have shifted the Battle of the Trident for either Rhaegar or Robert?
No, with Renly dead and all of those hopes as well, House Tyrell would wait and watch for the coming battle of King’s Landing and crown the victor with their gold and grain. Rosby may not even make it to Bitterbridge, he thought, in black humor. This was nothing more than a mummer’s show. They could not be seen to not reach out to the Tyrells, else the insult of it might tip them over to the other Baratheon king. Yet, what they could reach out with was merely the foggiest of promises.
Wait and watch, they were telling the Tyrells. We might just beat Stannis and the Starks yet, and when we do, we will marry our Joff to your rose.
Might, Tyrion lamented. Robb Stark’s campaign in the west was growing more dreary for them each day. Every dawn seemed to bring dark news of another castle fallen, another town burnt, more knights slain or captured. And Stannis is coming, Tyrion thought, Eddard Stark too. The young ghosts of Robert’s Rebellion, come to haunt us all. Did you kill Robert, sweet sister? Is that why his brother, his friend, and the boy that is his namesake are plaguing us all like vengeful wraiths?
Idly, he wondered if the wraiths of the Targaryens would come as well; Mad Aerys, the solemn prince, the Beggar King. The first wanted to be crowned by fire, Rhaegar was crowned by his own blood in the end, and Viserys Targaryen was crowned by molten gold. He almost shuddered at the thought.
“There is a long road between here and Bitterbridge,” Varys broke the silence.
“Then, Lord Rosby must ride soon,” Cersei’s smile was all honey but her gaze was as poisonous as ever.
Lord Rosby was pale in his seat. Tyrion almost pitied the poor, old fool. It may be that he will die of his own cough before he even sees Bitterbridge.
Varys giggled. “Joffrey is such a grateful sovereign, our great king will reward you well for this deed, good lord.”
Yes, Tyrion thought, mayhaps Joff will brew a potent to cure your cough, Lord Rosby.
Tyrion glanced out the window. The fog was so thick that he could not even see the curtain wall across the yard. A few dim lights shone indistinct through that greyness. A foul day for travel, he thought. Even a hale man can ride to his death in this fog. He did not envy Gyles Rosby. “We had best see to drawing up those documents. Lord Varys, send for parchment and quill. And someone will need to wake Joffrey.”
Their good king was determined to prove himself his father’s son; in particular, King Robert’s unbroken record of refusing to attend council meetings. At least he doesn’t drink as much, or whore, Tyrion consoled the ghost of Robert he imagined to be in the room with them, the only red he prefers is the blood from cats and maidens.
“Robb Stark,” the queen demanded. “Where is he now? Why has father not stopped him? He is trodding all over the west, unimpeded.”
“No doubt Uncle Stafford’s ghost is trying his best, have faith in him,” Tyrion told her, “mayhaps his haunting whispers will do better to tarry the Young Wolf than when he was flesh and blood, and with an army.”
“Is the Hand only equipped with jests?” Cersei’s gaze was aflame.
“Jests and japes and clever thoughts.”
“Ashemark has fallen, my queen,” Varys interjected. “To Theon Greyjoy.”
He had only the vaguest memory of Theon Greyjoy from his time with the Starks. A callow youth, always smiling, skilled with a bow; it was hard to imagine him taking the hilly and high seat of House Marbrand. Cersei was pale as a ghost. Tyrion could only imagine what was in her head at the moment. Fear? Hate?
“Lord Rickard Karstark is burning the coast from Kayce to Crakehall, pillaging many coastal villages, and has mounted dozens of heads on the field just before Tarbeck Hall,” Varys went on, shuddering.
Tarbeck Hall? Tyrion saw the insult for what it was. The ghosts of House Tarbeck would be cheering at the sight, if ghosts could cheer.
“Lady Maege Mormont has spread across the land like a burning blade, driving thousands of livestock back east into the riverlands. Lord Umber has taken the gold mines at Nunn’s Deep, Castamere, and the Pendric Hills. Sarsfield has fallen to the Young Wolf, though none can agree on where he is now. Ser Stevron Frey sits three days away from Lannisport with a small host, many of them were those who surrendered after Oxcross and who turned their cloaks…”
“Traitors,” Cersei seethed. “Send word to Lannisport at once. I want the heads of every of their relatives; fathers and mothers, sisters and lovers.”
That was folly on more levels than he could imagine. “No,” he objected.
“No?”
“First, sweet sister, there are more men who are food for the crows than there are turncloaks,” he reminded her. “How are our butchers in Lannisport to know who to kill? And there is a reason Ser Stevron is only sitting. Most of his men are from Lannisport, and their families are there. They will not attack Lannisport. But if you take the heads of their wives and daughters and mothers, then they surely shall.”
“All true,” Varys agreed. “They have done little than to fletch arrows, drill spears and pikes. Robb Stark appears to be doing the work that Ser Stafford could not finish before his untimely demise, training these men into soldiers.”
Tyrion did not know if he wanted to laugh or weep. “And the Riverlands?”
“Yes,” Cersei moved on, as swift as wind. “What is father doing?”
Lord Tywin Lannister, the Warden of the West, did not know what to do. That much was clear, even to Tyrion. Riverrun and the Red Fork stood athwart Harrenhal and the West. To ward the west, his father would have to march many miles through burnt land haunted by wolves and wraiths, meet the Tullys in battle at a river, and march even more. We only have the one army left, Tyrion realised.
Uncle Stafford had taken the dregs of the west, and lost it. Jaime’s army was as good as rotten wind now. It was only the Lannister host at Harrenhal, twenty thousand strong or fewer, that could still clench into an iron fist and strike.
“Lord Tywin… holds a strong position at Harrenhal, your grace.”
“Has he fallen asleep?” Cersei was furious. “First, I ordered him to come to King’s Landing, and he ignores my royal summons.”
Yours? Tyrion was bemused.
“Now, the west is burning, and still he sits at Harrenhal,” she went on. “If this is war, then it is a most dreary one. Send a raven at once, tell him that Renly has died, and Stannis is marching on the capital. He must bring his army down here and fight Stannis. I command it!”
“It has already been done,” Varys bowed.
“Little good it might do,” Tyrion sipped. “The poor raven has to soar through leagues of land disputed and blooded, choked with smoke. I would wager my last dragon that by rain or hawk or arrow, the bird will not make it to Harrenhal.”
“A rider then.”
“The poor rider,” he responded. “The riverlands are even more dangerous for men than birds these days, but the attempt should be made nonetheless, I agree.”
“Have no fear, sweet sister,” Tyrion gave her a crooked smile. “Casterly Rock has never fallen.” Though Lannisport can burn, and the west is burning. “Lord Rosby! I had forgotten you were here. Best to be on your way, and swiftly too.”
The Lord of Rosby was as silent as a spectre, and near as pale as one. Still, he rose from his chair valiantly, and slowly. Cersei gave him the look a lioness would offer a dying deer. “Send Margaery Tyrell our best regards,” the queen’s smile was as sweet as summer, but as cold as winter. Try not to die on the road, my lord.
When the Lord of Rosby shuffled away from the chambers, he turned his mismatched eyes back to the eunuch. “What else? And pray tell, Varys, do try to offer some pleasant news. The stew is most sour and bitter at the moment.”
“I shall try, my lord hand.” Varys tittered. “You can be assured that neither Dorne nor the Vale are racing to bend to Stannis. Prince Doran has called his banners and they march for the mountain pass, where they will drill before the sun. They await the arrival of Princess Myrcella most eagerly, I would think. The Vale is a different sort of keg, with a different wine within. Lady Lysa is most adamant to keep the Knights of the Vale within those mountains. There are some discontent whispers, I hear. In particular, the noble lords Royce and Redfort, men who fought alongside Eddard Stark twice before. Many others too, though more softly, of course. Still, Lady Lysa ignores the letters from her sister and nephew most stubbornly. Though…”
Tyrion raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”
“Lady Lysa is most inconsolable,” Varys smiled. “Some say that it is for her lord husband of course, struck down by old age. Though, her grief appears delayed.”
Her, he remembered well. A frightened cow with pale, watery eyes and a petulant mouth; fearful and cruel and stubborn all at once. She believed that I killed Jon Arryn, Tyrion eyed the empty seat of the Master of Coin.
“Mayhaps we should find her a new lord husband,” Cersei said, bored and glancing at her fingers. “She seems to have an affection for you, Tyrion.”
He laughed. “I do agree that widows must needs find love again. Who shall be worthy of the queen? It is a shame that Ser Loras is a prisoner…” Though there is another prisoner that you want, Tyrion left that much unsaid.
“My grieving is not yet over,” she smiled, though she wore the red and gold of Lannister, and not the black of mourning. “The love I bore for my kingly husband could not be outmatched.”
In its lack of it, Tyrion smiled.
It was still grey and dark when the meeting finally ended. Varys scurried off alone, his soft slippers whisking along the floor, every bit the spider. The Lannisters lingered a moment by the door. “How comes your chain, brother?” the queen asked as Ser Preston fastened a vair-lined cloth-of-silver cloak about her shoulders.
“Link by link, it grows longer. The smiths promised me much, and it seems they can deliver. Though, with Stannis coming, we may very well need the Smith himself.”
“You shall handle it. Tyrion, I know we do not always agree on policy, but it seems to me that I was wrong about you. You are not so big a fool as I imagined. In truth, I realize now that you have been a great help. For that I thank you. You must forgive me if I have spoken to you harshly in the past.”
“Must I?” He gave her a shrug, a smile. “Sweet sister, you have said nothing that requires forgiveness.”
“Today, you mean?” They both laughed ... and Cersei leaned over and planted a quick, soft kiss on his brow.
Too astonished for words, Tyrion could only watch her stride off down the hall, Ser Preston at her side. “Have I lost my wits, or did my sister just kiss me?” he asked his shadows when she was gone.
“Was it so sweet?” Bronn asked.
“Your wits seem to be with you, my lord,” Gaven told him, eying him.
“It was ... unanticipated.” Cersei had been behaving queerly of late. Tyrion found it very unsettling. The lion did not stroke the hare’s head sweetly before devouring it. “I am trying to recall the last time she kissed me. I could not have been more than six or seven. Jaime had dared her to do it.”
“The woman’s finally taken note of your charms.”
“No,” Tyrion said. “No, the woman is hatching something. Best find out what, the two of you. You know I hate surprises.”
“Are you asking us to spy on the queen?” The thief asked.
“No, that is Varys’ work. You are thief and sellsword. Steal the truth and slay the lie.”
Bronn chuckled. “Men die easy enough, but a queen’s lie, not so. You have to pay double for that.”
“The hand can pay it all,” Tyrion told him. “And House Lannister can pay more than Stannis can.”
“Can you?” Bronn wondered. “I hear that wolf boy’s been ravaging your gold mines.”
“The heart of Casterly Rock is deep,” Tyrion said, “and illuminated by gold.”
“Casterly Rock is far away,” Gaven pointed out softly.
“And Stannis is close,” Bronn nodded.
“My father is not so far.”
“Further than Stannis,” the sellsword snorted.
“Should the city fall,” Tyrion wondered, “what will you do?”
“Turn my cloak,” Bronn said at once, “or run.”
“Flee,” said the thief.
Tyrion laughed. “My most loyal men. Tell me, I am curious, where are the two of you from again?”
His thief and sellsword shared a glance. “King’s Landing,” said Bronn with a shrug.
“Aye,” the thief shrugged.
“You have a family here, no?” Tyrion eyed the thief, remembering. “However do you intend to flee with them, if the city falls?”
“I shall make do, my lord.”
“And you, Bronn?”
“All dead,” he shrugged.
“By your hand?” Tyrion asked.
“I am not so blackhearted, my lord of Lannister,” Bronn bowed mockingly.
“No, there is no coin to be earned from slaying your own kin, I suppose.”
“Why does your sister hate you so?” The thief asked.
Tyrion gave him a crooked smile. “Why does the dog bark? Why does the wolf howl? Why does the lion roar? Hate is in my sweet sister’s golden heart. She has offered me that sour brew all my life, since I was born.”
It had to do with his lady mother, he supposed, the Lady Joanna Lannister. Though all he could remember of her face was a golden blur. Their lord father bore the same scathing scorn for him. No, Tyrion mused, even more. He killed his mother when entering the world, and Tywin Lannister had never forgotten that, nor forgiven. Only Jaime loved him still. No, his father’s siblings were never so cruel to him. Kevan Lannister lived in his brother’s shadow, but never uttered a word of malice to the dwarf of Casterly Rock. He much liked Genna Lannister; shrewd and smart and sarcastic as she was. Tygett Lannister was an angry shadow for as long as he could remember, and then he was dead. It was Uncle Gerion that he liked the most; quick to laugh and smile, and to share tales and songs of the world beyond the Rock.
Gaven offered him an uncomfortable smile.
“You do not love your sister, I recall,” Tyrion glanced at him.
“I… don’t hate her, I think.”
“Why?”
“She left,” the thief was brooding. “There was nothing to love or hate.”
“There is sense there, I suppose,” Tyrion mused. “Would that my dear sister only offered me her absence. That would be pleasant, I think.”
When they stood before the doors to his chambers, Tyrion gave his shadows a wry smile. “Soon, the Princess Myrcella will depart for Dorne. To do that, we shall have to wade through the streets with a royal escort. Tell me, how beloved is the crown?”
“Oh, very,” Bronn said, smirking. “So much so that they want to kiss your golden heads, after they put them on pikes.”
“Best to have a strong escort, my lord,” Gaven told him, with a tight face. “Streets are dangerous and people are hungry.”
“Our brave king and sweet queen do have curious ways of making friends,” Tyrion wanted to laugh. “I would ask you to be there, but you would not weld in well with the rest of the royal escort, what not with their gold and white. Bronn will do.”
“I prefer my black,” said the thief, and the sellsword nodded along.
“I suppose you do,” he nodded, “go along now, find what my sister is up to.”
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Tyrion VIII, ACOK
While I do enjoy writing/reading battles and the more magical, politics and scheming and Small Council meetings were always amongst my favorites to read and now to write. Gyles Rosby is genuinely so amusing to read and write, and I rolled a d20 to decide his fate in the coming chapters. You will soon see.
Next, it's been a while since we had an Arya chapter...
Chapter 81: Arya II
Summary:
Arya steps into the rogue's world.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The dream came as it always did; wild and dark, smelling of blood and river water.
She was lower to the ground now, faster and stronger, her powerful limbs coiled with bestial strength. Breath came sharp and swift through wide black nostrils as the forest rushed past in streaks of bark and moss. The earth beneath her padded paws was cold and slick and wet. She ran with wild wolves in her dreams, but she was always the largest, the fiercest, the first to hunt and the last to flee.
The pack followed her without question. They always did. Through rain and shadow, they trusted her fangs, her nose, and her rage.
Tonight, they hunted men.
Not prey, nor food. Men who wore steel and stank of rot and smoke. She had found their scent near the river, where horses drank and the water had turned sour. The smell of blood and burning had soaked into the soil. Pups had been butchered with steel fangs. A growl rolled up from her throat.
The pack answered.
Low, guttural, rising into a night-song that trembled the trees.
Ahead, a fire glimmered, stone-ringed and smoking. A dozen men sat around it, armed and armored, their faces red and yellow in the firelight. They rose at the rustle of underbrush, drawing blades too slowly. They were ghosts in the woods, with yellow eyes and red jaws. One fell. Then another. Her pack dragged one down into the brush. A fourth tried to flee and left a trail of blood behind him.
Then, more men came from behind them.
The red one, with his fire claw. The man that smelled like dying stars. The one who bore forest and wolf-scent on his skin. They came with their iron fangs and burning eyes, and they brought death, too. She did not mind them much.
“... back to the hollow hill,” one of them was saying, the one who liked to sing.
She remembered hills, capped with snow. A stone home that was warm. A girl’s voice calling across the godswood. The she-wolf huffed.
Her mother had gone south to find the pack father. Her oldest brother had gone west with his boy, who now smelled like them, to hunt lions. Her mother had allowed her to roam free in the land of rivers. Hunt them, the voice of winter told her. Hunt the men who dare to slay wolves. Hunt them all and show no mercy.
And so she did.
Nymeria, the girl’s voice called again. Nymeria.
She looked to the east. There was something distant and fading in the wind. She could not hear it clearly, but she could feel it.
Soon, she howled in promise. Her pack howled with her. The hunt was not over.
Arya stirred. The wolf was gone, fading into the quiet dark with the taste of blood still raw in her mouth. The world around her was shifting shadow; stone walls without mortar, doorways that led into stars, twisted trees that grew upside down and sideways. The air smelled like coins. Something moved just beyond her sight.
She turned, and there it was.
A black cat, perched on a low stone wall that had not been there a moment ago. Its fur was night-dark and smooth as velvet, its tail twitching with a slow, sinuous rhythm. One ear was torn, and its yellow eyes gleamed with knowing.
“You dream too loudly, girl,” the cat said.
Arya blinked. For some queer reason, she felt as if she should know the cat. Oh, Arya remembered. It was the filthy, foul-tempered black tomcat in the Red Keep, that Syrio had her chasing. He was the last cat to be caught by her, and when she did, she gave him a fierce, sloppy kiss though he tried to claw her eyes out.
“I know you,” she said.
“Do you?” The cat was amused. It licked one paw slowly, a red tongue against black fur. “You ran in fur and fang, but the storm is coming on legs.”
“I know you,” Arya said, but her voice was not her own. It was softer and smaller. Like it belonged to someone much younger, like a child.
“You know less than you think,” the cat replied with a toothy grin. “But you’ll learn.”
“You’re Ranald.”
The cat looked up at the sky, where the stars were wheeling in mad spirals. It made Arya’s head hurt to gaze upon them. “You learned.”
“That’s not a cat’s name,” Arya frowned.
The cat purred low and deep, and somehow the sound made the stones tremble beneath her feet. “It is not. Last we spoke, I gave you a riddle.”
She remembered. The enslaved fight for me. Wars are waged for me. I am the only thing that Death gives to life. What am I?
“Freedom.”
The cat’s eyes glinted. “Good. Although, some could argue that the only thing Death gives to the living is equality.”
“Do all men die equally?” Arya scrunched her face in confusion. She found that she did not want to think about where she would go after her death. It scared her.
The cat only smiled. “The raven might tell you the truth, but your only friend here is the feline. Take this as a lesson, then, little wolf. ‘Only’ can be a trickery, a trap, a prison with bars of wind. What is one can be two, for a coin has two faces. You are your father’s daughter, and your mother’s daughter, no?”
At times, she did not feel so. “Yes.”
“And two can be three,” the cat went on, “or four, or ten, or hundred. It matters not. Things are not so simple, Arya of House Stark. A riddle can have many meanings, a girl could have had many faces … and so do gods.”
“I don’t like riddles,” she declared.
“You will learn,” the cat told her in response, huffing. “Here is another. I wear a thousand faces but none are mine. I die every day but never stay dead. All men have one, when they are born, when they have died. What am I?”
She could not say. “I do not know,” she admitted.
“You will.”
She stared at him, heart thudding. “What do you want?”
Ranald’s eyes glinted. “To give you a gift, little wolf. Or perhaps just a warning.”
He leapt from the wall and landed without sound. “A lion flies like a bird. A bird is seen as a lion. Green fire passes through eyes; grey and green and black and red. The night will be green but dawn will come after.”
Arya tried to speak, but her tongue felt thick in her mouth.
“The black garden keeps the prince away, for now,” the cat whispered. “The lady’s neck shall be pinched shut with life. The river will run red with blood. Three eyes shall watch, but one shall change. And when the wolf is slain, you will hear weeping.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, but the world was already spinning again. The cat was walking away, tail curling like smoke.
“Oh, and tell your wolf not to howl at the river so loudly,” he added, tail flicking.
He grinned over his shoulder.
“The dead are listening.”
Arya gasped. She woke with a start, sweat slick on her brow and breath sharp in her throat. The room was dim with the grey light of dawn. Len was sleeping, shifting in his bedroll and mumbling in dreams of his own. Gunther’s bedroll was empty.
She glanced at the window. It was well past midnight. That had become common nowadays. The die she had woken up with the other day was by her bedroll. It was smooth wood, lightly colored, and when it rattled in a cup, it felt right.
“Meow.”
The ginger cat rumbled softly in her hands.
“Sorry,” she told the cat. “Bad dreams.”
“Meow.”
She tried to sleep again, but it was near impossible. The dreams were scary, but so were the shadows. When she heard the soft creaking of the floorboards, she opened her eyes. A lithe figure was slowly crossing across the room.
“It’s late,” Arya whispered.
“I can tell,” the thief whispered back, tiredly. “The nights are usually dark.”
“Where were you?”
“I’ll tell you in the morning.”
“I had a dream,” she said. “Ranald was-”
The thief was already snoring. Emmanuelle was asleep as well, and Len mumbled about pies in his slumber. She wanted to scream.
When the morning came pale and grey, Arya opened her eyes blearily. She had not slept well at all. Her dreams were a confusing blend of prowling along rivers and stalking in shadowy alleyways. The other two were already stirring a pot of something that made her stomach growl and her mouth water. The cat had left her arms to find warmth by the cookfire, curling at Gunther’s feet. She grumbled at that.
Len passed her a roasted sausage, still steaming, and Gunther handed her a tin cup of water. She took both without a word.
“Where were you?” she asked, after a few bites.
The thief yawned. “The Imp had me running about with his sellsword. Something about the queen’s pet schemes. A trio of knights, but I’ve seen sellswords more clean and white-hearted than them.” He muttered something about a black kettle.
“Meow.”
The mention of the queen summoned Cersei’s golden face in Arya’s mind. She took an angry bite of sausage, chewing furiously, pretending she was gnawing on Cersei’s hand. Cersei had ordered Lady’s death. Cersei had wanted Nymeria killed. It was her and her wretched son who had started it all; why her father’s men had died, why he had to run, why Sansa was trapped in the Red Keep.
You should kill her, Arya wanted to say, though she knew it would be impossible.
She settled for playing with the cat’s tail. Emmanuelle did not seem to mind, half slumbering as she was. “How was Sansa?”
“Didn’t get to see her. Imp had me waiting outside the council chambers the whole bloody time.”
The last time he’d come back from the Red Keep, he had passed along a message in a stiff voice: “She misses you. She says to be safe. To be patient. That it’ll be over soon.”
Arya had not known what to say to that.
Two days later, she had written a letter. She meant to tell Sansa about her wolf dreams; about blood and moonlight and running with the pack. But just before she gave it to Gunther, she remembered Lady and Sansa’s tears. She could not know if her sister still blamed her. So Arya had thrown that letter into the fire. In its place, she scribbled a new one, messy and tear-streaked, about the fever dreams of the talking cat and how many eggs she had fried instead.
“How does the council chamber look?” Len asked, scooping a pot of fish stew into three wooden bowls. The two of them had not left the house in weeks. In place of stealing and running, they had practiced knife throwing… and cooking.
“Big,” Gunther shrugged, taking the bowl. “Tall oaken doors banded in black iron. Vaulted roof with carved pillars. Dark red stone. Thick tapestries. I only saw glimpses, of course, when the doors opened. I waited outside.”
Len sniffed. “Boring.”
She suppressed a smile at the twitching along the thief’s cheek. The fish stew was better than most had in the city, and that alone made Arya feel strange. The broth was thin but hot and hearty, flavored with scraps of garlic, bruised parsley, and river salt. Thick chunks of white fish flaked in the stew. Carrot chunks, cabbage, and onions floated in the mix, softened into near-pulp.
Even they were struggling to find food now. They had a good stockpile of dried foodstuff and water, but fresh food was a desert now.
“We’re still eating better than half the city,” Gunther said, watching Arya sop up the last of her broth with a crust of barley bread. “But it won’t stay that way. Dockmasters are hoarding. Prices are climbing every day.”
His face spun in a grimace. “The streets are a mess.”
“We’ve been in for too long,” Len said quietly.
“It’s not safe out there.”
“And so we don’t go when it’s just the two of us,” the boy argued.
“You’re here now,” Arya blinked. She was missing the sun. “You can protect us if need be. I can as well, with Needle and a knife.”
The thief gaped at them. “I… Fine.”
Len gave him a beaming smile, ladling more stew into the thief’s bowl. Arya reached hers out as well, and Len winked at her as they shared a laugh.
“I have to go to the Boar anyways,” Gunther gulped at the broth hungrily. He sat the bowl down. “Business to discuss. The two of you will stick by my side the whole time. You keep a knife close to hand but hidden. When we’re in the inn, you don’t talk to anyone, don’t look at anyone. No trouble. No fuss.”
“Deal.”
“Deal,” she said. “I dreamt last night,” she remembered to say.
“Of wolves?” The thief drank from a waterskin.
“Ranald.”
Gunther almost choked. “What?”
She told him it all; the cat, the riddles, the puzzling words. Gunther was pale when she was done.
“Green fire,” he whispered, shakened.
“What?” She demanded again.
“The Imp is planning to use wildfire to defend the city.”
The bowl crashed to the floor from Len’s hand. Arya was horrified. “Father… they say he’s with this Stannis … Are they coming?”
“Renly is dead,” Gunther confirmed. “Stannis has taken the stormlands. Your father is with him, Andrei too. They can only be marching one way now.”
“You have to stop him,” Arya almost shouted. Her face flushed as the words left her mouth. Stop him, how? She felt like a silly girl.
The thief did not grow mad at her. He offered her a tired smile. “You’ll see.”
Len picked the bowl from the ground. Thankfully, it was already empty. “Bloody Lannisters,” the boy cursed. “Everyone knows those alchemists are mad.”
“They aren’t wrong,” Gunther shrugged.
They kept their hoods up when they left, cloaked in ash-grey and mud-brown to blend with the filth of Flea Bottom. She stayed close to Gunther’s side, Len to his left, with her knife hidden in the fold of her belt. In the end, she had decided not to bring Needle with her. Looking at the lean, hungry people eyeing the other travellers, she knew that she had made the right choice. Needle is Arya Stark’s sword, thought the girl, I am not Arya now.
The streets were choked with people and smoke, the air sour with the stench of rot, sweat, filth, and hunger.
Rats scurried in the gutters. People stared at them with hollow eyes; some leaning against crumbling walls, others curled like sacks in doorways. A barefoot boy gnawed on a heel of grimy bread so hard it might as well have been wood. A woman sang softly to her babe, but there was no milk on her breath, only desperation. Mothers were cradling bone-thin children with bellies bloated from hunger. Old women watched them with eyes that no longer blinked. She saw a boy gutting a pigeon in an alleyway, and another chasing a rat desperately, sobbing. She shivered.
“Don’t look,” Gunther muttered, placing a hand on her shoulder.
They passed a butcher’s stall, bare and empty. No meat, only bones strung up to dry. A cart rolled by, its driver whipping a sway-backed mule while two gaunt men in rags argued over a bruised turnip he had dropped in the street. A boy squatted in the shadows, licking the grease off an empty chicken bone. A girl, no older than Arya herself, chewed on her hair, her hands wrapped tight around a dead pigeon. When their eyes met, the girl hissed and scuttled away like a starving animal.
The streets of Flea Bottom no longer smelled like stew or baked bread or roasted fish, but of mildew, piss, and unwashed flesh. Once, the alleyways had buzzed with shouting vendors and clangs of metal pots and pans. Now there were no street criers selling hot honeyed snacks, no boys with trays of skewered meat, no women hawking fresh fruit from woven baskets. The apple-sellers were gone, and even the rats were fewer. How many more pigeons and rats can they eat?
Even the animals were suffering. Mangy dogs wandered the alleys like ghosts. Cats fought over bones. The sky was thick with crows, circling like they knew what was coming. They were watching and waiting, like hungry men eying a feast to come. The dead are listening, she remembered.
Maybe the crows were too.
They passed by three fights, each one over scraps of bone and dirtied chunks of bread. There was an air of desperation to the city, dark and resigned. A city that once sang with life now whispered its hunger through clenched teeth and quiet sobs.
It did not feel so long ago that she had first come to King’s Landing. She had thought the city grand, with its sprawling walls, its towers of red stone, its winding streets teeming with people and color and sound. The smell of bread had filled the air then; fresh loaves from bakeries, meat sizzling on spits, vendors with trays of sweet pastries dusted in sugar and cinnamon, carts pushed about with pies of all flavor.
Now, all she saw were ribs and bones, beggars with no shoes and children with eyes like corpses. The markets had turned to riot grounds and the music had fallen silent.
They were silent when they entered the inn.
The South Boar Inn was nestled near the base of a crooked street that twisted up toward the heart of the city, halfway between the mud of Flea Bottom and the polished stones near the Sept. It was an old place, worn but not crumbling, with ivy crawling along one side and a painted wooden sign creaking gently in the breeze, a black boar with chipped tusks, half-faded against a red background.
Inside, the air was warm with fire and the sour-sweet scent of wine-soaked wood. It was not clean, nor rich, but comforting in a homely way. The inn was not crowded, but it was far from empty. A few men in worn cloaks sat hunched over mugs, their hands wrapped tight around the wood as if afraid the warmth might escape. A thin girl, a few years older than Sansa, moved between the tables with a chipped tray.
The innkeeper was a man just slightly older than her father, with a plain, but kind face. He smiled when he saw them, tired as he was. “Our guards and hammerers are down there, already discussing most fiercely on the plan but one of them is over there.” He tilted his head. Arya followed his gaze.
She did not quite understand what he meant. In a corner of the room, not too far from the hearth, she saw a black-haired man. She squinted. He could not be older than Robb. He was muscled with a strong jaw and bushy brows, with bright blue eyes. He was armored in mail, a hammer and sword upon the table, and he smiled bashfully at the brown-haired barmaid with the drinks in her hand.
“You’re not joining them today?” Gunther leaned against the counter.
“I did,” the innkeeper shrugged, “but a man has a business to run. And a humble innkeeper can only contribute so much to such a big plan.”
“Humble,” Gunther was amused. “You have many businesses, eh?”
“And who are these friends of yours?”
The thief smirked. “Urchins I picked up. Good lads. Yaran and Len be their names.”
“Pleasure,” the man nodded. “Call me Alton. Stew’s still hot.”
“We’ve eaten,” Gunther told him. “I dare say these two might make a better stew than you do. Give them something warm to drink. Milk, maybe. I’ll be down for a while.” The thief turned to them. “Remember what I said.”
She scowled half-heartedly. “I do.”
“We’re not stupid, you know,” Len argued.
Gunther chuckled as he walked away. They watched as he strolled into a room, closing it behind him. Alton brought them each a mug of warm milk.
“Grew up in King’s Landing, you two?”
“Aye, we did,” Len muttered in the scratchy voice of Flea Bottom.
She nodded, not trusting in her own voice. You sound like a lady, the two of them had told her countless times.
“He doesn’t speak,” Len went on. “All the better. Quiet like a ghost, see? Say, heard anything of note recently?”
The innkeeper chuckled. “A little young to be playing that game, are you not? Well, I have heard that the bakers are stretching sawdust into the bread. The loaves are more wood than wheat these days.”
“I have eyes. What else have you heard?”
“You don’t have the coin to ask that, my young friend.”
“Not now,” Len boasted, “I owe you a favor then.”
This time, Alton laughed genuinely. “Be careful with promising favors.”
“I am.”
He shrugged. “If you really want to know. Some of the fishermen have gone missing as of late. Some say that Stannis has taken them, burnt them for his red god.”
“Why would he care for fishermen?”
“Good point,” Alton shrugged. “They say the Red Keep’s full of meat, they just don’t share.”
“That’s no secret,” Len complained.
“A baker was hanged for hiding loaves under his floorboards.”
“Did they eat him too?”
“Speaking of, gold cloaks caught someone trying to eat a dead man,” the innkeeper said, disturbed. “Not sure if those two are the same.”
“Ever heard of a bowl ‘o brown?” Len asked bitterly. “What else?”
“Some of the servants of the Red Keep whisper that Sansa Stark’s a witch.”
Arya looked away from the black-haired boy at that. He was talking to the barmaid. The two of them were sitting in a quiet corner, and the young woman was looking at him like he were a hero from the old tales. Arya felt disgusted.
Len caught her gaze. “Why’s that?”
“No one knows. Then again, they say that the queen is using dark magic.”
"Don’t speak too loud," an old man warned, muttering under his mug. "The Spider has ears in every mug and mouth. Say the wrong thing, and you’ll be gone by morning. Aye, that’s how they got that smith, Victor."
“Bryen the Bard too,” said a third. “Heard him singing about the lions a few weeks past. Poor bugger got the words wrong. A day later, people were saying that he was cursing the Lannisters. Gold cloaks hung him a few days later.”
“The septons are blessing salted fish,” someone else contributed unhelpfully.
“There’s rats bigger than dogs in the sewers.”
“Bastards are eating better than us.”
“There are monsters in the Kingswood. It’s true, my cousin hunted there.”
“Your cousin’s a drunk, and so are you.”
“Alright, alright, alright,” Alton raised his hands. “Enough empty talk. I’ve got a business to run.” He clapped Len on the shoulder as he walked away.
The boy gave her an uneasy look, but did not speak further. She sipped the warm milk in her mug, feeling it settle helpfully in her stomach.
“Hey,” she heard a voice call to her. She turned.
The black-haired boy watched her with curious blue eyes. He was tall and strong, and she had to crane her neck high to look at him. “I think I’ve seen your face before. Can’t remember where though.”
“He don’t speak,” Len said quickly. “We’re from the city, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you about.”
“I’ve never seen you before,” the boy told Len, before he pointed at her, “but your face is familiar.” His face looked pained. He was trying to think, Arya could see.
“Gendry?” The girl from before came to them. “Do you know them?”
The blue-eyed boy shrugged. “Thought I did. No matter. You were saying, Mirelle?”
Arya ignored the two of them as they left, finishing the rest of her milk. Gunther was smiling when he came to them once more. “You two look grim.”
“As grim as the city,” Len said.
“No sense in drowning in frowns,” Gunther muttered, waving to Alton as they left.
As they were crossing through the alleyways that led them into Flea Bottom, the thief was still humming, though she could sense both anxiety and anticipation in his voice.
“What are you doing?” She demanded.
“What?”
“You’ve been humming since we left,” Len pointed out.
“Ah, nothing.”
“There is clearly something,” she said, indignant.
“Well,” he chuckled, “something big’s coming up.”
“What were you talking about back there?”
“What were you two talking about out there?” He countered with a grin.
“Asking around,” Len said.
“I didn’t say a word,” Arya immediately told Gunther. “My voice, you said…”
The thief blinked. “Right, we need to work on that. It’s a shame the bard’s not here. The things he can do with his voice … What did you learn?”
“Nothing useful,” Len was frowning.
“Because you didn’t pay, that’s why,” Gunther laughed. “Bring some coin next time.” He paused. “Maybe not.”
“Don’t change the topic,” she complained. Len nodded. “What were you doing?”
“Planning,” he said, grinning. “You’ll see.”
“I give up,” Len sighed. She pressed on. “When? ”
“Soon.”
She huffed. “That boy said I looked familiar.”
“Who?”
“The black-haired one, with the blue eyes, in the corner.”
“Ah,” Gunther said, glancing at her. “I can see why.”
“What?”
“No matter,” he continued. “So, had enough of the city?”
In truth, she was tired of it. “Yes,” Len admitted quietly.
“Aye,” Arya said. She longed for Winterfell.
They gathered around a fire again, quiet and resting. They did not speak over much, but she did not mind. Their day had been exhausting. The gaunt faces she saw still haunted her, as did the starving children and the hollow eyes.
“It’s not right,” Arya whispered.
“What isn’t?” Len was curious.
“This,” she hissed. “The hunger. So many people starving. All because of a war they had nothing to do with. People hung for words they did not say against the Lannisters… it’s not right. It’s all their fault. Joffrey, Cersei.”
“It’s not right,” Gunther agreed, staring into the fire. His eyes were dull. “Nothing changes that it’s happening though.”
“It’s how it’s always been,” Len said sulkily. “Things were better when King Robert was alive. There was peace.”
“And you were a street thief,” Gunther pointed out.
“Well,” he was thinking, “I met you.”
The older thief glanced away quietly. “The two of you better stay inside again. The city is only growing more dangerous the more it starves.”
Arya would not protest that. She found no desire in her heart to step out of that door and into the starving streets of King’s Landing after what she had seen today.
Her dreams were troubled again. The riddle rang along the dark alleyways and winding street corners over and over.
I wear a hundred faces but none are mine. I die every day but never stay dead. All men have one, when they are born, when they have died. What am I?
Even in her wolf dreams, as she padded along moonlit rivers and forests that grew black in the night, the riddle pulsed in her mind.
Then, it hit her.
A name, she realised. It is a name.
And what is yours? The cat came through the smoke, smiling.
I am Arya Stark of Winterfell, she thought, that is my name.
Notes:
This chapter was not even supposed to exist. It wasn't in my early drafts for the arc and sort of just popped in my head. Obviously, it doesn't advance the plot much but I thought it gave Arya a nice touch, and serves to set some things up.
Not sure if it is apparent yet, but each of the Warhammer gods interact with their chosen differently. Ranald has long, open conversations with Arya, sharing jokes and riddles in trippy dreams. Morr is cryptic and cold. Ulric's is harsh and savage. Shallya is gentle and sweet. Sigmar Sigmared all over the place. This is a dynamic I look forward to showing more of.
In case anyone has been wondering why this story has been blessed with fast updates, I have been in my summer vacation for the past few months but university is about to start again soon :')
Next chapter, a new POV enters the game!
Chapter 82: Kevan I
Notes:
It is a lie to say that I have spent the whole week just working on this fic ... only because I have been roleplaying as Grimgor Ironhide in Baldur's Gate 3 as well.
Still, I have been very motivated to write as of late, as you can tell. After this chapter however, the update pace will normalise and slow down.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Kevan,” his lord brother greeted as he entered the quiet chamber.
Tywin had taken to the lord’s solar in the Kingspyre Tower. The carpet was fresh and sweet-smelling, a fire was burning in the hearth, and Lord Tywin Lannister sat behind the great oaken table. Books were stacked nearly to one side, the red candles were half-burnt, the quills and inks and sealing wax were organised. As Kevan took his seat across the table, his brother stamped a finished letter with scarlet wax.
“How well do you know of Harren’s curse?”
Kevan had expected his lord brother to ask him if there was any new word from King’s Landing, if Cersei and her kingly son had committed any new follies, if Tyrion had yet made a motley fool of himself. He had thought that Tywin would have asked him about Robb Stark in the westerlands, or the movement of the Baratheon brothers, or if the Martells and the Arryns had stirred themselves. “Tywin?”
“The curse of Harrenhal,” his brother said, his eyes glistening coldly. “Every house that has held it met a dark fate, darker each. House Hoare, as we well know, perished in dragonflame. House Qoherys, extinguished by Harren the Red. House Harroway, slain by Maegor. House Towers withered away without heirs, Rhaena Targaryen held Harrenhal and died here. House Strong saw its end during the Hour of the Wolf, House Lothston was shattered by King Maekar… and House Whent.”
The last of her line, Kevan thought, living with her ghosts before we came.
“Janos Slynt,” a sliver of disgust twisted on Tywin’s lips. “My daughter saw fit to reward his treason with Harrenhal. He never stepped foot within, of course.”
“May the Wall suit him well.”
“May he freeze upon it,” Tywin said coldly. “And now we hold it.”
“Just superstition, Tywin,” Kevan murmured, hesitant. “You did not call me here to discuss history and old curses, I imagine?”
He had come from settling yet another dispute between Lorch’s men and the Bloody Mummers. They can insist on calling themselves the Brave Companions all they want, Kevan thought, disgusted. Mummers are all they are, stenched in blood for all to see and smell. We never should have brought them here. Clegane and Lorch are monstrous enough, but this Hoat and his men are beasts in foul flesh. But his face said nothing. Kevan Lannister watched his brother, keeping a dutiful silence.
“I would have called Maester Tothmure here with you, if not for the many bodies he is tending to. He is an educated man, I hear. So are you, Kevan. So tell me, what curse has been placed upon me?”
When Tyrion was born, men called him Lord Tywin’s Bane, a curse for the proud lion of the Rock. He decided against mentioning that. “None that I can see, brother.”
A sharp huff escaped Tywin. “Can curses be seen?”
“When they make themselves known, I would think.”
“There, you have the right of it,” Tywin Lannister sighed. In the flickering dark of the room, he could see the aged lines on his brother’s face. Gods, when did we grow so old? It did not feel so long ago that he received his knighthood… by Roger Reyne.
“The only one of my children to be remotely capable,” Tywin mused, “is the misshapen dwarf, the crude drunk, the stunted lecher.”
Once, Genna had told Tywin to his face that Tyrion was the one to resemble him the most. His brother refused to speak to her for half a year. “He is not so bad,” Kevan argued, “he was stifled in the shadows and could not shine.”
Tywin Lannister did not smile. “I tasked him with flushing the filth out of Casterly Rock in his youth.”
“And he did so remarkably,” Kevan suppressed a smile. “It would appear that he is doing just as well in King’s Landing.”
His brother only frowned. “Passably. It is the other two that disappoint me so,” Tywin sighed. “I give Jaime command of a host. Lay siege to Riverrun, I told him, do not ride out to fight. And what does he do? Unhealed and unhelmed, he rides out into the woods with sword in hand, gleaming in the night.”
It was not so long ago that his brother was berating Tyrion for being captured by Catelyn Stark, Kevan remembered. “That boy lacks patience.”
“Boy?” Tywin disagreed. “He is a man grown, two-and-thirty. I had hoped he left the folly of youth behind. Knighthood, glory, he has not outgrown that. Mayhaps the dungeons of Riverrun seem glorious. Still, at least he has fought. Cersei…”
He closed his eyes for a second. That was the equivalent of a lesser lord’s violent quiver of outrage. When his brother opened his eyes again, he saw ice within them. “Robert Baratheon dies in a hunting accident,” he said dryly. “Ned Stark, a man known for his honor, attempts to seize the city, or so Cersei tells me. He fails, crippled as he was, yet he vanishes from the Red Keep. Him and that clansman of his, the one who savaged my son… They flee the city by some unknown means, no matter that there were thousands of men looking for them. By the hand of the gods, a cripple and a mountain clansman found their way to Dragonstone.”
To Stannis Baratheon, Kevan thought. Even now, he did not understand how that deed was done. Surely, Cersei had closed off the gates and port?
“Stannis Baratheon,” Tywin mused. “That man is a greater threat than Robb Stark and Renly, no matter how small his army might be. And now he has Eddard Stark advising him. And this letter,” his brother snarled. Kevan winced.
His brother’s fury was terrible to behold that day, when the raven came from Dragonstone to Harrenhal. With Lord Eddard Stark’s seal upon it, the weight of Stannis’ words was crushing. Seven men were hanged for their whispers that day, and after, all knew better than to speak of the letter. Kevan as well.
“Lies,” he told his brother, who was unknowing of the truth.
“A sweet lie that men would rush to believe now,” Tywin was furious. “Stark’s word lends this lie great honor. Convenient for Stannis Baratheon.”
A man who was not known for deceit and to play the game of thrones, Kevan thought, but again, he did not speak.
His brother forced himself to calm, inhaling sharply. “No matter. Words are wind. It is the armies that will decide the truth.”
And armies there were aplenty these days, and kings too. “Has Cersei sent word of the south?” Keven wondered aloud.
“No rider or raven has come from King’s Landing,” Tywin said with a scowl. “Not from lack of trying, I would think. This Beric Dondarrion… he has grown from a nuisance to a proper trouble. It is his seal upon this wretched silence. Arrows for the ravens, swords for the riders. We are blind as to the south.”
Last they had heard, both Renly and Stannis were assembling upon Storm’s End.
“Surely, Renly would have beaten Stannis?”
“Mayhaps,” Tywin admitted. “He has the numbers, he has Randyll Tarly, he has the gold of the Reach. Still, Stannis Baratheon is not to be underestimated. With Stark by his side … No matter. We must entrust the south to my children,” Tywin’s lips grew tight at that. “It is the west that concerns me,” his brother admitted.
Never in his life had he heard those words from Tywin.
“Feastfires has fallen to Karstark,” he informed his brother, “the Maester managed to send a raven before the castle fell.”
Tywin closed his eyes again. “Robb Stark has proven to be a greater danger than we first thought,” he said grudgingly.
Robert Baratheon come again, Kevan thought. Briefly, he wondered what the stag king would have thought of the war that he was missing. The boy has defeated Jaime and Stafford, taken Sarsfield, and his men are ravaging the west as we speak.
When the army at Oxcross was shattered, the look upon Tywin’s face was severe. He had never seen his brother so shaken. It was not a day he hoped repeated, though with the situation rapidly deteriorating, he could not be sure.
The capture of Ashemark was amongst the first ravens to find them, after the disaster at Oxcross. When the word came, Ser Addam Marbrand was crestfallen. His father, Lord Damon, held Ashemark whilst his son marched to war and now, it seemed that the son had outlived the father. On his way to his brother’s chamber, he saw Ser Addam taking his grief out upon three other knights in the courtyard.
And the war has come to our homes.
All the seeds of blood and fire that they had sown in the Riverlands were now being harvested by the Stranger’s scythe upon them. The gold of their mines was taken, the bounty of their fields, even their own men in the west had turned their cloak. Kayce had fallen as well, and the western coast was a desert of death. Many and more good men and lords were taken or slain. When word came that Lord Roland Crakehall was killed, his son, the Strongboar, was cold in his rage.
One of the Bloody Mummers had raised an insult against one of his men, and Ser Lyle buried a blade through his throat in response. Three other of the sellswords drew their blades but over a dozen knights rose to fight by the Strongboar’s side. The matter was ended when Kevan came with his own guards. Ser Lyle Crakehall was unpunished, of course, for he was now the heir of Crakehall. His brother, Tybolt, was now the lord of Crakehall. Though at any moment now, he may die, and his castle may yet fall to the wolves, Kevan thought grimly.
The castle had not yet fallen, as was Cornfield and Clegane Hall, for those were the seats furthest to the south. In the north, the Crag was not yet taken, as was the Banefort. Ser Daven Lannister held Lannisport, and it was unlikely that the city would fall. Stark had only brought heavy horse with him into the west. It gave him the swift hand to bring upon the land with ease, but he could not take Lannisport with it.
He hoped.
“This cannot do,” Tywin said. “When Tyrion was taken, I led a fist of steel into the riverlands. Now, our own lands are burning.”
“Are we marching west?”
“It appears that we must,” his brother muttered grimly. “Half the knights and lords assembled have either lost their seats or their families are prisoners. The other half sit around campfires, whispering and worrying when their own holdfasts will be next. The Crag? The Banefort? Crakehall? The Young Wolf cannot be left alone.”
“Riverrun stands in our way.”
“Then, we must fight. Come the morrow, we shall call our lords to hear their wisdom.”
There was more than his brother wanted to discuss. Kevan rose, taking the pitcher of wine and pouring them both a cup. His brother took his with a nod.
“Eddard Stark,” Tywin said softly. “Stannis Baratheon. Brynden Tully. The ghosts of the Rebellion, come to haunt us again.”
“Yohn Royce has not yet stirred,” he pointed out.
“Yet,” his brother muttered. “Lysa Arryn is keeping the Vale contained. I suppose we should be thankful for her madness.”
All he had heard of the late Jon Arryn’s wife were whispers of a frightened, mad woman. “Shall we write her a letter of appreciation?”
“That may send her into a spiral of madness,” Tywin pursed his lips. “Dorne will not join Stannis Baratheon.”
Nor will they join us. Kevan Lannister had been there, when Tywin had laid the bodies of Prince Rhaegar’s children at the foot of the Iron Throne, wrapped up in crimson cloaks. No one could look at them for long. And Elia Martell…
“They will be content in their sands, I would think,” Kevan said, “until a victor emerges from this war.” Let us hope it is us.
“How fares our hostages?”
“Passably,” Kevan told him. He made sure to check every day. Lord Medger Cerwyn, Harrion Karstark, Ser Wylis Manderly, Ser Donnel Locke, three Freys of old Walder’s blood whose name escaped him, and dozens of lesser lords, knights and heirs. Between Lorch’s men and the Bloody Mummers, one could never be too sure about the safety of whatever was left about; men, women, horses, gold, food, the dead. He posted Lannister guards by their cells and appointed men he could trust, household knights whose names he knew, to deliver the captured northmen with food and drink.
It was an impressive number that they had captured from the Green Fork, when Roose Bolton met and delayed them for the Young Wolf to descend upon Jaime. Impressive, until one remembered that the Starks had thrice as many captives.
Thrice, at least.
“Good,” Tywin muttered. “When we march west, Amory Lorch will hold Harrenhal as castellan.”
“Lorch?” The query escaped him before he could suppress it.
Lord Tywin Lannister raised an eyebrow. “Do you take issue with Ser Amory?”
“I shall obey your command, Tywin, you are well aware of that,” he told his brother. “But Lorch is a dog, meant to bite and snarl at our foes. He is Clegane, writ small.”
“And if Ser Gregor were not otherwise occupied, I had the mind to task him with Harrenhall instead.”
Oh, Kevan understood. Amory Lorch was not meant to rule Harrenhal well, to administer their garrison and supplies. No, Kevan thought sullenly, he is meant to haunt the land even more, a reminder of blood and fire for the lands.
“I see.”
“Good,” his brother nodded. “King’s Landing troubles me, but we cannot divide this army up.”
“No,” he agreed. It would weaken them too much.
“We must meet Robb Stark in battle,” Tywin linked his fingers together, deep in thought. “Shatter that boy’s host decisively. Edmure Tully will hold the Red Fork to contest our crossing. We outnumber him well, his lords are scattered across the land. We can defeat him with ease. The Golden Tooth is still held by House Lefford, reinforced by what was left of Jaime’s host.”
“We can gather those men,” Kevan followed, “and defeat the Stark host piecemeal while they are scattered across the west.”
Tywin gave a curt nod. “I intend to offer an alliance to Balon Greyjoy.”
“Greyjoy?” Kevan was aghast. He still remembered Lannisport, and how it burnt.
“That old fool perched on his barren rocks in the sea. Let him reave and burn across the north as he wishes. If he wishes to do so while wearing a mummer’s crown, let him, I say. While he ties up the rest of the North’s strength, we will sweep south to deal with whichever of Robert’s brothers has won their dispute.”
“Will we have the numbers?” His brother’s host numbered twenty thousand when they met Lord Bolton at the Green Fork. They had taken some light casualties from that, though nothing major. Roose Bolton was a cautious commander, and fought to slay time rather than their men. Between the clashing of the vanguard, the skirmishing of outriders, and the trading of arrowfire, their casualties were fewer than a thousand. Yet, it had been some time since then. The lighting speed of the march after was gruelling; first, in the futile attempt to reach Riverrun, then, in their march to Harrenhal. Men dropped like fleas from exhaustion, disease, and desertion.
The many nuisances around the Riverlands made sure to have their iron buzzing known. Beric Dondarrion and his merry band of outlaws clashed frequently with their outriders and foraging parties. Karyl Vance and Marq Piper had done so as well, meeting them in a dozen skirmishes. In total, their numbers stood close to eighteen thousand now. We left Casterly Rock with thirty-five thousand.
“We will hire more sellswords, if need be. The Golden Company, the Second Sons, the Windblown, all the vagrants of the east if we must.”
“Do we have the gold?”
Tywin’s eyes, pale green and flecked with gold, watched him with some slight bemusement. “Three million has been spent away by Robert, though the crown still owes us that. I have not forgotten that debt. Arming, feeding, and paying our host has cost gold, and the loss of the mines to the northmen are setbacks. But Casterly Rock’s heart is deep and flecked with gold.”
Suddenly, Kevan felt a wave of utter exhaustion run through him, like ghosts clawing at him. Harren’s curse, he felt the chill. He wanted to return to the Rock, to spend his years with his Dorna. Martyn was captured at Oxcross and before that, Willem was taken at the Whispering Wood. His eldest was in King’s Landing. He found no solace in that, not when the capital was at the heart of a brewing storm.
At least Janei is safe with her mother, he thought. His youngest was born just the year prior, moons before they marched to war. Gods be good, I live long enough for her to remember my face. Though, he knew, this war had just begun.
Even if they defeated the Starks and the Tullys, the Baratheons were another tale altogether. No matter which of Robert’s brothers won, they would prove troublesome. Renly wielded the larger army, but Stannis was a proven commander.
“The Arbor,” he remembered. “Their ships are locked at port.”
Tywin nodded, faintly satisfied. “The Redwyne twins are held in the Red Keep. Esteemed guests. If… my children are wise, they will know to deal with Paxter Redwyne well. His ships may prove valuable in dealing with Stannis.”
If, Kevan thought. Tyrion should manage where Cersei cannot.
“That reminds me,” Tywin sighed tiredly. “The matter of inheritance.”
He did not understand. “Brother?”
“Casterly Rock.”
“What of it?”
“Jaime is captured,” his brother said, frowning. “We must proceed with the assumption that he may not be freed. When we confront Edmure Tully, I shall make the attempt to capture him, or seize Riverrun. Regardless, Jaime’s… death is a possibility. In that event, I have named you as heir after my death.”
Kevan blinked. “Tywin… I am old.”
“As my eyes inform me well,” Tywin Lannister said plainly. “That will be a temporary measure. There is no other man I can trust, for the nonce. However, there is one who I believe may hold potential, if molded well.”
Tyrion?
“Daven Lannister,” Tywin muttered. “His father was brother to … Joanna. He has proven capable of cleaning after the mess that his father left behind. My eyes in Lannisport have nothing but competency, sense, and bravery to tell me. A skilled warrior, a man grown, a knight and a good leader of men, albeit loud.”
“But not your son.”
The world seemed to grow colder. Tywin’s eyes met him frigidly. “The alternative is Tommen. He is young and soft, but raw gold can be tempered.”
“Tyrion is proving capable.”
His brother’s glare only grew greater. “And if he does his duty well, I shall reward him with some suitable title and land, as appropriate. But never Casterly Rock.”
This was a battle he could not win. “As you say,” Kevan relented, opting for a different battle. “Your sellswords…”
“What of them?”
“The Bloody Mummers,” he said plainly. “At least the Mountain and his men can be brought to heel, and directed at a foe. Those dogs are rabid, frothing at the mouth.”
“They are a blunt, bloody tool,” Tywin admitted. “We will not suffer them for long. When we march, I shall unleash them towards High Heart.”
At night, he told himself, I will give a prayer to the Seven. He was raised in the light of the Seven, as were his siblings. Tywin scorned the gods, Tyg only ever cared for the Warrior, Genna paid the septon the words he wanted to listen and rolled her eyes behind his back, and Gerion found the Seven terribly amusing. Kevan was never a pious man, not after the wars he had seen. Still, I will pray tonight.
He felt another wave of exhaustion. How many have died? How many lords, knights and men-at-arms? How many of the smallfolk? How many more will die? He wondered how many villages and towns would be left burnt and broken by the war’s end, if it ended. Fields burnt, farmers slain, rivers drowning in blood. Folly, the Starks always have it true in the end. Winter is coming.
Still, he was a dutiful man and a dutiful brother. “As you command.”
“There is another matter,” Tywin said. “The houses of the Crownlands have mustered their swords, but they sit in their holdfasts. A paltry and pitiful assortment, but there are still some few thousand that can be gathered. Antlers, Sow’s Horn, Duskendale, even those half-wild mad men at Crackclaw Point. In total, we can rally five thousand men, I would think. Hayford, Stokeworth, and Rosby are near enough to King’s Landing that their loyalty is more assured. I have a mind to send riders to Antlers to start. If I did not need you with me for the battles to come, I would have sent you, for there are few other men I can trust with this task.”
“Ser Addam, mayhaps?”
Tywin shook his head. “He is one of our most daring commanders. We will need that for the battles to come. He is maddened with grief as well, he will make for a better warrior than messenger.”
Kevan was silent as he thought. In truth, he could think of few men suited.
Monsters they had in excess, but gallant knights and wise lords, not so.
“No matter,” Tywin murmured. “My lords shall be eager to contribute, I would wager, on the morrow. A noble task, to ride away from the battles to come.”
“The roads are no more safe than the battlefields, my lord,” Kevan said. And most of that danger came from us. There was a certain black amusement in the thought. Any messenger they sent could very likely be attacked by a drunk sellsword paid by Lannister gold. The roads of the Riverlands were a path carved from the seven hells these days; bodies hanging from cages, horses rotting on the side of the road, headless corpses left to decay. And that was just the rotten dead.
The living were the ones to be feared. The Bloody Mummers were far from the only horrors they had unleashed upon the realm. The Mountain’s sack of Darry was a sordid tale, one that sent even the most hardened knights to mutter in disgust. The Darry forces took back their castle in the wake of Jaime’s capture but no more than a fortnight later, Gregor Clegane descended upon them in a storm of violence.
Men were butchered like livestock, he heard. All the defenders were slain, even the little Lord Lyman Darry who was only eight. Each was beheaded and their skulls piled before the gates to the burnt, hollowed castle of Darry. The Mountain had taken a liking to the child’s skull, and tied it to his horse with little Lyman’s belt. Kevan could not finish his supper the night the outriders returned with the dark tale.
But Tywin said nothing, only offering a nod of grim satisfaction. For it was not skulls that the Mountain’s Men brought to Harrenhal, but gold and grain taken from the land. More monsters we have unleashed upon the realm.
And they would not be loved for this. He had a feeling that the smallfolk were aiding this Brotherhood Without Banners; hiding them, feeding them, telling them where Lannister men could be found. In truth, he could not find it in him to blame them. This brutality is only winning us enemies, he thought solemnly. There is a debt of blood between House Lannister and House Tully now, one that shall persevere through generations upon generations. Sons will be raised upon hate, weaned upon vengeance, and come into manhood mourning and hating.
Still, he was a dutiful brother, and he kept his silence.
“A strong enough host will deter any common brigand,” Kevan said instead. “Armored riders flying the lion’s banner. Barded steeds, bright swords. In sufficient numbers, even this Brotherhood will not dare impede. Yet, you do not wish to take away too many of our numbers before the coming battle. Three score riders, I would think. Enough of a force to remind the Crownlords of their place. A lord to lend their word formality, but a knight to lend steel to the voice.”
“Lord Swyft will be most vocal for the task, I would think.”
His father-by-law was not the most courageous of men, Kevan smiled. Lord Harys Swyft often proved equal to the beast on his banner, the red rooster. “In that case, we shall need a few more knights to lend proper steel to the cacophony.”
Tywin’s lips twitched at that. “I have a few in mind.”
“It is done then?” Kevan was exhausted. The day was long. In the morning, he oversaw the drilling of their archers. Over lunch, the commanders met to argue in futility once more. After, he broke up a fight between the sellswords and Lorch’s men, resorting to hanging one from each group. There was no peace after that as well, for outriders returned to inform him that another of their outpost was found with only crows and corpses remaining. Then came the raven that Feastfires had fallen. By then, it was dark, and he was sipping at his supper alone in his chambers after dealing with another fight. The courier was clever to bring the sorry tale to him, rather than face Tywin’s fury in the night. He did not have to wait long as well, for Tywin’s summon for him came shortly after. And it was there, he met his lordly brother.
“Take this to the smith.” Tywin handed him a parchment.
“The smith is illiterate.”
“I know. Read it.”
Kevan spared a glance for the contents of the letter. “I see.”
“You have your thoughts on the matter,” said Tywin, “I would hear them.”
“Do you think it would work?”
“I believe so.”
“I suppose there is no harm in trying,” Kevan admitted. He suppressed a yawn. “I shall see you on the morrow, then.”
“Sit awhile, Kevan.”
The strange order made him pause. Kevan Lannister sat. “My lord?”
His brother was pouring them both a second cup. “Do you remember the War of the Ninepenny Kings?”
He took a moment to respond, sipping from his red first. “Like it was yesterday.”
It was there that Tywin distinguished himself, alongside Kevan and Tygett. Aerys was still young and brave and glorious then. Other legends made their name there too; Ser Barristan who slew Maelys, the Blackfish, and many others who were dead now.
“Those were better times,” Tywin Lannister said, his eyes far away.
Kevan was silent. He looked at his brother. “They were.”
“And they are over now,” it was the Lord of Casterly Rock who was speaking again. “Rest, Kevan. There is much work to be done on the morrow.”
“I shall,” Kevan said. There was nothing else to it, for he was a dutiful brother.
Notes:
Kevan was not even supposed to be a POV character in my plans, but I enjoyed writing this chapter so much that he has been promoted to it. Every chapter of his has an air of 'Nuremberg Trial', if you know what I mean. He is nowhere near as horrid as Tywin, more competent than Cersei, but still not a good guy. Much like Tyrion, this makes him a really great grey character to write.
Lastly, as I forgot to do so during Bran's chapters, I wanted to give credits and thanks to nulnvamp; Gunther's player as well as invaluable beta-reader, advisor, and artist for this fic. It was they who gave me the idea for Bran's overall storyline and I have found inspiration in many other discussions I had with them. Soon, they will be a co-writer for this fic, particularly for Daenerys as I honestly do not know how to write her (as well as a certain lost lord and blue-haired boy).
For a taste for the curious, they have Warhammer Fantasy fics on here and SB; one featuring a trio of Imperial Journeyman Wizards adventuring in the Empire ala Gotrek and Felix [Adventures of the Aethyr], as well as a story featuring the main party in their campaign glory [Erstes Licht]!
Chapter 83: Lorenzo II
Notes:
During the Dance of the Dragons, Ser Rickard Thorne of the Kingsguard and Prince Maelor Targaryen were killed by a mob in Bitterbridge while trying to make their way to the siege of Longtable. Prince Daeron Targaryen responded by burning the town with Tessarion in the sack of Bitterbridge.
Why am I telling you this? You'll see :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
A queen in a cobalt gown was wading through a field of bright blue fire.
Her dress was long and beautiful, a shimmering blue so magnificent that he thought he was glimpsing the Luccinian Sea at twilight. Adorned along the gown were scales the color of bright beaten copper. A fair young man with silver hair and violet eyes held her hand, and there was a tragedy in those purple orbs. Lorenzo tilted his head curiously, watching them from beneath the shade of a slender willow tree.
Those were frequent faces along rivers, especially the Mander. Their weeping shapes, billowing in the gentle breeze, gave a melancholic grace to the riverbank.
And melancholy there was, amidst the cobalt flames.
He could hear a sad song over the flickering tongues of fire, a litany for a fallen child. The blue queen flashed a furious face now, and death spewed from her fingers. He saw a town burning, and the violet eyes were weeping in the wind. When they opened, for the faintest moment, their eyes met. Then, the second was past.
He woke.
There was no fire around him, no death, nor queens in blue or silver-haired princes. The chamber he had been given was comfortable, bathed in golden light from stained windows in the pattern of flowers. A tasteful tapestry of budding meadows and bright flowers sat across from him. In the corner of the room, he was in the canopied bed of dark oak. Beneath it, the soft rushes were sweetened with mint. Nearby stood a hearth of smooth stone, its fire ever kept lit with fragrant applewood.
A cushioned window seat allowed him to read, and a small writing desk next to it held parchment, quills, and an inkpot of deep blue glass. The scent of honeyed wine lingered faintly in the air, tempting him like a lover’s kiss, and a silver pitcher of cool water rested atop a side table beside a bowl of ripe, sweet summer fruits.
And two guards were stationed outside; stalwart men with green cloaks pinned with golden stags, in plate and mail, with sword and spear and shield.
King Renly trusted him not, it seemed. The king had departed Bitterbridge in a hurry, racing for Storm’s End. Before he left, a quiet command was given to his guards.
He could imagine the words. Watch him, do not let him leave the room, he could hear Renly’s voice. He knew well what the king suspected. Rather, what Renly Baratheon thought he suspected. And so it was that Lorenzo found himself in this velvet-draped cage that smelled of fresh flowers and fine fruits.
He bore an unfortunate resemblance to the lions of Lannister. Green eyes that shone like emeralds, long blond hair, fair features and skin.
His lips twisted slightly in amusement at that.
He rose slowly from the bed, bare feet sinking into the velvet rushes. His fingers were combing through his tousled hair when he crossed the chamber. The mirror above the washbasin caught him in pale profile; the ghost of a lion, if ever one haunted Bitterbridge. A smile tugged faintly at his lips again; not quite amused, nor sad, nor frustrated. He offered the fair figure in the mirror a resigned sigh.
Through the stained glass, sunlight filtered in hues of gold and rose, throwing colored shadows on the walls. The firelight was dancing with them, silent witnesses to the golden specter in solitude within the chambers. Emerald eyes watched the sunrise, dawnlight flickering in the green. He wondered how Lucia was doing.
Renly Baratheon is no fool, Lorenzo thought, sitting himself by the window. Still, he sees shadows in sunlight, a dagger in a lute.
There was a low creak beyond the door, and boots shifting. One of the guards was muttering to the other in a bored tone. These were not men meant to watch, they were not bred for subtlety. He had heard them wishing that they were at the front, fighting with their king and taking castles, rather than watching some singer.
A ghost of a smile appeared on his face again. He leaned on the windowsill, gazing out at the slow, sweeping waters of the Mander. A barge was drifting downstream, its long oars catching the sun like flashes of silverfish. If he recalled correctly, Tumbleton was that way, a small market town that once flourished before the dragons danced. Across the river, he saw wide fields of golden wheat swaying gently in the wind, and the willow tree whose shade he sat in when he was dreaming.
The singer tilted his head curiously.
He could still remember the snarl of the blue queen as her touch turned the field to fire. The silver-haired prince’s sorrow haunted him more; weeping violet eyes that bore hate and sorrow. Lorenzo turned suddenly, and plucked his lute from its corner. He strummed once, and again, to test the sound. It was mournful.
Then, he began to play.
A soft, strange tune; melancholy as a willow’s sigh, yet as warm as the summer sun. It was threaded with sorrow and silk, a song that bore a fiery love and an icy hatred. He sang for the blue queen, and the violet-eyed prince. He sang for the guards beyond the door, and for the invisible watchers; men and many more.
The song had barely ended when the knock came.
It was not a soldier’s knock, sharp and sudden, but something more deliberate. A rhythm measured, like a heartbeat muffled beneath velvet. He turned his head toward the door, his fingers still resting lightly on the strings of his lute.
The guard’s voice came. “Queen Margaery calls for you.”
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow. He stood, slow and smooth, setting the instrument down with reverent care. The guards did not enter. They stood aside when the door creaked open to reveal a maid in pink, her hair gathered in a braided crown. Alla Tyrell offered a shallow curtsy. “The queen awaits you in the garden.”
Lorenzo bowed his head. “I shall follow,” he said, taking his lute.
He followed Alla through the winding halls of Bitterbridge. Her pace was swift but graceful, though the guards behind them were not, loud in their mail. As they passed beneath a trellis of blooming roses and ivy, the warm scent of sweet summer filled the air; honeysuckle, lemon blossoms, roses, and a dozen other flowers.
“I never managed to ask after your hand with the harp, Lady Alla.”
She offered him a confused look, before remembering. “The barge,” she said softly.
“The queen speaks well of your skill with the woodharp,” he smiled at her.
Her face flushed slightly, and she looked away. “I practice it frequently.”
“Someday perhaps,” Lorenzo mused, “I would like to hear that.”
“I do not sing the songs you do,” Alla Tyrell glanced at him again.
“And what do you sing, Lady Alla?”
“Songs of chivalry,” she said shyly, “and love.”
He did not sing those songs often, that was true. There was little chivalry or love to be found where he hailed from. “Worthy songs to sing nonetheless.”
Bitterbridge’s garden was a pale, bitter shadow to Highgarden’s floral realms. Still, it was awash with spring color, every bloom tended to and manicured with pride and care. Beneath a white-wood arbor sat the queen, draped in flowing fabrics of green and gold. Her hair caught the sun like soft threads of honey that fell gently around her. Queen Margaery Tyrell did not rise, for she did not need to.
“Seasinger,” she said lightly, her voice as smooth as cream and spiced wine. “I thought we might enjoy the garden together. It is fresher than a guarded room, I would believe, and the scent is sweet as summer.”
She gestured to the seat across her, an eyebrow rising just slightly. He bowed low, as one might before a queen. “How could I refuse such kindness, your Grace?”
“No, you cannot.”
He took the seat. Birds sang and chirped above them. The guards lingered out of earshot, but not out of reach. Alla Tyrell was gone, a pink shade vanishing from sight. She poured a cup of gold. “You have been singing in a gilded cage,” she said softly. “Tell me, was it a lion that taught you the tune?”
Lorenzo accepted the cup with a courtly nod, letting his fingers brush hers just enough to be noticed, just little enough to be excused.
“I have heard the roaring of lions,” he said with a soft smile. Allegorically.
“I find that they are not the best models for singers. Too proud, too loud.”
Margaery tilted her head, amused. “Yet, my kingly husband seems to believe that you sing the songs of one.”
Her kingly husband did. Does she? Lorenzo watched her with gleaming green eyes. “Lions do not sing songs in cages,” he looked past her, towards the bees dancing in lazy spirals around them.
“They do if they are caught.”
“Then, I fear, you may underestimate the pride of lions.”
“Do I?”
“It is not for the singer to tell the queen of her flaws, few as they are.”
“Yet, the queen demands it nevertheless.”
“And so he sings as the queen demands,” Lorenzo sipped. “How does that dreadful song go? A lion still has claws? Mine are only the quills, they are not so sharp, and the blood I spill is the ink upon parchment.”
“And yet,” she said, leaning forward slightly. “The king keeps you … bound.”
“A king must have many cares,” Lorenzo said gently, “especially when he sits beside such beauty and ambition. All eyes are watching him. It is understandable that he is cautious of shadows, especially where the light is brightest. Though if I cast one, I assure the queen that it was only to keep him company.”
Margaery laughed softly. “Spoken like a singer.”
“I sing for those who care to listen.”
She studied him now, more carefully. The wine was untouched in her hands. The breeze tugged a curl loose from behind her ear. “What do you think I should care to listen?”
He set the cup down. “Roses grow strong, Queen Margaery. To do so, they need sun and soil and space.”
“Will you give me the sun?”
“I could attempt to do it,” he smiled, “though it may fail horribly.”
“Will you sing a song for the sun?” She giggled. “Charm it to fall into your lap?”
“I fear the heat may be unbearable.”
“What of the soil, then? Will you fetch me a handful?”
“If the queen commands.”
Margaery reclined. “That would be a waste for those talented fingers of yours. Sing me a song.”
“What would you like to hear, Your Grace?”
“Something sweet.”
And so he sang.
He strummed a tune, one of soft, sweet strings. It was a ballad of love, lilting and slow, the notes curling through the garden like the scent of blooming roses after the rain. It spoke of petals and promises, of summer mornings and glances stolen across high balconies. It was a song easy to hum, easier still to mishear.
“She walked alone where lilies grow, beneath the gaze of day,
her laughter sweet as ciderflow, her gown the green of fay.”
Margaery gave a sigh of contentment, closing her eyes.
“She held no sword, she wore no crown, yet kings would seek her hand,
for every step she took alone, the earth obeyed commands.”
She opened her bright brown eyes, her lips curling into a smile.
“She kissed the wind, she stirred the bees, she knew where secrets lie,
she danced among the summer trees beneath the watchful sky.
And when the sun bowed to her bloom, and thorns into flame,
the garden knew, the world would too, the rose had staked her claim.”
The last note faded into the hush of garden birds and the soft trickle of a nearby fountain. He lowered his lute with a practiced flourish and let the silence breathe.
The Queen was very still, the sunlight caught the green of her gown and the gold at her throat, shimmering into shards. Her brown eyes were on him, staring intently. She took her first sip of wine, slowly, before speaking. “As lovely as honeyed milk.”
“I am heartened that you would sip of it,” he bowed.
“Tell me, Lorenzo of the lute, do you sing these songs for every lady you meet?” She giggled. At times, it was easy to misremember that she was a maid no older than sixteen, sharp and wise as she was.
“The travelling bard may find himself in a dearth of patrons when he starts.”
“Not you, I would think?”
“No,” he shook his head lightly. “Still, some songs are only meant for some ears.”
A breeze was stirring the arbor leaves behind her, sending rose petals drifting between them like falling embers, little red kisses in the air.
“Did you write that of late?”
“I wrote that in the wind with a quill of air,” he told her earnestly, “at the moment that you asked for a sweet song.”
“I should not be surprised, but I am,” Margaery smiled sweetly. “When my husband takes King’s Landing, you must write a song to commemorate that. Many more as well to celebrate the union of Baratheon and Tyrell, the taking of the throne of iron…”
“It would be a grand sight.”
“My husband has plans, he tells me,” Margaery mused. “One such was to form a center of art, he describes. Painters, poets … bards. Braavos is famed for its art, he tells me, why not Westeros? Mayhaps you should help him take the lead.”
That would soothe the king’s suspicion of you, the queen was saying.
He almost felt like he was in Lorenzo Lupo’s court of Luccini once more. “The sea wind blows me where I must, Queen Margaery.”
“We are far from the sea,” she laughed lightly. “Only the breeze from the Mander can be felt here.”
“Not for one born close to the coast,” he offered a shrug. “I can hear its song even when I am far from it.”
“What does it sound like?”
“Calming,” he told her. “Slow, swaying, like waves crashing against the sand.”
“I would like to hear that.”
“I could sing a song of the sea?”
She waved her hand. “I would hear you speak rather than sing for now.”
“As the queen commands.”
“Tell me, Lorenzo of Braavos, do you miss your home?”
His smile never wavered. “My home is the journey, my queen. The traveler's road, kicked up with dust and sand, trot upon by boots and horseshoes. It is the blue sea as ships cut through the waves, with a shanty on the tongue of every drunk sailor. Wherever the gods see fit to point me to.”
“And which gods are those?” She pressed, plucking a ripe grape.
“Braavos has many gods,” he said. “And I sing to those of sea and land and sky.”
The queen was amused. From her side, she drew a short, small parchment. “Willas wrote me a letter. He included a note for you. You can read it now if you wish.”
He took it gratefully.
Lorenzo,
I have acquired as of late several new tomes that may be a worthwhile discussion. I understand that a marching army might hold few books. Perhaps, when King’s Landing has been seized, you may find these tomes in the library of the Red Keep.
Kingdoms of the Sky, by Archmaester Lyman - It discusses the wanderers beyond our world, and what the stars may portent.
Jade Compendium, by Colloquo Votar - A collection of legends and stories from Essos.
Ruined Cities, Stolen Gods, by Vaggoro - It details the fall of the Kingdom of Sarnor.
The Passages of the Dead, by Maester Kennet - It studies the barrows and tombs of the North.
It may be some time before we next sit across my solar and talk of tales. Highgarden has been dulled by the lack of it. I pray that you may find these books, and find them as enlightening as I have found them. The next we meet, I would pray that you come bearing your thoughts on them and, perhaps, a sword of Valyrian steel.
May the Crone shine her lantern of gold on your road.
Willas Tyrell.
Margaery was looking at him curiously when he folded the letter. “Whatever did my brother write to you? Surely, he is not thinking of stealing the queen’s singer, is he?”
“A recommendation of books, that is all,” he bowed his head.
“Willas adores his tomes,” the queen smiled fondly. “He found few who bore the same interest as him. Well, until you arrived.”
“Lord Willas is a clever man,” he said truthfully. “Highgarden is in good hands.”
“Oh?” The queen raised a fine eyebrow. “Is it not, as it is now?”
“Of course not,” he gave her a white smile. “But the gods are good to make each coming generation grow stronger than the last. Roses always bloom in Highgarden.”
It was the green hand that held Highgarden only three hundred years ago, but the bard did not deign to mention that. From the smirk on the queen’s face, she thought the same. “Growing Strong,” Margaery mused. “More fearsome words, the realm has never heard. The Starks say ‘Winter is Coming’, the Baratheons warn that theirs is the fury, as the Targaryens learnt to their woe. What do you think ours mean?”
He tilted his head. “The rose grows higher, no matter the storm.”
“And should it reach too high? Too close to the sun?”
“Then it shall curl around the branch,” his lips curled into a smile. He rose from the bench, and made for a bush of red roses. In a deft motion that Gunther would be proud of, he plucked the scarlet flower clean from its sweet-smelling bed. The queen was smiling when he handed the flower to her. “The rose is strong; hardier and sharper than its beauty sings, though it is a song most sweet. Men see only the red of the petal, and not the strength of the stem, nor the tip of the thorns.”
He was not talking about the rose in the queen’s hand, and she knew. Margaery Tyrell smelled the rose and smiled pleasantly. “How sweet with your words. Kings and lords and knights can take care to learn from that. How their lady wives and daughters mourn at the dull tones and harsh words they sing.”
“Kings have their wars, lords have their lands, and knights have their battles.”
“They do,” Margaery smiled sweetly. “So do we.”
“Will the queen require assistance with her armor?”
Her face was mirthful. “I have my armor, Lorenzo Voceleste. Silk and satin, I am clad in. I need no help to armor myself… though, removing its heavy weight can be a struggle. In dearth of squires for queens, mayhaps a singer will suffice.”
She rose. “Write a song for me, singer. I wish to hear your singing tomorrow. In private, in my tent.”
The Queen had made her chambers in a royal tent, rather than the rooms of the castle. He oft wondered why. She mistrusts the Lord of Bitterbridge.
It was near dark when he found his room again.
He had spent the day in the garden, enjoying the song of the birds and the fountain amidst the fading light, alone but never unobserved. Somewhere, he knew, eyes followed; whether behind silk-curtained windows or through the slits of a helmed visor. But he paid them no mind. There was peace to be found among the hedges and rosebushes, and he would take it, however watched it might be.
The gardens of Bitterbridge were famed throughout the Reach, and rightly so, he supposed eventually. They wound like a living tapestry along the river’s bend, a courtier’s maze of ivy-covered trellises, flowering arches, and narrow gravel paths that crunched softly underfoot. The air smelled of lavender and late summer bloom, and the fountain at the heart of it all sang its silver song beneath the shade of a carved marble maiden pouring clear water from her pitcher.
He had taken a seat on a cold stone bench near that fountain, his lute beside him, and hands idle.
The birds were louder than the guards, at least; nightingales and larks trilling among the willows, flitting between bough and branch. He watched the play of light as the sun drifted low; gold on water, gold through leaves, gold turning slowly into bronze. Servants came and went from the castle, trays and baskets in hand, speaking in low tones. He played a few notes, quietly, just enough to make the moment linger.
Time passed gently, like a dove’s feather brushing along his sleeve.
But the paradise did not last forever.
As the sun slipped behind the walls of Bitterbridge and long shadows crept across the peaceful paths, the warmth began to fade, dying as the light did. The birds had grown silent. Even the wind seemed to hush, leaving only the rhythmic spill of the foundation and a garden that had grown very dark, very still, and very silent.
He gathered his lute, satisfied his hunger and quenched his thirst from the small feast that had been left on the table. By the time he reached his chamber again, the sun had fallen, slain by the night once more. The torches were spluttering in their scones. The sweet scents of mint and applewood reached him when he stepped in.
It was the same room; comfortable, golden, perfumed. Yet, it felt colder now, and dimmer. It was not just the room as well. When he stepped close to the window, the fields of wheat were not swaying in the wind, for there was no wind. The fields were silent and still, thousands of frozen blades amidst the growing dark.
That night, sleep did not come easily.
It dragged him down like a heavy stone into dark water.
He stood on a vast plain of banners. They rose and fell around him like trees in a cloth forest, each fluttering with impossible wind. All bore the crowned stag; some were stitched in green and gold, others painted in blood. They shifted when he looked too long, antlers curled into barbed thorns and hooves turned to flames.
The sky was wrong as well. In place of blue, he saw a deep red bruise, pulsing like breath. Something moved behind it, too large to be seen, a hazy figure of shadows.
A throne of smoke sat at the center of the plain.
Renly was there, seated, smiling. His armor was shining like the sun, but the light did not touch the ground. It curled back from him, as though the earth refused his light. The king raised a black goblet and drank deeply from it. The dark wine dripped down his chin, black as ink, black as night. When Renly opened his mouth once more, blood-stained petals fell from his mouth and the king was choking.
The banners were rising around him, writhing in the form of a tent. Green and gold silks, stitched with laughing faces and stags. Two knights were with the king-
No, he recognised them. The knight in blue was Brienne of Tarth. The other was clear as day. The strictures on Lucia’s armor were glowing. He had only ever seen that a handful of times. The wine and water in the tent had turned to red ice.
A cold wind brought a black blur in. Like smoke in a storm, its limbs moved without motion. The shadow reached for Renly, and it gave him a kiss of death.
Lucia’s mace ended the embrace, and when the gold was gone, the two of them had vanished as well. Renly’s armor was melting like grey wax. Flowers were blooming in the rends of the steel, white lilies sprouting from his ruined ribs. They grew and grew and grew, swallowing the young king in white. Renly Baratheon saw him.
The king’s eyes were full of terror. Help me, he was trying to say. Help-
But the flowers were wilting, blackening, and dying.
And Renly was gone. Only his crown remained, resting on a chair of thorns.
The three-eyed crow was perched on one hand of the chair, a raven as dark as midnight on the other.
“The first slain,” the crow intoned. “Kings will fall by shadow and fire and storm.”
“Renly is dead?”
“He is.”
“By a shadow?” Had the Grey Wizards of the Empire come as well?
“There are dark things in this world. I have told you as such.”
He remembered what he saw the last time he had flown to the east. Dark and darker, thought the singer. “Who killed him?”
“The realm will know it to be women.”
“Lucia?”
“Your companion is riding away from the dead king,” the crow told him.
“And with Brienne of Tarth?”
“I see two riders.”
It would take time for riders to come to Bitterbridge, he knew. And when word came, to queen and army, what would they think?
A bard with the lion’s look who was companion to the armored woman that all must whisper to be a kingslayer. The bard grimaced.
“Where should I go?”
The crow was amused. “You already know.”
He thought of his dream. “I do,” he realised.
“Good,” the crow soared in a hurry of black feathers. “We will speak again, soon.”
The raven was silent, watching him with stone eyes. It flew as well, but when it soared, a black rose bloomed from the chair of thorns.
Lorenzo woke with the taste of lilies on his tongue.
He sat up slowly in the canopy bed, the sheets stained damp with sweat. Outside the stained-glass window, the stars had shifted. It was past midnight, near the hour of the owl. He thought it fitting and hoped it was a blessing. A pale and flushed ghost rose from the bed of roses, emerald eyes glinting feverishly in the dark of night.
He moved in silence, dipping to the window seat where parchment, ink and quill were waiting like conspirators. He dipped the quill in the deep ink.
The words came quickly.
The stag lies down in the field where lilies bloom too early. The shadow has passed over, silent and swift, and the light is no longer his.
I dreamt of a crown that shattered like brittle glass, and a song that ended before it could start. It is not the lion that claws from the cage, but a hummingbird flying free. If the gods will it, the sea wind may blow the song to the queen in times to come. Roses shall linger in my songs.
He folded the message, tucked it beneath the bowl of summer fruits.
Next came his clothes. He wore a striking green tunic, bold and bright, clasped with a golden brooch at the collar. The sleeves of a fine cloak were draped loosely over his arms, which contrasted well with the dark leather of his trousers and gloves. A belt at the waist carried small satchels. He stuffed the pouch of coin he had been gathering into his belt, checked that his stiletto was hidden in his boot.
He rose, lute in hand. Lorenzo eyed the door; thick, unmoving, and oaken. A shield that kept him in. The guards were silent on the other side, but he knew they were there. The singer exhaled, sitting against the cool surface of the oaken door. He wondered if Shallya would hear his song here, or if she would answer.
And he sang.
“O Shallya, white-winged dove, bear peace on feathers of snow… ”
It was a soft lullaby, a gentle hymn meant for the weary. His fingers brushed the strings and strummed in time with his voice. It was a song of Shallya, meant to soothe the injured and bring peace for the tormented.
“Lay down your helm, let burdens cease, and rest where sweet dreams go. ”
He let the final chords drift into silence, a prayer more than a performance. Then he waited, every second a heavy stone in his chest.
The rhythm of breathing had slowed beyond the threshold. He opened the door.
He found the guards slumped where they once stood, slumbering and snoring. Their spears had fallen from their hands, and their faces were peaceful and calm. He stepped past them like a green ghost and slipped down the corridor.
The halls of Bitterbridge were quiet tonight.
It truly was a different creature when the moon came.
By day, it was all color and courtly clamor; banners rippling from every turret, silk-clad knights and laughing ladies in the gardens while squires ran errands under the chorus of birds and bells. Now, cloaked dark in midnight and silence, the castle was solemn, as if it too had sensed what he had seen.
The dreams still pulsed behind his eyes; shadow and stag, the gold of Lucia’s mace, the broken crown, the dead king, the blue queen, the weeping prince. He walked quickly but carefully through the stone hall, careful of the sound of his feet, velvet shadows flickering around him where torchlight touched old tapestries. His lute was strung across his back, quiet as a sleeping cat.
He passed under arches where roses once hung in garlands. In the gloomy dark, they seemed to wilt, petals drying and curling like forgotten letters. The great hall loomed to his left, dark and quiet now, its hearths cold. Somewhere within those stone walls, feasts had been held in Renly’s name. Jests were told and promises made, alliances forged with honeyed words and clinking goblets.
But the stag was already slain. Only, no one knew it yet.
Beyond the outer wall, in the field outside the gates, was Renly’s army. A mighty host of infantry, sixty thousand strong. Riders would come soon, bearing news of the king’s demise. Tents dotted the plain like thousands of colored mushrooms.
He passed along a narrow covered way near the postern gate, where the stones wept with old damp and moss grew thick between the cracks. The air smelled of mildew and secrets. It struck him, then, how empty it was, no servants, no guards, no sound but his own soft footfalls. Yet he was not alone.
Cats sat watching from shadowed alcoves, their eyes glinting gold and green. A trio of ravens hunched along the eaves above, silent as priests at a hanging. They made no cry, only following his movement with black, knowing eyes.
At the stone arch ahead, a solitary lantern burned beside the gatehouse, its faint flame stuttering in the breeze as if the tiny fire too was cold and lonely. It cast long, flickering shadows that gilded the stone in gold and black. A lone young guard leaned against the wall beneath it, armored arms crossed, his face etched with boredom and half-sleep. Lorenzo whispered a song from the shadows.
“O Ranald, thief of fortune's hoard,
Whose shrine is found in broken boards,
By silent step and shadow's grace,
Let no man see my fleeting face.”
Two cats slinked out from the gloom; one white as snow, the other black as sin. They brushed past the guard's legs, then, without warning, began to yowl and hiss and claw. The startled guard jumped back, swearing, stumbling over his spear. One of the cats leapt at his knee, raking sharp claws across the fabric and drawing blood. The other darted between his feet, hissing. The felines scattered, tails high.
Lorenzo watched from the shadows as the guard stumbled away, muttering about wrappings. A flicker of green and gold stepped forward. The gate creaked open just enough for one man to slip through, like a breath from a dying man.
The gate whispered shut behind him. He did not look back. Above, the three ravens gave approving caws. Caw, caw, caw.
The road beyond the gate was soft with fallen leaves and the hush of the night. He made sure to keep to the edge of the path, his brown boots muffled by moss and mud. By the time he reached the Mander’s edge, the moon had risen higher, pale and watchful, casting a silver sheen across the black water. The current rolled lazily under the bridge, thick with mist. Frogs were croaking somewhere in the sea of reeds, and the trees along the bank stood like sentinels, veiled in shadows.
And he saw the light.
Flickering, faint, and low to the ground. A lantern swung gently from the edge of a skiff moored at a narrow dock hidden beneath the drooping limbs of a willow tree. The scent of fish and damp rope mingled with river mud and woodsmoke. A hunched figure sat on an upturned barrel, gutting a fat river trout with slow, practiced hands. The knife flashed dull silver in the lamplight beneath the eye of the moon.
“It is late,” Lorenzo said calmly as he approached.
The old man looked up, squinting through a thick tangle of brows and beard. He wore a tattered leather jerkin and smelled of river brine. One eye was milky-white; the other black and sharp as a hawk’s.
“What’s your business?” he rasped.
“I need passage,” Lorenzo said, voice gentle but firm. “Upriver. Tumbleton, if the gods are kind.”
The fisherman snorted. “And if they’re not?”
“Then I pray that fishermen are,” he said, managing a thin smile. “I can pay.”
He reached into his pouch and pulled free three silver stags. The old man studied it with the one good eye he had, spitting into the river. “Coin’s coin,” he grunted. “Get in, and keep your voice low. I don’t fancy company this late.”
Lorenzo stepped into the skiff, careful with his lute. The boat rocked gently underfoot as he settled onto a plank seat. The old man pushed off with a wooden pole, and the skiff slid into the slow current like a ghost slipping into a dream.
Behind them, Bitterbridge shrank into mist and moonlight, its towers lost behind a veil of willows. Ahead, the Mander stretched wide and black, carrying them away from lords and queens, from danger and courtly cages, from dreams filled with blood.
In truth, he knew little of what he would do once they reached the river’s end.
Tumbleton was a footnote in history. Once it was prosperous and noteworthy, now it was a mere shadow of its glory. When the news of King Renly’s death reached Bitterbridge, they would be sending riders to chase the blond-haired, green-eyed singer that Renly Baratheon bore suspicion towards, before his death. A rare grimace rolled across his lips. He wondered where Lucia was fleeing.
He was fleeing from suspicion. She would be labelled as kingslayer by the realm.
Myrmidia, guide her way.
Somehow, he doubted that Gunther and Andrei were suffering quite the same fate. The thought stirred the ghost of a smile; half-amused, half-bitter.
But there would be no refuge in Tumbleton. Not for long. No, he could not remain in the Reach at all. The Stormlands lay east, but Stannis Baratheon would soon hold them, if he did not already. King’s Landing would be under siege before the month was out, that was for sure. The Riverlands were ablaze with war, the Kingswood no safer than a battlefield, considering the brigands swarming it for a certainty.
The boat rocked gently, old wood creaking beneath him as the river carried them onward through a corridor of mist and moonlight. Lorenzo lay back on the narrow plank of the skiff, his cloak bunched beneath his head, the cool kiss of night dew clinging to his hair and sleeves. He wondered how Queen Margaery Tyrell would receive the news of her kingly husband’s death, the role that her iron shadow had to play at that, and the departure of her smiling bard. Lucia was truly not meant for this business of bodyguard. It has barely been a month, thought the singer, smiling. He wondered how Willas Tyrell would read the letter, from his quiet solar in Highgarden, bearing the word of betrayal and death and broken dreams.
It was a tragedy, he mused dispassionately. Like the many he had seen, sung, and shaped. A young king brought low. A queen left in mourning. And the ‘murderers’ fleeing under cover of night. It had the shape of a song already. A sad one, thought Lorenzo, like so many songs here. Jenny of Oldstones, Danny Flint…
His thoughts drifted like the current, the river whispering low secrets below him. The old man at the oars said nothing, his grimy gaze remained fixed on the water, steady as stone. Only the oars moved, dipping and rising again and again and again, guiding them northward. Where to go? What to do?
Lorenzo’s fingers ached to strum his lute, but he did not reach for it. Not yet.
He would decide at Tumbleton.
Notes:
Arya II: "A lion flies like a bird. A bird is seen as a lion."
Bran II: He saw the red hummingbird perched atop a black bridge. Its singing voice was low and mournful however, a litany of death and gloom. The bird raised its head at the coming of a storm, watching with bright green eyes. Before the rain descended upon the bridge, the bird flew away, and perched itself before pale dragonskulls.
And so, Lori's time with the Tyrells come to an end! Lorenzo's chapters are always a delight to write because of how beautiful everything becomes. Layered dialogue, political intrigue, lore and song... and well, strange powers. This is exactly how he is played on the table, singing songs to the Old World Gods and receiving or imparting certain blessings or effects. Shallya for healing, Myrmidia for a buff, Ranald for a debuff etc. Additionally, I hope that you do start to get the sense of a disquieting nature behind the charming smiles and smooth words of this singer, detached and aloof once you look past the looks and the language.
If anyone is curious about Lorenzo's stats in the campaign:
STR: 7(-2) PER: 14(+2) CON: 9(-1) CHA: 16(+3) INT: 18(+4) WIS: 12(+1) DEX: 8(-1) LCK: 16(+3)
Performance +7, Persuasion +8, Fortune +3Next chapter will be a bonus POV from a certain princess.
Chapter 84: The Princess of Dragonstone
Notes:
600 kudos! Thank you all for your continued support!
In light of that, the update after this chapter will be a little different. Soon, I will upload two chapters back to back, two different POVs of the same significant event happening at once. Not a hard guess for what it will be :) Keep an eye out!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The rain whispered against the leaded glass of Maester Cressen’s solar, a soft and steady sound that seemed to hush even the crackling of the hearth. Shireen Baratheon sat curled in the window seat, her hands folded primly in her lap, though one finger toyed absently with a loose thread in her sleeve. The heavy tome between them was open to the fierce figure of Aegon the Conqueror, his black armor etched with red fire, Balerion's great wings looming behind him like a heavy storm cloud.
"Was the Aegonfort really so small?" she asked, peering over the image to Maester Cressen. His face, creased with age and long worry, softened at the question.
"It is said so," he replied, his voice gentle, smiling warmly. "It began as a motte-and-bailey fort on the top of Aegon's High Hill, at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush. It was quickly replaced with a new log keep with walls fifty feet high and a cavernous longhall below it. As the Aegonfort grew in size and mouths, it gained a barracks, an armory, a sept, and a drum tower within its palisade.”
She nodded solemnly, her fingers tightening around the book’s edge. Across the room, Patchface sat cross-legged on the floor, silent for once, his bells still. The jester’s painted face was half-shadowed by the firelight, and he stared at nothing at all. That, more than anything, unsettled her. “And the Iron Throne?”
“Installed in the smoky longhall,” Cressen explained. “Five-and-thirty years after the conquest, Aegon had the fort torn down, and in its place, the Red Keep was born.”
“Why was the land never occupied before?” Shireen was curious.
Cressen smiled. “A good question. Fertile land by the river, forests closeby, tall hills to watch the land from. Highly strategic. Why would it not be occupied?”
“It was,” she realised. “It was fought over.”
The maester nodded. “The land was claimed by both the Storm King of Storm’s End, and the King of the Isle and the Rivers. Long before them, during the days of the Hundred Kingdoms, the mouth of the Blackwater Rush was claimed by many petty kings. The Darklyns of Duskendale, the Masseys of Stonedance, various river kings. Oh, towers and forts crowned those three hills many times, but all had been destroyed in various wars and skirmishes, set aflame, sacked and forgotten.”
That made her sad. “Until Aegon.”
“Until Aegon,” the maester agreed. “Only broken stones and overgrown ruins remained when he led his army from Dragonstone and landed on the north bank of the Blackwater Rush, two years before his conquest. Then and there, he found a handful of fisherfolk in a small village. Not a grand start for a conquest.”
Her father was following in the Conqueror’s footsteps; sailing from Dragonstone with an army. But he doesn’t have dragons. “What about Dragonstone?”
“Dragonstone?”
“The Valyrians took it two hundred years before the Doom,” she recalled. “It was the westernmost outpost of the Freehold, but they never reached further west.”
“Ah,” Maester Cressen was stroking his wispy white beard, pondering. “That is a fascinating point. No men alive knows the reason, for true. The Black Dread was the last living thing to see Valyria. There are theories, princess, and just that.”
“Tell me,” she said eagerly.
“Do you recall the Fourteen Flames?”
An immense chain of volcanoes extending across the peninsula, with deep mines below them. It was their fires that lit the Valyrian Freehold’s nights of old. “I do.”
“The Valyrians found dragons lairing in them. That was when their power began. They believed that the dragons were the children of the volcanoes.”
“And Dragonstone…”
He nodded. “Some of the Citadel believe that the Valyrians took Dragonstone for the Dragonmont. During the Dance of the Dragons, six wild dragons made their lairs in the smoky caverns there. Some maesters theorise that the Valyrians wished to seize the volcanoes of the seas around them, for their dragons.”
“And others?”
“They used the island for a trading outpost,” the maester reminded. “Strategic and strong, it controls the Gullet and Blackwater Bay. And whoever can control the seas can control the coast, and the ports. As for why they never expanded beyond Dragonstone, it might have to do with how they saw the Westerosi of the time; poor, primitive, belligerent. They could have came with dragonfire and magic, but what would they reap from their seeds of fire and blood? The real work of conquest comes not from bloodshed, but from administration. If we look at the cities that belonged to the Valyrians, we can see a tale. Volantis and Tyrosh were military outposts. Myr and Pentos were founded by merchants, Lys was a pleasure retreat.”
“The other four were not by them,” she recalled.
“No,” Cressen agreed. “Lorath, Norvos, and Qohor were founded by religious refugees. We know well the tale of Braavos.”
She nodded vigorously. The maester smiled at her and continued. “Other cities founded or conquered were governed by archons from Valyria. The bigger an empire, the harder it is to administer its furthest reaches. If the Valyrians had conquered Westeros, or at least large swathes of it, specific dragonlords would have been sent to administer them.”
“Whoever does so would be far away from their home,” she realised.
“Exiled,” the maester offered. “Far from their slaves and fire mounts. Of course, princess, this is just the wool-gathering of old maesters. None can say for sure what the Valyrians thought.”
“Other than the Valyrians themselves.” She had some distant, diluted drop of their blood within her. Her grandfather’s mother was Queen Rhaelle Targaryen. “Why did the Targaryens never look east then?”
“That we have more records of,” the maester said, looking at her shrewdly. He wanted her to answer her own query.
“Their dragons were limited. Aegon and his direct descendants were struggling with rebellions and other wars. And they only had so many dragons. The Dance decimated most of them.”
“Indeed,” he nodded, pleased. “Dorne’s resistance was always a thorn that could not be ignored in full. The loyalty of the conquered, bar the Tullys and Tyrells, were dubious and tenuous. Conquering is easy. Ruling is harder. Besides, how many of the Westerosi would be willing to sail across the Narrow Sea to die for Targaryen ambitions?”
“Few.”
“And if they did, all of the Free Cities would rally into an alliance. That is no easy foe to conquer. The ships of Braavos and Volantis, sellswords hired by Myr, Tyrosh, and Pentos. The bearded priests of Norvos. The smiths of Qohor. One should remember that the Valyrians expanded over decades and centuries, and they did so with magic, armies, and dragons. No man today can conquer the east.”
Shireen had little to offer in response. As they settled into a comfortable silence, she spared a glance for Patchface, sullen and silent. "He’s quiet today," she whispered.
Cressen’s eyes flicked toward the fool. "Even fools have their silences."
He was not silent often, but when he was, Shireen misliked that. Patches had a way of looking at you when he was quiet that made her shiver. There was an intensity in his eyes, accented by the motley green and red on his face. “Maester, I-”
Then, suddenly, Patchface began to tremble. A low hum buzzed in his throat, rising and falling like a dirge. His hands jerked like puppets on tangled strings, and then he sprang to his feet, bells jangling wildly.
"Under the sea, the first king dies!" he sang, voice shrill, eyes mad. "The stag is slain and the sun is bleeding, oh, oh, oh! The rainbow falls, and all is red, all is dark beneath the waves!"
Shireen gasped, shrinking back. Patchface spun in a mad circle, arms flailing, his song trailing into cracked laughter. For a moment, he saw her. He smiled at her, wide and crooked and mad. “Oh, oh, oh,” he sang softly, crawling forward on hands and knees. “I saw her in the flames, all dressed in black ash. Her eyes were smoke, her crown was fire, and all around her, dragons sang.”
Shireen froze, heart thudding. Cressen stepped quickly between them, but Patchface only tilted his head and kept singing. “Sulphur in the sky, smoke in her breath… she dances with the fire and sings unto death, oh, oh, oh.”
The maester’s voice was suddenly strong and harsh. “Enough.”
Patchface fell silent, his mouth still open in a toothy grin, eyes gleaming with something before he crumpled back to the floor with a thud, eyes wide and empty.
A silence followed.
Cressen’s brow was deeply furrowed, but before he could speak, there was a sharp knock at the door. A pale-faced servant entered with a scroll clutched in his hand.
“From … from Storm’s End, Maester.”
The maester took the scroll with steady hands, though his fingers tightened as he broke the seal. Shireen watched his eyes move across the parchment. Her heart was pounding. Either her father had sent that letter from Storm’s End, or…
Cressen was blinking, as if he did not understand the words. She had never seen him so shaken and confused. He looked like his years had caught onto him all at once. Shireen shrank deeper into the window seat, her hands tightening in her lap. “Maester?” She asked, her voice small and shaky. “Is … is father …”
He didn’t answer at first. His rheumy eyes were locked on the parchment, lips pressed in a thin line. Rain tapped softly at the windowpane behind her like a thousand watery fingers, but it sounded distant now. He tried to smile. “Your father has sent us this letter. He has taken Storm’s End. He is alive and well.”
Relief fluttered in her heart. “Then…”
Cressen looked at her mournfully. “Your uncle, Renly, has died.”
Her mouth parted, but no words came. The last she saw him, he was bright and golden in his green armor. Her father couldn’t have slain him. Right?
“How?” Renly was king, she understood that, with the largest in the army in the realm. The Tyrells had sworn to him, as did most of the Stormlands.
“Your father writes that … he was reportedly slain by two women. Guards he had kept close to him. A foreigner, and … and Brienne of Tarth.”
“Tarth?” A Stormlander?
Cressen’s hands were trembling, the yellowed parchment shaking like a leaf in the wind. She rose from her seat and took it from him, guiding him to the bench. He had raised all three of the Baratheon brothers; her father, King Robert, and Renly. They were both silent after that, with the rain at their back, crashing heavily against the window. Cressen had his gaze fixed on the fire, but she saw only Patches crumpled on the floor. Under the sea, the first king dies, he had sung.
Her own hands were shivering. The maester did not notice. His face was pale, his eyes boring holes into the dancing fire, and he was weeping. Shireen took his wrinkled, frail hand. With her other hand, she clutched at the letter and read it in full.
Shireen, Cressen, the letter was addressed bluntly, in the way her father preferred.
Storm’s End has come again to rightful hands. The castle yielded following a duel, demanded by Ser Cortnay Penrose, and won by Andrei Yeltska. You are familiar with Lord Stark’s swornsword, Ser Davos tells me. Renly is dead. He was slain in his camp the night before we were supposed to battle, by a foreign woman and this Brienne of Tarth. The tale of how it happened is strange but the matter is ended. I am sending three noble guests to Dragonstone. Lady Catelyn Stark who came to pledge the fealty of the North and Riverlands, Edric Storm, and Ser Loras Tyrell. Ensure that proper chambers are made ready, and they are treated with respect.
Remain obedient to Cressen’s guidance and continue your lessons. I will return when duty allows, and the throne has been won.
Notes:
A shorter chapter to check in on Dragonstone and its little princess. For those of you who guessed Myrcella, she will have her own little bonus chapter soon enough as well. It's always hard to write child characters, but Shireen was surprisingly easy for me.
Chapter 85: Tyrion V
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Myrcella Baratheon was a princess born, dignified and demure.
Baratheon, Tyrion reminded himself, though she wore the smile that Jaime oft liked to shine. The princess did not weep. Her smile was a shade troubled as she faded away on the deck of the Seaswift, but she knew well the proper words to say, and she said them with courage and dignity. When the time came to depart, it was sweet Tommen who cried, and Myrcella who comforted him with a kind kiss.
Tyrion looked down upon the farewells and the tears from the high deck of King Robert’s Hammer, a great war galley of four hundred oars. Rob’s Hammer, as her hoary oarsmen called her, would form the main strength of Myrcella’s escort. Lionstar, Bold Wind, and Lady Lyanna would sail with her as well.
It made Tyrion more than a little uneasy to detach so great a part of their already inadequate fleet, depleted as it was by the loss of all those ships that had sailed with Lord Stannis to Dragonstone and never returned, but Cersei would hear of nothing less. Perhaps she was wise. If the girl were captured before she reached Sunspear, the Dornish alliance would fall to pieces. Neutrality more like. So far Doran Martell had done no more than call his banners. Once Myrcella was safe in Braavos, he had pledged to move his strength to the high passes, where the threat might make some of the Marcher lords rethink their loyalties. It was purely a feint, however. The Martells would not commit to actual battle unless Dorne itself were attacked.
We are paying the price of a princess for a feint, Tyrion wondered. He shook his head, clearing his throat. “You know your orders, Captain.”
“I do, my lord. We are to follow the coast, staying always in sight of land, until we reach Crackclaw Point. From there, we are to strike out across the narrow sea for Braavos. On no account are we to sail within sight of Dragonstone.”
“And if our foes should chance upon you nonetheless?”
“If a single ship, we are to run them off or destroy them. If there are more, the Bold Wind will cleave to the Seaswift to protect her while the rest of the fleet does battle.”
Tyrion nodded. If the worst happened, the little Seaswift ought to be able to outrun pursuit. A small ship with big sails, she was faster than any warship afloat, or so her captain had claimed. Once Myrcella reached Braavos, she ought to be safe. He was sending Ser Preston Greenfield as her sworn shield, and had engaged the Braavosi to bring her the rest of the way to Sunspear. Along with the two, he was sending Augus Telares, the pale-faced banker who had come on the bank’s behalf.
“The city will soon be under siege,” he told the dour Braavosi. “Should we win against Stannis and the Starks, then know that House Lannister will pay its debts.”
“And should you not?”
“Well,” he shrugged, “then it shall be Stannis’ trouble.”
Even Lord Stannis would hesitate to wake the anger of the greatest and most powerful of the Free Cities. Traveling from King’s Landing to Dorne by way of Braavos was scarcely the most direct of routes, but it was the safest ... or so he hoped. Tyrion glanced back to where the Rush emptied out into Blackwater Bay and was relieved to see no signs of sails on the wide green horizon.
At last report, Stannis’ fleet was sailing northwards, and his army had marched from Storm’s End. Meanwhile, Tyrion’s winch towers stood three-quarters complete. Even now, men were hoisting heavy blocks of stone into place, no doubt cursing him for making them work through the festivities. Let them curse, he thought, so long as they work. Give me another fortnight, that is all I require.
Tyrion watched his royal niece kneel before the High Septon to receive his blessing on her voyage. Sunlight caught in his crystal crown and spilled rainbows across Myrcella’s upturned face. She was a sweet girl, truly, with all of her mother’s beauty and none of her vicious, vile heart. The noise from the riverside made it impossible to hear the prayers. He hoped the gods had sharper ears than he. How hard can it be? The High Septon was as fat as a house, and more pompous and long of wind than even Pycelle. Enough, old man, make an end to it, Tyrion thought irritably. The gods have better things to do than listen to you, and so do I.
When at last the droning was done, Tyrion bid farewell to the captain of Rob’s Hammer. “Deliver my niece safely to Braavos, and there will be a knighthood waiting for you on your return,” he promised. If there is anything to return to.
As he made his way down the steep plank to the quay, Tyrion could feel unkind eyes upon him, starving ones. The galley rocked gently and the movement underfoot made his waddle worse than ever. I’ll wager they’d love to snigger. No one dared, not openly, though he heard mutterings mingled with the creak of wood and rope and the rush of the river around the pilings. They love me not, he thought. Well, small wonder. I’m well fed and ugly, and they are starving.
He could not care too much at the moment for the smallfolk’s displeasure. There were other ghosts wailing in his head, screaming of schemes. Three nights ago, Rennifer Longwaters, the chief undergaoler, was found in a slumber that could not be woken. Pycelle’s assistants had taken a long look at the man, sniffled and sputtered like a sick hen, and named the drug used: sweetsleep.
Next to the silent gaoler, two cell doors had been swung wide open. All the other gaolers were pale and slumbering eternally, a red slash across their throats. Varys, ever helpful and ever trembling, had brought Tyrion the names of those who were meant to be there. Now they were only dust and dung in the dark.
“The first and, mayhaps, most prominent was a Braavosi mummer,” the eunuch had said, hands fluttering like frightened birds. “Lady Lemon, she called herself. She was performing a play about a wicked queen and an evil king … the crowd adored the play. The City Watch not so.”
“Royce men-at-arms, three of them,” Varys went on. “Left behind by Lord Yohn Royce to observe and report. They were found in a tavern near the Muddy Way, asking pointed questions. Some say they meant to defect to Lord Stannis.”
There were others, too; bards with seditious verses, smiths who cursed the gold cloaks, merchants who muttered too freely. Seven-and-ten in all, vanished in the night, ghosts now. Keys had gone missing. Two guards were unaccounted for. And upon the cold stonewall of the empty cells, carved in bold jagged strokes:
You cage us, but antlers can break iron.
That had been enough to set the Red Keep into a fury. That was not the only trouble Varys had for him, much to Tyrion’s displeasure.
“Food has gone missing in the cellars,” the Spider told him, tittering nervously. “Nothing worrying, my lord, but a few dozen barrels and crates and kegs. My birds tell me that, in Flea Bottom, the poor had woken up to food and drink, with antlers carved in wood.”
Tyrion thought it was worrying.
Cersei was furious. She wanted the dungeons scoured, the City Watch whipped, the keys melted down and the gold cloaks doubled. She ordered a hundred armed men into Flea Bottom to hunt for the fugitives, until Tyrion stayed her hand. The food must be in the belly of the poor by now, he reminded her, and if the gold cloaks barge into houses, again, to steal food from the starving, then the city will burn. He had wondered what her locking of the city had resembled when Ned Stark fled, and he saw a glimpse now. The guard on the royal apartments was doubled again, then tripled. Every torchlit corridor bristled with mailed men, grim-faced and sleep-starved. Half the castle’s staff had been dismissed or confined. Wine-tasters were brought back. All the food was now sealed, counted, and watched.
It was not only her. Mandon Moore suggested torturing the remaining prisoners. Ser Meryn grumbled that the Kingsguard should hang a rebel a day.
Bronn escorted him through the crowd to join his sister and her sons. Cersei ignored him, preferring to lavish her smiles on their cousin. He watched her charming Lancel with eyes as green as the rope of emeralds around her slim white throat, and smiled a small sly smile to himself. I know your secret, Cersei, he thought. His sister had oft called upon the High Septon of late, to seek the blessings of the gods in their coming struggle with Stannis Baratheon ... or so she would have him believe. In truth, after a brief call at the Great Sept of Baelor, Cersei would don a plain brown traveler’s cloak and steal off to meet a certain hedge knight with the unlikely name of Ser Osmund Kettleblack, and his equally unsavory brothers Osney and Osfryd.
Lancel had told him all about them. Cersei meant to use the Kettleblacks to buy her own force of sellswords.
Well, let her enjoy her plots. She was much sweeter when she thought she was outwitting him. The Kettleblacks would charm her, take her coin, and promise her anything she asked, and why not, when Bronn was matching every copper penny, coin for coin? Amiable rogues all three, the brothers were in truth much more skilled at deceit than they’d ever been at bloodletting. Cersei had managed to buy herself three hollow drums; they would make all the fierce booming sounds she required, but there was nothing inside. It amused Tyrion no end.
Horns blew fanfares as Lionstar and Lady Lyanna pushed out from shore, moving downriver to clear the way for Seaswift. A few cheers went up from the crush along the banks, as thin and ragged as the clouds scuttling overhead. Myrcella smiled and waved from the deck. Behind her stood Preston Greenfield, his white cloak streaming. For a princess’ protector, Tyrion thought he looked rather plain.
The captain ordered lines cast off, and oars pushed the Seaswift out into the lusty current of the Blackwater Rush, where her sails blossomed in the wind; common white sails like sheets of snow, as Tyrion had insisted, not sheets of Lannister crimson. Prince Tommen sobbed. “You mew like a suckling babe,” his brother hissed at him. “Princes aren’t supposed to cry.”
“The Dragonknight cried the day Princess Naerys wed his brother Aegon,” Sansa Stark said quietly. “As if she were being fed to a dragon.”
Tyrion wanted to smile. No, she was only wed to a monster, like you.
“Be quiet, or I’ll feed you to a lion,” Joffrey told his betrothed. Tyrion glanced at his sister, but Cersei was engrossed in something Ser Balon Swann was telling her. Can she truly be so blind as to what he is? he wondered.
Out on the river, Bold Wind unshipped her oars and glided downstream in the wake of Seaswift. Last came King Robert’s Hammer, the might of the royal fleet ... or what was left of it. Tyrion had chosen the ships with care, avoiding any whose captains might be of doubtful loyalty, according to Varys ... but as Varys himself was of doubtful loyalty, a certain amount of apprehension remained. I rely too much on Varys, he reflected. I need my own informers, but how? Not that I’d trust them either. Trust would get you killed.
He wondered again about their aged Master of Coins. There had been no word from Gyles Rosby since he had ridden off for Bitterbridge, coughing all the way. Even Varys could not say, merely suggesting that he might have met some misfortune on the road. Tyrion had snorted in derision. “Master of Coin he may be, but he rode with little coin and a good guard, who would rob him?”
“The Stranger,” Varys had tittered. That, Tyrion could agree. The poor old man had a foot in the grave, even before Cersei made him her primary tax collector.
The little fleet of four was well out into the bay when Cersei indicated that it was time to go. Bronn brought Tyrion’s horse and helped him mount. That was Podrick Payne’s task, but they had left young, nervous Pod back at the Red Keep. The gaunt sellsword made for a much more reassuring presence than the shy boy would have.
The narrow streets were lined by gold cloaks, holding back the murmuring crowd with the shafts of their spears. Ser Jacelyn Bywater went in front, heading a wedge of mounted lancers in black ringmail and golden cloaks. Behind him came Ser Aron Santagar and Ser Balon Swann, bearing the king’s banners, the proud lion of Lannister and crowned stag of Baratheon.
King Joffrey followed on a tall grey palfrey, a golden crown set upon his golden curls. Sansa Stark rode a chestnut mare at his side, looking neither right nor left, her thick auburn hair flowing to her shoulders beneath a net of moonstones. She wore a gown of white and grey, and her face was calm. Ser Mandon Moore rode on the king’s right hand, and the poor girl was unguarded. That was unwise, lamented Tyrion.
Next came Tommen, snuffling and weepy-eyed, with Ser Boros Blount in his white armor and cloak, and then Cersei, accompanied by Ser Lancel and protected by Meryn Trant. Tyrion fell in with his sister. He wondered if the Kingsguard had ever been so pitiful. Ser Barristan dismissed, Jaime captured, Arys Oakheart comatose, Preston Greenfield sent away like a common guard. Moore was a good killer, Meryn Trant a passing swordsman, but Blount was worse than useless.
Robert must be laughing, lamented the Imp.
After them followed the High Septon in his shining litter, and a long tail of other courtiers; Ser Horas Redwyne, Lady Tanda and her daughter, Jalabhar Xho, and the rest. A double column of gold guardsmen brought up the rear.
The unwashed and unkempt stared at them with growing hatred, seething. Even behind the line of spears, he could see the unshaven faces lined with filth and sweat and hunger. He liked the stares not. Bronn had a score of sellswords scattered through the crowd with orders to stop any trouble before it started. Perhaps Cersei had similarly disposed her Kettleblacks. Somehow, Tyrion did not think it would help much. If a flooding river were coming, you could hardly stop the tide by sticking a few thin sticks of rotten wood onto the ground.
They crossed Fishmonger’s Square and rode along Muddy Way before turning onto the narrow, curving Hook to begin their climb up Aegon’s High Hill. He could see the Red Keep from here. In the light of day, the crimson bricks seemed to glow with old, dull blood. Tyrion suppressed the growing grimace on his face.
A few voices raised a cry of “ Joffrey! All hail, all hail! ” as the young king rode by, but for every man who picked up the shout, a dozen kept their silence, and a hundred were glaring. The Lannisters moved through a sea of ragged men and hungry women, breasting a tide of sullen eyes. Just ahead of him, Cersei was laughing at something Lancel had said, though he suspected her merriment was feigned. She could not be oblivious to the unrest around them, but his sister always believed in putting on the brave show. That, at least, he agreed with.
Tyrion pulled his horse to a halt, nostrils flaring as he surveyed the road ahead. The procession had slowed, the rhythm of hooves and creaking wheels faltering like a drumbeat gone awry. The chanting washed over them; low, melodic, and almost hypnotic at first, then rising into something sharper and more defiant. Then it rose, a wave of grief and fury and sorrow all at once.
“Justice for Robert! Weep for Renly! The Seven see! The Seven remember!”
The mourners thronged the street in robes of pale gray and faded white, their faces hidden beneath hoods or streaked with ash. Septon’s staffs pounded the cobbles in time with their songs, and some were sobbing, weeping bitter tears.
“Robert?” Cersei reined in with a sharp jerk, her lips twisted. “They speak of a traitor’s name too, they dare?”
They do, Tyrion thought, watching the crowd. The chants were rippling, picked up by others; some loudly, some half-heartedly, others with eyes cast down in fear even as they mouthed the words. It was all too convenient, like a mummer’s farce.
“Justice for Good King Robert! Slain before his time!” The people remembered Robert. Not the drunken brute, nor the bloated king, but the hero of the Trident, the young rebel with the warhammer and the wild grin. And now they remembered Renly too, young and bright and handsome. He was starving you, you fools.
“Do something,” Cersei snapped. Lancel said nothing, his face had gone ashen as the ashes worn by the mourners.
“If we cut through them, we’ll make a martyr of every fool in a robe,” Tyrion said coolly. “And your precious Joffrey will ride to court over corpses, with the whole city watching. A king who spills blood on a funeral path does not win love.”
“And what does he win?” Cersei spat.
A riot, he wanted to say, but a wailing woman had forced her way between two watchmen and run out into the street in front of the king and his companions, holding the corpse of her dead baby above her head. It was blue and swollen, grotesque, but the real horror was the mother’s eyes. The chanting had grown quiet.
Joffrey looked for a moment as if he meant to ride her down, but Sansa Stark leaned over and said something to him. Tyrion was amazed. Perhaps the Starks can work magic after all… The king fumbled in his purse and flung the woman a silver stag. The coin bounced off the child and rolled away, under the legs of the gold cloaks and into the crowd, where a dozen men began to fight for it. The mother never once blinked. Her skinny arms were trembling from the dead weight of her son.
Mayhaps not.
“Leave her, Your Grace,” Cersei called out to the king, “she’s beyond our help, poor thing.”
The mother heard her. Somehow, the queen’s voice cut through the woman’s ravaged wits. Her slack face twisted in loathing. “Whore!” she shrieked. “Kingslayer’s whore! Brotherfucker!” Her dead child dropped from her arms like a sack of flour as she pointed at Cersei. “Brotherfucker brotherfucker brotherfucker.”
Tyrion never saw who threw the dung. He only heard Sansa’s gasp and Joffrey’s bellowed curse, and when he turned his head, the king was wiping brown filth from his cheek. There was more caked in his golden hair and spattered over Sansa’s legs. The girl seemed more horrified by the look on Joffrey’s face.
“Who threw that?” Joffrey screamed. He pushed his fingers into his hair, made a furious face, and flung away another handful of dung. “I want the man who threw that!” he shouted. “A hundred golden dragons to the man who gives him up.”
“He was up there!” someone shouted from the crowd. The king wheeled his horse in a circle to survey the rooftops and open balconies above them, rage plain in his eyes. In the crowd, people were pointing, shoving, and cursing one another and the king. A sudden madness has gripped the heart of a hundred.
“Please, Your Grace, let him go,” Sansa pleaded. Please, Tyrion thought as well.
The king paid her no heed. “Bring me the man who flung that filth!” Joffrey commanded. “He’ll lick it off me or I’ll have his head. Moore, you bring him here!”
Obedient as only a mindless mongrel could, Mandon Moore swung down from his saddle, but there was no way through that wall of flesh, let alone to the roof. Those closest to him began to squirm and shove to get away, while others pushed forward to see. Tyrion smelled disaster. “Moore, leave off, the man is long fled.”
“I want him!” Joffrey pointed at the roof. “He was up there! Cut through them and bring—”
A thunder of sound was drowning his words, a rolling thunder of rage and fear and hatred that came from all sides.
“Bastard!” someone screamed, “bastard monster!”
Other voices flung calls of “Whore” and “Brotherfucker” at the queen, while Tyrion was pelted with shouts of “Freak ” and “Halfman”. He did not mind the shouts as much as he did the stones and the dung. Mixed in with the abuse, he heard a few cries of “Justice”, “Murder”, and “Stannis”. With Renly dead and Joffrey here, the only name left to call for was Stannis.
The middle of the Baratheon brothers was never well-loved. Here, his name was roared by the masses. “Stark,” some were shouting as well. “Baratheon,” many others took up the call. Lannister was less loved.
From both sides of the street, the crowd surged against the spear shafts while the gold cloaks struggled to hold the line. Stones and dung and fouler things whistled overhead. He saw a stone crash against the helm of a guard, dung splatter over the breastplate of another, and a knife found itself in the visor of a third. “Feed us!” a woman shrieked. “Bread!” boomed a man behind her. “We want bread, bastard!” In a heartbeat, a thousand voices took up the chant, hoarse and hoary and hateful.
King Stannis was forgotten, and King Bread ruled alone. “Bread,” they roared, “bread, bread, bread!”
Tyrion spurred his panicking mount to his sister’s side, yelling, “Back to the Keep, now.”
Cersei gave a curt nod, and Ser Lancel unsheathed his sword with a hiss of steel, his hand was trembling. Ahead of the column, Ser Jacelyn Bywater bellowed commands, his voice rising above the chant and clamor. “Form wedge! Ride them down!” His riders kicked their mounts forward, lances lowering with grim finality, steel tips gleaming in the light. The formation surged ahead, smashing into the line of mourners like a thunderclap. Men and women scattered with screams, but too slowly. The first to fall was a boy with a wooden stag tied to his back; the iron-shod hooves crushed his ribs like dry kindling.
Joffrey’s palfrey spun in place, neighing shrill protest. The king yanked at the reins in panic, wheeling in anxious circles while the crowd surged too close. Hands reached past the gold cloaks, clawing for him; some to touch, others to pull down. One grimy hand seized his leg, nails digging into the silk. Tyrion saw it all in a frozen heartbeat, then Ser Mandon Moore’s blade came down in a blinding white blur. There was a sudden spray of red, a severed hand spinning through the air like a grotesque leaf, and a scream swallowed by the roar of the mob.
“Ride!” Tyrion shouted, slapping Joffrey’s horse hard across the rump. The beast reared with a shriek of its own, hooves flailing. It came down hard and charged forward, scattering people like chaff. The line broke. Tyrion spurred after him, gripping the saddle so tightly his knuckles went white.
Bronn kept pace on his right, sword in hand, the blade already slick with blood. A jagged rock whistled past Tyrion’s head, and then a rotten cabbage burst against Ser Mandon’s shield in a sour explosion of slime. The man to Tyrion’s left cried out, a sharp, wet crack, and toppled from the saddle, a bloodied stone embedded in his temple. The crowd surged over him, boots stomping, slipping, kicking.
To the left, five gold cloaks were swallowed beneath the rush. Tyrion caught glimpses; one screaming as a pitchfork punched through his gut, another pulled down by ten hands, stabbing him again and again with jagged bits of wood and broken glass. The others simply vanished beneath the grotesque tide.
He saw Ser Aron Santagar dragged from his horse, clawing to hold the Baratheon banner high. Fingers filthy tore it from him. The stag sigil disappeared beneath trampling feet, the fine velvet ripped apart like flesh. A pale hand shot upward from the sea of bodies, writhing, and then stilled, disappearing from sight. “Hold the line!” Bywater roared somewhere behind, but his voice was lost in the maelstrom.
Ser Balon Swann let the Lannister lion fall. The banner dipped, caught briefly on a spear, then tore free and drifted away in crimson shreds, carried on the wind like blood-soaked leaves. He drew his longsword and began to carve a path through the press, each swing brutal, each step forward bought in screams and blood.
Someone staggered in front of Joffrey’s galloping horse, a smear of movement and flesh, and the king rode him down without slowing. Tyrion could not say if it had been a man, woman, or child. He only heard the crack of brittle bone beneath hooves, the shriek cut short.
Joffrey was beside him now, face as pale as milk, jaw clenched and eyes wild. Ser Mandon flanked him like a specter in white, sword raised, helm red with spray.
The world was thunder, screams and steel and shouts. The wail of wounded horses was all, and the crunch of boots on bone. The stench of sweat, fear, and ruptured bowels filled Tyrion’s nose. And through it all, louder than the chaos, louder even than the dying, was the sound of his own breathing and the pounding of hooves, each beat a hammer blow against the brittle shell of order.
And suddenly the madness was behind them and they were clattering across the cobbled square that fronted on the castle barbican. A line of grim spearmen held the gates. Ser Jacelyn was wheeling his lances around for another charge. The spears parted to let the king’s party pass under the portcullis. Pale red walls loomed up about them, reassuringly high and aswarm with flocks of crossbowmen. The Red Keep had never brought him so much comfort as it did then.
Tyrion did not recall dismounting. Ser Mandon was helping the shaken king off his horse when Cersei, Tommen, and Lancel rode through the gates with Ser Meryn and close behind. There was blood smeared along his blade and his white cloak had been torn from his back. Ser Balon Swann rode in missing his helm, his mount lathered and bleeding at the mouth, and he was panting heavily. Horas Redwyne brought in Lady Tanda, half crazed with fear for her daughter Lollys, who had been knocked from the saddle and left behind. Jalabhar Xho stammered out a tale of seeing the High Septon spilled from his litter, screeching prayers as the crowd swept over him, and that Boros Blount was ripped from his mount, braying.
Tyrion was dimly aware of a maester asking if he was injured. He pushed his way across the yard to where his nephew stood, his dung-encrusted crown askew. “Traitors,” Joffrey was babbling excitedly, “I’ll have all their heads, I’ll-”
The dwarf slapped his red face so hard the crown flew from Joffrey’s head. Then he shoved him with both hands and knocked him sprawling. “You blind bloody fool.”
“They were traitors,” Joffrey squealed pitifully from the ground. “They called me names and attacked me!”
“You ordered their deaths! They threw dung at you and you commanded their limbs to be chopped off, what did you imagine they would do? Bend the knee and stretch their necks out? You spoiled witless fool, you’ve killed dozens, hundreds, and yet you are unscratched. Damn you! ” And he kicked him.
Kicking a king felt good. He might have done more, but Moore pulled him off as Joffrey howled, and then Bronn was there to take him in hand. Cersei was kneeling over her son, while Ser Balon Swann restrained Lancel.
Tyrion wrenched free of Bronn’s grip. “How many are still out there?” he shouted to no one and everyone.
“My daughter,” cried Lady Tanda. “Please, someone … Lollys ...”
“Ser Boros is not returned,” Meryn Trant reported with a dour face, “nor Aron Santagar.”
Tyrion had seen him drowned in flesh.
“Nor Wet Nurse,” said Ser Horas Redwyne, pale and trembling. That was the mockery that the other squires draped on young Tyrek Lannister. Tyrion felt his heart sour at that. The city had no love for Lannisters, even ones who were just children.
Tyrion glanced around the yard, eyes darting from face to face, counting banners and limbs, horses and men, but seeing none of what he sought. “Where’s the Stark girl?” he demanded, voice hoarse from dust and shouting.
A silence fell like a sudden snowfall, smothering the noise of hooves and clanking armor. For a long heartbeat, no one answered. Finally Joffrey said, “She was riding by me. I don’t know where she went.”
Tyrion felt the breath catch in his throat. He pressed his fingers hard into his throbbing temples, trying to stave off the panic rising like bile in his chest. The mob would not spare Sansa Stark for her high birth or gentle face. If she'd been pulled down in that sea of hunger and hatred, they would have torn her like wolves at a fawn. If she had come to harm, his brother was as good as dead. The northmen would treat him with even more savagery than the hungry mob could.
“Ser Mandon,” Tyrion snapped, turning to the white knight still streaked in red, “you were riding beside her.”
Ser Mandon Moore looked as calm and vacant as ever, like a statue carved of snow. “My duty lies first with the king.”
“And rightly so,” Cersei came in. “Meryn, go back and find the girl.”
“And my daughter,” Lady Tanda sobbed, though none were even glancing at her. “Please, sers … I beg …”
Ser Meryn did not seem eager to delve into the maw of the mob. “Your Grace … our white cloaks might enrage the mob.”
Tyrion had enough. “The Others take your fucking cloaks! Cut them off if you’re afraid of what they show! Find me Sansa Stark, or I will have your head.”
Ser Meryn went red. “You dare?” He started to raise the bloody sword still clutched in his mailed fist. Bronn shoved Tyrion unceremoniously behind him.
“Enough!” Cersei snapped. “Trant, you’ll do as you’re bid, or you’ll lose those cloaks anyways. Your oath-”
A shrill whistle cut through the clamor in the yard, sharp as a knife. Hooves clattered on stone and a slim horse pushed through at a trot.
The horse was dust-caked and lathered with sweat, flanks heaving, but atop it sat two riders. Tyrek Lannister was ahorse, helm askew and hair wild, eyes scanning the yard like a hunted thing. His cloak was torn and shredded, one side drenched in someone else's blood. He looked as though he’d ridden through a battlefield, and perhaps he had.
Behind him, cradled before the saddle like a bundle of snow, rode Sansa Stark.
Tyrion froze.
She wore the same grey and white robes she had donned that morning. Now, the fabric was streaked with grime and ash, yet the girl was sat tall and composed with a straight back and distant eyes. Her auburn hair had come loose in the wind, and the strands hung across her face like pale fire, but she did not brush them aside. Her hands rested gently on her lap, and she was unharmed.
Lady Tanda approached them. “Lollys … have you … have you …”
Young Tyrek did not even seem to hear her. The boy was still looking around, dazed and frightful. Sansa had dismounted gracefully and took the maddened mother by the hand, whispering calmly in her ear. Before Tyrion could say a thing, a voice screamed down from atop the barbican.
“Fire! My lords, there’s smoke in the city. Flea Bottom’s afire.”
Tyrion was exhausted, but he found no time for despair. “Bronn, take as many men as you need and see that the water wagons are not molested.”
He remembered the wildfire. If any blaze should reach that…
“We can lose all of Flea Bottom if we must, but on no account must the fire reach the Guildhall of the Alchemists, is that understood? Trant, go with him.”
Tyrion turned to the sole remaining knight of the Kingsguard. “Ride escort with a herald. Command the people to return to their homes. Any man found on the streets after the fall of the sun will be slain.”
The order would grant little love, but Tyrion did not care.
“My place is beside the king,” Ser Mandon said, cold.
Cersei snapped again. “Your place is where my brother says it is,” she spat. “The Hand speaks with the king’s own voice, and disobedience is treason.”
She did not linger to await Ser Mandon’s response, merely turned with a sharp rustle of silk and ushered her son away in a flurry of gold and crimson.
Tyrion looked away, jaw clenched, heart hammering still with rage he couldn’t spend. The gates were shut now. The mob was gone or at least, held at bay behind stone and steel but the city felt no safer. His gaze swept the yard and found Tyrek.
The boy sat slumped against a pillar, arms draped limply over his knees. His hair hung in lank, sweat-matted strands, his fine clothes torn and spattered in grime. He stared fixedly at his right hand, blood-caked and shaking slightly, as though he couldn’t quite believe it was still attached to him.
Tyrion stepped toward him, slow and careful, feeling the ache in his bones and behind his eyes. He crouched stiffly and reached out, voice low and hoarse.
“Tyrek.”
The boy flinched violently, nearly recoiling. His wide eyes darted up to meet Tyrion’s face, haunted and bloodshot, all the bravado of court and title stripped away, leaving only raw, aching fear.
“It’s done now,” he told him as gently as he could. He was young, no older than Sansa Stark, and the last reminder of his uncle Tygett who was always kind to him.
“I … I fell … someone was pulling me down, I was trying to follow, but there were too many hands … they dragged me and the horse into an alleyway, someone was biting at my hand … Gods, they were trying to eat me…” His breathing was only growing louder, his eyes wilder.
Tyrion placed a hand on his shoulder, firmly. That was a mistake. Tyrek Lannister recoiled as if a viper had bit him. The dwarf winced.
“What happened? How did you find the Stark girl?”
“I didn’t,” he said, dazed. “She found me.”
“What?”
“They were all over me … in that alleyway. It was all dark but when I came to, she was there. The horse was unharmed as well and … and we rode.”
They sat in silence for a beat. Far above, a gull wheeled against the sky, shrieking. The scent of ash and sweat still hung in the courtyard like a fog. Tyrion straightened slowly, mind whirring. He would have to speak with her later.
The time seemed to pass in a blur. He spoke to Shagga, commanding the huge man to keep Shae safe. The water lines were still in place, Mandon Moore and Ser Jacelyn rode to put down pockets of rioters. Cersei and her son were nowhere to be seen, of course.
By evenfall, the city was still in turmoil, though the fires had been quenched and most of the roving mobs crushed. Much as he yearned for Shae, he knew he would find no comfort that night. Nor the nights to come, thought Tyrion wearily.
It was Ser Jacelyn who delivered the butcher’s bill, as Tyrion supped on cold capon and brown bread in his gloomy solar. Dusk had faded to darkness by then, but when his servants came to light his candles and start a fire in the hearth, Tyrion had roared at them and sent them running. His mood was as black as the chamber, and Bywater’s waters were just as dark.
The first of the list was the High Septon, ripped apart even as he prayed and squealed for mercy. Starving men have little love for fat priests.
Ser Boros’ corpse had been overlooked at first. The gold cloaks had been searching for a knight in white armor. They only found a red-brown thing.
Ser Aron Santagar was found in a gutter, his head a red pulp inside a crushed helm. His legs were missing, and his arms chewed through.
Lady Lollys Stokeworth was found wandering naked on Sowbelly Row, with all her clothes torn and blood weeping down her thighs. She was taken by half a hundred shouting men, Bywater told him grimly. “Half a hundred or more.”
Seven-and-twenty gold cloaks had been slain, nine were missing, and three scores were wounded. Two had been burnt alive by the mob. No one had troubled to count how many of the mob had died. Five hundred? A thousand?
The High Septon’s crystal crown was still missing, not that Tyrion cared. Ser Jacelyn had darker news for him. “The barracks at the Old Gate has been stormed.”
“Stormed,” Tyrion repeated, incredulous. “Who by?”
Ironhand could not answer. “We found it empty and burnt. All the guards there were missing, few as they were. There was blood and a proper mess to be sure, but no bodies. All the gold has been taken, and the food, and the steel. Swords, spears, axes, helms, shirts of mail, crossbows, gold cloaks. The bloody place was near empty when we reached it.”
The garrison at the Old Gate was the weakest of the seven gates. They had no reason to reinforce the north, not when Stannis was coming from the south and the sea. Men had been pulled away from the garrison to reinforce the Mud Gate and the Iron Gate, and to join in the royal escort. All dead now, he supposed. The whole matter reeked to him. If a hungry mob had descended upon the guardhouse, the place would have resembled a dragon’s meal.
“It was planned,” he said.
Ser Jacelyn seemed to agree. “It could be anyone, my lord.”
Tyrion’s mood grew more foul. “I will speak to Varys.”
Bywater was not finished. “When you named me to command the Watch, Lord Tyrion, you told me you wanted plain truth, always.”
Tyrion did not speak. He gave the old knight a gloomy look.
“We held the city today, my lord, but I can make no promises for the morrow. The kettle is close to boiling. So many thieves and murderers are abroad that no man’s house is safe, the gold cloaks are barely a step above them. The queen’s taxes have burned away the love of the traders and the merchants, and the people remember how the gold cloaks barged into their houses to search for Lord Eddard. The bloody flux is spreading in the stews along Pisswater Bend, there’s no food to be had. Not until barrels and crates appeared before their houses, reminding them that the Red Keep was eating well. Where before you heard only mutterings from the gutter, now there’s open talk of treason in guildhalls and markets and taverns.”
“Do you need more men?”
“I do not trust half the men I have now. Slynt tripled the size of the Watch, but it takes more than a cloak of gold to make a watchman. There are good men and loyal among the new recruits, but also more brutes, sots, cravens, and traitors than you’d care to know. They’re half-trained and undisciplined, and what loyalty they have is to their own skins. If it comes to battle, they’ll not hold, I fear.”
“I never expected them to,” said Tyrion. “Once our walls are breached, we are lost, I’ve known that from the start.”
“My men are mostly drawn from the smallfolk. They walk the same streets, spoon down the same bowls of brown from the same pot-shops. The Spider must have told you, there is little love for the Lannisters in King’s Landing. Many still remember the sack, when Aerys opened his gates to your lord father. They whisper that the gods are punishing us for the sins of the lion; for your brother’s murder of the Mad King, for the butchery of Rhaegar’s children, for the savagery of Joffrey’s justice. They talk openly of how much better things were when Robert was king. No war, no famine. Some blame your sister for his death, and for Renly’s. Some hint that times would be better with Stannis on the throne. In wineskins and brothels, you hear these things, and in barracks and guardhalls. We cannot arrest them all.”
“They hate my family,” Tyrion watched him. “Is that what you are saying?”
“Aye,” Ser Jacelyn told him calmly. “They feared the queen and the king … but now hunger has starved the fear out of them. All that is left is hate.”
“And me as well?”
“Ask the Spider.”
“I’m asking you.”
Bywater’s deep-set eyes met Tyrion’s mismatched ones. “You most of all, my lord.”
“Most of all?” He fumed. “It was Cersei who levied the taxes, who closed the city. It was Joffrey who shot at them and told them to eat their dead. They blame me?”
“His Grace is but a boy. In the streets, it is said that he has evil councilors. The queen has never been known as a friend to the commons, nor is Lord Varys called the Spider out of love ... but it is you they blame most. Your sister and the eunuch were here when times were better under King Robert, but you were not. They say that you’ve come with swaggering sellswords and unwashed savages, brutes who take what they want and follow no laws but their own. They say you exiled Janos Slynt because you found him too bluff and honest for your liking. They say you threw wise and gentle Pycelle into the dungeons when he dared raise his voice against you. Some even claim that you mean to seize the Iron Throne for your own.”
“Yes, and I intend to rule the world, hideous monster as I am.” His hand coiled into a tight fist. “I have heard enough. We both have work to attend to, a city to command. Leave me.”
He stared down at the remains of his supper, his belly roiling at the sight of the cold greasy capon. Disgusted, he pushed it away, shouted for Pod, and sent the boy running to summon Varys and Bronn. My most trusted advisers are a eunuch and a sellsword, and my lady’s a whore. What does that say of me?
Bronn complained of the gloom when he arrived, and insisted on a fire in the hearth. Tyrion did not respond to him. It was blazing by the time Varys made his appearance. “Where have you been?” Tyrion demanded.
“About the king’s business, my sweet lord.”
“Ah, yes, the king,” Tyrion muttered. “My nephew is not fit to sit a privy, let alone the Iron Throne.”
Varys shrugged. “An apprentice must be taught his trade.”
“Half the ‘prentices on Reeking Lane could rule better than this king of yours.” Bronn seated himself across the table and pulled a wing off the cold capon.
Tyrion had made a practice of ignoring the sellsword’s frequent insolences, but tonight he found it galling. “I don’t recall giving you leave to finish my supper.”
“You didn’t look to be eating it,” Bronn said through a mouthful of meat. “City’s starving, it’s a crime to waste food. You have any wine?”
Next he’ll want me to pour it for him, Tyrion thought darkly. “You go too far,” he warned. Lord Tywin would never allow this.
“And you never go far enough.” Bronn tossed the wingbone to the rushes. “Ever think how easy life would be if the other one had been born first?” He thrust his fingers inside the capon and tore off a handful of breast. “The weepy one, Tommen. Seems like he’d do whatever he was told, as a good king should.”
A chill crept down Tyrion’s spine as he realized what the sellsword was hinting at. If Tommen were king ...
There was only one way Tommen would become king. No, he could not even think it. Joffrey was his own blood, and Jaime’s son as much as Cersei’s. “I could have your head off for saying that,” he told Bronn, but the sellsword only laughed.
“Friends,” said Varys, “quarreling will not serve us. I beg you both, take heart.”
“Whose?” asked Tyrion sourly. He could think of several tempting choices. “That business at the Old Gate, who did it?”
Varys gave him a nervous titter. “My birds are flying, my lord.”
“Tell them to fly faster,” Tyrion clenched his fist. “Stannis is not more than a fortnight away from the city and we have lost a gatehouse.”
“It’s on the wrong side of the city,” Bronn was chewing.
“That’s the point,” he insisted. “Whoever did this … they knew it was lightly guarded. How many guards were stationed there?”
“Two dozen, mayhaps?” Varys offered.
“Drunk or asleep, that is still no easy number to disappear.” Many were disappearing these days in King’s Landing. First, Lord Stark and his man. Arya Stark. Jory Cassell and Ser Barristan. If he were not careful, he might be next.
“I will investigate the matter, my lord,” the eunuch told him.
“See to it that you do. Any idea where our mutual friend is?” He thought of the thief, Gaven, and his family in Flea Bottom. Half the slums had been burnt.
“Sadly, no,” Varys looked mournful, though he did not trust it.
“He’ll live,” Bronn waved another piece of bone at him. “That one’s a survivor.”
“As you say,” Tyrion muttered darkly. The young thief had been useful, and the loyalty of thieves was easy to buy. He turned back to Bronn. “Put your sellswords near the other gates. Quietly. I want watchers, not warriors, not yet. I need to know who comes and goes, and when.”
Bronn gave a lazy nod. “Any trouble?”
“Disperse it. No blood if you can help it. The streets are a stewpot on boil, we don’t need more meat in it.”
“No blood?” The sellsword snorted. “I’ll get the boys to talk nicely. We’ll see if hungry men will listen. They’re too hungry to be scared.”
“Then make them scared.” He leaned back in his chair, tapping two fingers against the rim of the wine cup. “What of our beloved queen regent?” he asked softly.
Varys gave another prim smile, sweet as honey. “She has sent out twice for lemoncakes and called for a minstrel.”
I would like to sing her a song of mine own, Tyrion thought darkly. He rose, pushing back from the table with effort. The night pressed dark and close to the Tower of the Hand. Somewhere beyond the window, fires still smoldered. "I want eyes along every street, and the Sept.” He turned to Varys. “And once your birds find who did the deed, I want them plucked and hung in the square.”
“Certainly, my lord,” Varys bowed. “Was there anything else you wished to discuss?”
“Where is Stannis?”
“He has left Storm’s End, that is for sure. It is not too short a march to King’s Landing, and he has to await his fleet.”
“And where are they?”
“Sailing north. It was seen past Tarth some time ago … It could have reached Stonedance by now, or closer.”
Not so close to capture Myrcella, Tyrion was relieved. “Have we heard from Lord Rosby?”
Varys shook his head sadly. “It may be that he never reached Bitterbridge.”
It was not too great a loss, he supposed. “These ghosts who took the gatehouse … I want them found. They must be the same who crawled into the dungeons and made with the food of the cellar.”
“The one and the same, I would imagine,” Varys tittered. Yet, there was trouble in his eyes. Men had entered the Red Keep, albeit only the first level of cells. They freed prisoners, poisoned the chief undergaoler, stole barrels of food from the cellar, and left without detection. The Spider’s web had failed to catch the fleas that had entered its domain. “I will find them, my lord.”
“See that you do,” Tyrion pressed a hand against his tired eyes. The day’s ordeal was hellish. He did not know if he wanted wine, his woman, or a warm bath. All three, he thought wryly. Preferably at once.
He would have to speak with Sansa Stark come the morrow, and Tyrek, and the Kingsguard, and to his sister, and Joffrey if the king bothered. Soon enough, Stannis would come, with Eddard Stark, and there was a conversation that Tyrion did not desire to have. Yet it comes all the same.
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Tyrion IX, ACOK
A special posting. Next chapter is from Gunther's perspective as the riot happens simultaneously.
Chapter 86: Gunther IV
Notes:
The rogue has been up to some sneaky deeds. You won't see Andrei, Lucia, or Lorenzo up to mischief like this.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Lady Lemon wore a cloak as yellow and clean as a rotting lemon, and the look on her face was as sour as one. Her skin was of a shade that had been kissed by the sun, and her eyes were squinting orbs of blue suspicion. She could still be called beautiful, if you looked past the frown and tried to peer at something within.
“I have trained them as well as I can,” she sniffed at the wine in her hand with faint disdain. “They will do, I would think,” she said with a faint Braavosi accent. “It was nothing short of a miracle that I could get them to remember the words. How hard can it be to remember twelve words? Twelve. Justice for Robert, weep for Renly, the Seven see, the Seven remember. How hard can it be to remember those words?”
“These men were not mummers, Lady Lemon,” Tobho Mott said politely. “They were smiths and tailors and cooks, dyers and servants and butchers.”
“Still,” the yellow mummer rolled her eyes, “I have performed nothing short of a miracle. They will do. The mourning robes that your tailor wove them were … sufficiently convincing. What was his name again?”
“Donnor,” Gunther murmured. He remembered well the name. He had saved the tailor’s life after all.
“A candlelight to the bright sun of Braavos’ tailors,” she was saying, “but for King’s Landing, he is … decent.”
“We shall pass on your compliments,” Mott said dryly. “If our mourners and septons are in place?”
“They are,” Ironbelly confirmed. “In place along the Hook.”
At this hour, the royal party would be approaching the docks, their procession winding its slow, gilded way down the Hook toward the River Gate. They had seen them pass earlier and moved swiftly to their meeting place.
Now they were five. Gunther sat reclined in a high-backed chair, worn but comfortable. Lady Lemon lounged across from him, her bright cloak drawing the eye like an open wound. Ironbelly sat to his left, quiet and grim. Tobho Mott was at his right, his tall apprentice beside him, tense and ill at ease. They were hidden in the dusty belly of an abandoned tavern, three blocks from the Old Gate, wrapped in the gloomy shadow of wood and stone.
“And our men?” Mott continued.
“Ready,” Gunther fiddled with a coin. “Twenty, armed and armored, waiting by the alleyways outside.”
The irony of him being advisor and agent did not escape him. It did not feel like so long ago that they had stepped into Altdorf’s Underworld. He remembered well that dark cast of criminals and rogues; Vesper Klasst, the Emperor of the Underworld, Volt, his right-hand, and Locke, the ever-smirking representative from the Brotherhood of Ranald who advised and aided Klasst as needed.
He would not admit so but the Brotherhood was appealing. A shadowy cult of thieves and rogues who dared to steal from the highest of nobles…
If I am the Locke here, Gunther thought, that says something of the quality…
“The Royce men?”
“Leading them.”
“The clerk?”
“Resting,” Ironbelly grunted.
One of the seventeen they had freed from the dungeon of the Red Keep was a reedy man by the name of Osric. The man was trembling and pale when they came, promising that he was innocent, that he only handled the work that Littlefinger tasked him to do so, that he never accepted any bribes. He was growing so loud that Lady Lemon snarled at him to be quiet.
It was not so hard a task to free them.
Weeks ago, he had met the servant, Anna, that Arya had stolen from and tried to save. It was easy enough to linger in the Keep after being dismissed by Tyrion Lannister. Though Sansa had not known where to find Anna, asking the right questions in the right tone, with the right amount of silver, gave him the answer.
The serving girl had agreed without question to help. “What do you need me to do?” She said immediately after he found her. Not killing her was the right thing to do.
“Put this in a drink for the undergaolers.” He had gotten the Sweetsleep from the Grand Maester’s chambers, when the Imp wanted him to prove himself. “When the day comes, I’ll find you. Put the gaolers to sleep for me.”
“They’ll remember me,” she was worried. He did not blame her.
“They won’t,” he promised, patting his daggers.
And when that night came, lingering in the Keep after being dismissed by the dwarf, Gunther found them all slumbering in the dungeons. He took their keys, their coin pouches, and their lives. Freeing the seventeen was easy, leading them through the Keep would not have been so if not for Anna’s help. She had provided them with servants’ attire, old roughspun clothes that made them as invisible as ghosts. In twos and threes, they took the serpentine steps to the Small Kitchen.
There, each man, and Lady Lemon, took crates or a barrel and walked through the middle bailey. The portcullis was open for the stream of servants and squires, and those who were not dicing or drinking had not spared a glance for more servants and squires holding food and drinks for the Small Hall. There was a guard watching the postern gate they were taking out. There was a reason Gunther had the men take an empty barrel as well. An hour later, they were hurling a barrel, with a corpse inside, into an alleyway. Mott, Alton, and Ironbelly handled the food distribution.
If he could have freed Sansa Stark, he would have … but Maegor’s Holdfast was a different beast entirely. No servant’s attire could have gotten me past the bloody drawbridge. It was a single way in and out, and there were too many guards within the Holdfast. The Queen’s paranoia, he had heard. Well, it had worked for him, reducing the amount of watchers for the rest of the Red Keep.
Even if I could have freed her, what then? Perhaps, he could have gotten Sansa and Arya out of the city, assuming he could sneak past the guards at any of the gates. That was the easy part. One could go to Riverrun, held by their uncle and brother, but between there and here were leagues of land in war … and he did not even truly know how to ride a bloody horse. What use did a city thief have for horse-riding? Even whilst he travelled with the others, it was Andrei who handled the horses that pulled their wagon whilst he slept, and Lorenzo sang, and Lucia brooded atop.
And many of the Crownlords had sworn loyalty to the crown, he would know, for the Imp talked aplenty. Hayford and Stokeworth, Rosby and Sow’s Horn. He would find no refuge there. A thief and two girls, he almost snorted. A pack of brigands would end that chivalrous song before it started. Andrei or Lucia can do it, not me.
Maybe he could hide her in the same hideout that they were using … but he could not trust that the gold cloaks would not eventually find them should they comb through every house and hut within the city once more.
“How many men are there at the gatehouse?” Gendry spoke for the first time.
“Many were pulled away already,” he shrugged, “to reinforce the other gates. Some were taken to protect the royal procession. Fewer than thirty, I think.”
“They outnumber us,” Ironbelly grunted.
“They’ll be dicing or drinking,” Gunther scoffed.
“Let us run through the plan again,” Tobho Mott said. “Just to be sure.”
“Alright,” Gunther agreed. “Gendry and I will take the two by the door, quietly. We open it to let our men inside. The gold cloaks will be caught by surprise. We kill them all,” he paused, “and take everything we can carry.”
“Wagons will be waiting outside and each one will take a different direction,” Gendry continued. He always wore a pained look on his face when he was thinking. “The wagons will take us to where we will hide for some time.”
The apprentice was clad in grey mail, with steel greaves and gauntlets. His bull helm rested on his lap, a bastard sword by his hip, and his smith’s hammer on the other hip. Gendry’s fingers tapped the helm impatiently, ringing a steel sound. Lady Lemon was clacking her feet against the floorboards, while Ironbelly was nursing his hands together. Only Mott seemed calm in their wait for the signal to begin.
The signal would be the screaming. The city had already been starving for months, and the Lannisters had done little to win love. A grand royal procession through the streets? Even without their meddling, there would be a riot, he would know. One month in Altdorf was enough for him to realise how quiet Nulners were when it came to protests and unrest. With all they had done, all the oil that had been placed around the fire, there would surely be a conflagration.
“I never asked,” Lady Lemon said abruptly, glancing at Mott, “how is it that a master smith as famed as you now fights a shadow war?”
“It was not as if the Lannisters gave me a choice,” Mott scowled. Gendry looked over at him. “They tried to kill me, and my apprentice here.”
“What for?” The mummer was perplexed. “Even they should know the value of good smiths.”
“They do,” Ironbelly was muttering.
Mott did not speak, though his eyes flicked over to a confused Gendry for a single second. “Who knows,” the smith lied passably well. “They seem to think everyone is their enemy these days.”
“Everyone is their enemy,” Gunther grumbled. “Name one friend the Lannisters have.”
“You,” Lady Lemon smiled playfully. “The Imp seems to think you are one.”
“He thinks,” Gunther said quietly. He did not hate Tyrion Lannister the way the others did, but he had little love for the Imp as well. The dwarf was pleasant to talk to at times, but Gunther could find little sympathy and affection for the Hand who commanded so many good men to disappear. He hates being a dwarf, Gunther could see it clear as day, but there are worse things than being a high-born dwarf. If he had been given the choice between a rich dwarf and a poor man, he would be praying for short, stunty legs before the word was done.
“Keep him thinking that,” the mummer in yellow advised, “false friends kill easier than fierce foes do.”
When the shouting came, they rose.
Mott and Lady Lemon would not join them for the fight, but Ironbelly would. The burly smith had worn a thick shirt of mail he made himself, and wielded a heavy hammer.
Tobho Mott shared quiet words with Gendry on the door, but Gunther had no such mentor, and stepped into the sun with a silent Ironbelly.
The gatehouse was not far, and the smith peeled off to speak with their nervous men. Gendry jogged to match his pace, his mail clinking against each other. They crept across the cobbles like shadows, the shouting growing louder across the city. There was a certain dread to it, but he tried not to pay it any mind.
The guards at the barracks door were young, distracted by the noise echoing through the city. One of them was laughing nervously about something when they noticed the two of them. “Hey, what do yo-”
Gendry’s hammer ended him in a single blow, and Gunther slit the other’s throat before he could scream.
They halted for a moment while the bodies crumpled to the ground. There was no shouting coming from within, no drawing of swords. Good, he thought as they dragged the bodies aside. Behind them, he saw the grim-faced Ironbelly with his ugly hammer in hand, twenty mailed men behind him.
The door opened. The quiet was broken with the twang of a crossbow.
As a dying man gurgled his last breath, clutching at the bolt in his throat, two shadows danced. Gendry had all the finesse of a raging bull, and all the strength of one. His hammer sang as it crashed against the helm of a drunk, swaying gold cloak. Gunther pounced like a shadowcat, with twin fangs of sharp steel. He was not as good a fighter as Andrei and Lucia and that was an understatement, a mere shadow with steel compared to them, but shadows could kill, and all men died when a dagger pierced their hearts or opened their throats.
The barracks turned into chaos within moments. Grim men in mail rushed in, with daggers and maces and shortswords. Longswords were terrible options for close quarters and drunk men caught by surprise were no swordmasters. They stormed through like a tide of hungry rats, gnawing and biting and killing.
Steel was singing, and men were dying quickly. He ducked under a clumsy club, and slashed dragonsteel against a pale throat. Scarlet rained down the dull plate the man wore, and he caught the blurry sight of his eyes in the reflection. That was all a man could see of him, clad under dark cloth and black leather as he were.
Somewhere behind him, he heard the deafening crash of hammer against head, and the room went silent as Morr’s Gardens. As quickly as it had started, the fight, if it could be called such, was done. Dead men sprawled broken across the floor, weeping red from slashed throats and crushed heads.
Like vultures peeling flesh from the departed, they descended upon the corpses. Half of their number busied themselves stripping armor and cloaks and boots from cooling flesh. The other half threw open the iron cells, welcoming men and women who had been imprisoned for one treason or the other, and ransacked the storerooms. Axes and swords, bows and bolts, clubs and shields, they loaded them into the waiting wagons outside. Like a heist, he snorted. He was busying himself picking the lock of a chest when Gendry tapped him on the shoulder.
“Step aside,” the bull-helmed boy told him. He looked vaguely queasy at the blood on him, but Gunther could tell a brave front when he saw one. He was slipping the lockpicks into his pouch when the apprentice smashed the lock with his hammer.
“That’s one way to do it,” the thief admitted.
“It’s faster.”
“Now we can’t use the chest,” he pointed out.
“We can buy ten new ones,” Gendry countered, glancing at the silver within.
“Fair,” Gunther nodded, swiftly scooping a handful of silver into an empty pouch.
All around, they were reaving all they could from the barracks. He saw four men holding barrels of dried meat and salted fish, casks of wine and more; wheels of hard cheese, sacks of grain. Behind them, one took a bronze candlestick from the table. Gunther shook his head at that. Rings, chains, brooches and discs were taken from men or storage, seals and signets too, even dice. Extra tabards and cloaks of woolen gold were taken, spara surcoats and helmets as well. Bandages, poultices, jars of ointment, oil flasks, satchels. He saw a man prying off the brown boots from one of the dead gold cloaks, fitting it on his own feet with an eager grin.
Gunther took a small ledger from a table, flipped the page, and saw it for what it was. A bribe ledger. He smiled at that. He placed it gingerly on the barrel that Gendry was carrying, ignoring the half-hearted glare that the apprentice threw him.
When he stepped out of the gatehouse, the sound of shouting stopped him. All across King’s Landing, the air was thick with smoke. Fire danced atop distant rooftops, and he could make out screaming, over the braying of mobs. The men around them were all frozen too, staring at horror at what had been unleashed. They were gawking until Ironbelly snapped at them, his hands holding a barrel of swords.
“What are you lot waiting for?” the smith grunted, slamming the barrel down onto the wagon. “Traitors don’t have the time to stop and admire the view, you fools.”
He was right, and his words sent a jolt across each and every of them. Traitors all, thought the thief. Twelve wagons were waiting for them just outside, each one with a teamster nervously holding the reins to two horses. Eight of the wagons were loaded with barrels, crates and chests, while the other four held the corpses of the gold cloaks covered under a thick tarp. Those would be driven to a quiet alleyway and left to rot and reek, a feast for the crows. The other eight would be transported to the various taverns and shophouses owned by men who were part of the Antler Men. He bid farewell to the two smiths as they were hopping onto their wagons.
“Not joining us?” Ironbelly rumbled.
“I’m faster on the rooftops,” Gunther told him.
The smith nodded. “Stay safe out there.”
“You too,” Gunther extended a hand, and nodded at the quiet Gendry to Ironbelly’s side. “Lay low for a few days.”
He took his leave of them, making for a narrow alley two blocks away, where the walls leaned close and the shadows pooled thick. The stench of smoke and blood were clinging to the stones. Gunther moved like a shade himself, nimble and silent, scaling a stack of crates to reach the low overhang of a roof. He found a hole in the wall and hauled himself upward, fingers sure on crumbling stone. His boots found purchase on a jutting beam, then a windowsill, and he was up, pulling himself over the edge of the roof like a cat returning to familiar ground.
The city sprawled beneath him, cloaked in fire and fury.
He could not move.
From his perch atop the rooftop, he watched the storm unfold. Smoke rose from a hundred burning places, coiling skyward like dark serpents slithering into the evening gloom. The air throbbed with screams, shrill, guttural, endless, and beneath them, the low tolling of a bell, not in prayer but in panic, rang out like a broken heartbeat. King’s Landing had torn itself open, and the wound was festering in flames.
What had once been the careful rhythm of the city, its markets and murmurs, its tides of trade and toil, was now a heaving and frothing sea of chaos. It was as if an infection let loose in the streets, a fever dream made flesh. Fire fed fire and blood fed fire. It was spreading like something alive.
They had stirred this madness, whispered sparks into kindling, nudged the unrest forward where they could. But none of them had imagined this…
He could hear everything. The screams of the wounded, the clash of steel on steel, low and mournful wails, desperate pleading, cursing.
Smoke slithered across the rooftops, thick and stinging, clinging to him like damp rags. The clouds above had darkened to slate, not with storm or sunset, but with soot. Somewhere nearby, something groaned and collapsed, sending a ripple through the buildings like a dying breath. He forced his limbs into motion, bounding lightly across the shingles, skipping narrow alleys, crawling over sagging wooden planks that creaked like bones. He paused atop a sloped roof, crouched in shadow, as a screaming mob surged beneath him.
Their torches were swaying like drunk stars and behind them, he saw a butcher’s shop aflame. A bakery had been broken open, and hungry hounds were clawing for loaves like wolves at a carcass. He saw two gold cloaks being dragged along face-down by a chanting mob, their faces leaving red stains on the cobblestone.
He saw a pleading man pulled into an alley and beaten until the rhythm faltered and the crowd grew bored. Another man, fleeing his burning home, fell beneath the feet of a stampeding, shrieking crowd. He never got back up. Flames licked from his door behind him, hungry and triumphant. He saw a child, no older than ten, being dragged screaming into the husk of a shop by ten men.
He could not stop. The streets were madness incarnate. Frenzied bands of madmen roamed freely, burning, looting, killing without thought or reason. Starving, broken, enraged. And far in the distance, Flea Bottom burned too.
He was a blur of black across the rooftops of King’s Landing, praying desperately that the fire would not spread to there. Light on his feet, he was stepping from roof to roof with practiced ease.
Gunther was a shadow on the rooftops, flickering like a candle before the wind. His footfalls were soft, quick, and practiced. He moved with instinct, not thought, like prey fleeing a fire it cannot see. But even above it all, the smoke clung to him, thick with ash and the stink of rot. The screams traveled further now, drawn out and distorted, as if the stones themselves were echoing the city’s agony. King’s Landing was a starving, maddened hound tearing itself to pieces.
He made his way toward Flea Bottom, the sky growing darker with each passing heartbeat. It was not for a setting sun, but from a growing veil of soot and smoke that was spreading across the city like a storm cloud. As he crept along a wooden beam that stretched over a shadowed alleyway, he glanced down.
Below, a man was hanging from a butcher’s hook, suspended and swinging like meat, blood leaking and dripping down in scarlet drops.
What was left of his watch cloak hung in tatters, the gold soaked through with piss and blood. His face had been ruined, beaten to wet pulp and silence, but the badge of the City Watch still clung to his chest, glinting faintly in the glow of nearby fire. A trio of boys laughed as they threw stones at the corpse, each strike drawing cheers and fresh splatters. Plop, plop, the grotesque melody rang. Plop. One of them wore the man’s helmet, too large for his head, tipping over his eyes.
Gunther looked away and moved on. Two rooftops later, he nearly slipped on a loose tile.
The slate shifted beneath his foot with a sharp crack, and only instinct saved him from plunging into the chaos below. He caught himself, breath ragged in his throat, and froze. Then he saw it.
An inn ablaze, its upper floor collapsing inward with a groan like a dying beast. Fire bloomed from the windows, curling like orange fingers through the shutters. People poured into the street in a panicked flood; coughing, screaming, clutching whatever scraps they could carry. One woman shrieked that her baby was still inside. She screamed again. No one even turned to her.
Again, he looked away and moved on.
The closer he got to Flea Bottom, the worse it became. The chaos had condensed into something mindless and primal here. There were no talks of kings or wars here, merely men who had gone mad with hunger and rage.
From a rooftop near Cobbler’s Square, he saw a group of men dousing two gold cloaks in lamp oil. They could not have been much older than him. They were begging, pleading that they had families. The mob did not care. One spark, and they became screaming pillars of fire. The crowd was roaring.
Gunther crouched low, firelight flickering in his wide eyes. He had seen men die before, killed enough with his daggers but this …
The irony did not escape him. Back in Nuln, he had scoffed at the idea of the revolutionaries. Bright-eyed fools with enough stars in their eyes and gold in their pockets to be able to afford the fantasy of revolt against the Empire. He had to deal with one of their numbers on behalf of the Schatzenheimer’s, for revolutionaries and criminals were at times wedded to each other. Still, he could never understand them, nor tolerate their talk. Rise up, the bright-eyed fools often tried to say.
How? he'd thought. The poor did not rise. They endured. They worked, they stole, they scraped to survive. Revolution was a game the privileged played when bored.
He had always thought so … until now. Now, it was starving men throwing themselves into the fire of chaos, howling like hungry hounds against king and throne. He had never seen its like, and he shivered at the sight of a burning city.
He did not stay long to ruminate.
In the alleys now, the city had begun to curl in on itself. People huddled like rats in corners, clutching sacks of flour or bolts of stolen cloth like swaddled babes. One man cradled a severed head to his chest, rocking it gently, whispering lullabies. A barefoot woman stumbled past, arms wrapped around the half-eaten corpse of a cat. She sang to it softly, her voice thin and sweet as a lullaby, eyes bright with madness.
Overhead, carrion crows gathered, dozens of them, black blots circling the smoke-choked sky as they sang their dark melody. Gunther pressed on, boots scuffing tiles slick with ash. He had dropped to a crouch as he approached the edge of the roof, scanning the streets below.
And then he saw her.
Sansa Stark.
Her hair of polished copper was tangled now with smoke and blood. Her fine cloak was torn, the white and grey tattered, her face pale and stricken with tears. She was being hauled by six laughing men into a narrow alley, half-hidden by the collapsed beams of an old tenement. The hungry look in their eyes was unmistakable. No, no, no, his thoughts were drowning his mind. Six, I can take six. Can I?
His hands went down to his daggers, breath caught in his throat. He did not think, only knew he had to move. He shifted his weight, readying himself to drop down, to land hard and fast and roll, to dash forward with dagger and crossbow, to-
Then came the flash.
A burst of light, white and silent, pale as new-fallen snow, erupted from the alley like a new star being born. No thunder followed it, no sound at all. And then it was gone.
He found the six men slumbering peacefully on the ground, snoring. At the end of the alleyway, Sansa Stark was stepping out onto the street. He wanted to cry out to her, but she was moving like a dream. Gunther was dashing madly towards her, one hand raised out, when the shout caught in his throat.
The maddened street was parting for her. Men were moving around her without even realising it, even with burning torches and bloodied clubs in hand. A blood-drenched man slammed into her shoulder, and did not so much as blink. She turned, touched his cheek with one pale hand, and his screams died. He shivered, eyes wide, then stepped aside, stumbling like a drunk who had just remembered he was human.
And she had crossed the street, silent and untouched.
He could not comprehend what had happened. And he did not have the same luck that she had. Brawls were spilling out all across the street again; two men were fighting over a dirtied loaf of bread, another was gleefully stabbing the mangled corpse of a gold cloak, and four were taking turns to ravage a screaming woman.
He looked between the screaming woman and at the alleyway that Sansa had gone down. Gunther swallowed thickly and tore his gaze away, dashing for the alley.
A fist swung at his face then.
He ducked, instinct sharp, and the blow whistled past. He rose fast, his dagger whispered free of its sheath, and found the man's belly with practiced ease. Blood soaked the tunic, warm and quick, and he looked into the maddened eyes. Grimacing, Gunther wiped the blade on the dead man’s shirt and pressed on.
A bottle shattered above him. A sobbing boy with a headless dog staggered across his path. Smoke coiled thick around him as he forced his way through the chaos.
He stumbled into the alleyway, panting. Somewhere, faint and close, he thought he heard the cry of a horse.
The stones were slick with soot and blood. Two fingers floated in a puddle. Footprints trailed red toward the corner. A torn scrap of gold cloth clung to a severed leg. Gunther rounded the bend, and froze.
Men were slumbering here. Around the corner, he saw a brown mare galloping away. Upon it, Sansa sat behind a pale blond boy, with blood upon him and a slackness to his limbs, but her eyes were half-lidded and still in a trance. He narrowed his eyes, stunned, lips parting as if to call out but the horse had rounded the corner.
He looked at the men.
Their chests rose and fell slowly, mouths slack and eyes shut. Two of them clutched bloodied butcher cleavers. Their peaceful faces were marred by blood around their mouths, one had his teeth sunk halfway into a strip of cloth, still chewing. He took a closer look. Gold-embroidered velvet.
The cobblestones were smeared with blood, fresh and dark. He saw scraps of flesh strewn about; a pale finger here, torn cloth there. Not all of the flesh was of man. The tanned brown hide of what he thought was a horse was present too. A man was still chewing on something as he slept. There were enough pieces of the shredded red cloak that he could make out the lower half of a lion.
They … they were eating, Gunther recoiled. He looked again at the red cloak and the flesh, before he looked away. He did not stay for a second longer, hurling himself up to the rooftop once more, feeling his stomach roil wildly as if in a storm. His thoughts did not seem to escape that alleyway.
What … what happened there?
He did not understand … nor did he feel like he wanted to.
The deeper he moved toward Flea Bottom, the more horrors he saw. More men had streamed out from the Red Keep to quell the chaos. Knights on horses with sharp lances quenched the fire of revolt quite easily, it seemed. The fires were being tended to with water wagons guarded by fierce sellswords and clansmen.
The rage that had roared through the streets had burned itself out, leaving a carcass of ash in its place. The screams were fewer now, distant and scattered. Smoke was rising in tired columns like sad sighs from a battlefield. And a battlefield it resembled, for bodies were everywhere.
Some lay twisted in positions that spoke of violence; mouth opens, arms raised in final defense. Others were curled up like children, as if sleep had taken them and not sharp steel. There were men with swords through their bellies and axes left in their heads, women crushed beneath fallen beams, merchants slumped over their carts. Better left unsaid were the red things that were no longer human; those that had been stabbed hundreds of times, trampled by thousands of feet.
A dog was gnawing at a hand outside a tavern door. It was swinging on broken hinges, creaking as if a ghost was opening and closing it. Inside, Gunther glimpsed three corpses piled atop each other. He passed a baker’s stall that had been split open like a ribcage. Crows were picking at the crumbs. In the gutter nearby, he saw a pile of corpses. Their gold cloaks were dyed utterly crimson, and their faces resembled fruits after they had been smashed beyond pulp.
By the time he reached the edge of Flea Bottom, he felt like he had walked through a graveyard for the living. Windows were smashed or blackened. Doors hung open like mouths agape, and sobbing could be heard within. The smells were agonising, thick with rot and blood and filth that had burnt.
Flea Bottom had always been an old wound on the city’s side, but now it was a festering gash.
There were haunted shadows limping through the ash-strewn street, like hesitant ghosts. Children were picking through corpses, reaching into pouches, or poking at red ruins blankly. A woman was chewing on the leg of a corpse. A man was kneeling in blood, sobbing as he cradled a little body.
None bothered to look at Gunther when he passed by them.
He passed a wall that bore a smear of red handprints, all the way down to a gutter where a scarlet something writhed on the ground, coughing.
Gunther kept moving. His thoughts hung as heavy at the cloud of smoke.
We unleashed this, he thought.
No, we did not, another voice in his head argued fiercely. It was not our fault.
The city was already starving in misery. It was the queen who unleashed her gold cloaks into the city to search for Eddard Stark, who levied harsh taxes upon all in the city. It was Joffrey who shot at hungry men, mocking them to eat the dead. It was the Imp who took the smiths from their labor and families to toil for his chain, who disappeared men when necessary.
You made things worse, a voice accused him. The mourners, the food, you wanted the chaos so you could make use of it.
He could not deny that … but it would have happened with or without them.
He killed the part of him that whispered of guilt and remorse, stabbed at it with his daggers until it was quiet once more. He found no more trouble on his grim walk.
Sunset found him with two weepy-eyed children.
Both of them were too proud to be caught with tears in their eyes. Arya was wiping the nothing from her eyes as she scowled, while Len was blinking suspiciously.
“We thought …” Arya Stark trailed off.
He placed a hand on her shoulder awkwardly. “I’m alright.”
“There’s blood on you,” Len pointed out.
He gave the boy a tired smile. “Not mine.”
Strange, Gunther thought. It was usually Andrei who said that, or Lucia.
“How … where were …” Arya tried to say.
“The Old Gate,” he said, slumping down on a sea of soft satin pillows. “We took it during the chaos.”
“We?” Len parroted.
“Do you remember the South Boar?” He had left the two of them to be watched by Alton while he spoke with Mott and Ironbelly in the cellar below the inn about their plan. It was there that they concocted their scheme to free the prisoners in the dungeons of the Red Keep.
The children nodded.
“I’ve been working with a few others,” he admitted. “Smiths and merchants and tailors disgruntled with the Lannisters and the throne, others who were condemned by the Lannisters to die... They call themselves the Antler Men, for the royal stag of Baratheon. Traitors all, and rebels. Angry men. The South Boar is one of the places where we gather to discuss our plans.”
“Plans?” Arya wondered.
“To sting the throne,” he grinned, “like bees. We have been a bloody nuisance for them. Freeing prisoners who were condemned for treason, stealing swords and mail from gold cloaks …”
“For the battle,” she realised. “You…”
He looked at her and tried to smile in a way he hoped was reassuring.
“Can I join?”
“What?” Gunther stared at her blankly.
The daughter of Eddard Stark was wearing her father’s solemn face. “I hate them. They killed Lady, the Queen … and Joffrey. I hate them. The Kingslayer wounded Father. They killed Syrio, and my father’s men. I…”
“You want to kill them.”
Arya froze, her face was dark but doubting. Len was watching her with a look of disturbed sorrow. Gunther could not blame the girl for her hatred yet …
Ranald loves the cutthroat not, he knew. In truth, he had never been the most devout, even for the only god that would accept a thief. He was not blind, however. Arya’s dreams could only mean the one thing … and Ranald abhored violence of all kinds, prohibited it even except for self-defense.
Gunther had broken that, at times. It was no wonder that the God of Luck did not always smile upon him, the way Ursun seemed to do for Andrei, or Myrmidia for Lucia, or all of them for the bard. Ranald had his day today, Gunther realised with a sudden halt. He was the deity of the common people; the trickster happy to pull down the lofty and raise up the low, the laughing champion of the downtrodden who sheltered and supported those who fought for it.
Ranald was the god of the weak and the forgotten, and those who needed a change in fortune.
He could not help but to wonder how the Liberator, the divine symbol of freedom from tyranny, would feel about the violence that had seized the city.
He was the liberation from despots and the revolution that undercut tyrants. Ranald the Liberator undermined oppression and fought for the oppressed, protecting his worshippers from official interference. He was the god of ‘turning a blind eye’, for whom the law was just another shackle meant to be broken.
Gunther was thinking of all the blood he saw that day; the mangled corpses, the burned corpses, the half-eaten corpses …
Would you smile at this? He wondered. Was this liberty? Was this freedom?
He glanced over at Emmanuelle, but the ginger cat was slumbering sweetly. If the cat was a symbol for Ranald, then he did not want to think about what she symbolised. Arya was still waiting for his response, giving him a scowl.
“I am not putting you in danger,” he told the girl earnestly. “You are not going to stalk about with dagger in hand, or plunge into the Red Keep … but you can follow along to the South Boar again, both of you if you so wish, to sit in on the discussions. But don’t expect any to come within the week. After all that has happened today…”
“I know,” she said, nodding fiercely. “I’m tired of doing nothing.”
“Aye,” Len chimed in quietly, “me too.”
At that, the ginger cat seemed to stir. It rose, padding over to Arya, and gave the daughter of Winterfell a lick on her palm. She giggled, taking the cat into her lap.
He tilted his head curiously. “Alright,” Gunther agreed. “We have more than enough time in the next few days.”
“For what?” Len blinked.
He gave them an amused smile. “To train, what do you think? You want to leave this hideout? You’ll be throwing the knife for hours every day until you can hit that spot on the wall perfectly. The space is small, but big enough for you to run about until you almost collapse. We can’t practice stealing … but there are other ways to try and hone that blade. And Arya,” he glanced at her. “We’ll be dancing and sewing aplenty in the coming days.”
Arya Stark gave him a wide smile. “My needle will be ready.”
Gunther laughed, and for the moment, the world did not feel so dark and gloomy.
Notes:
Unlike Tyrion's chapter, I thought it necessary to show the very bloody price of the riot, viewed by someone on the ground.
For those frustrated that Sansa was not saved, know that Arya feels as frustrated as you. I have plans for Sansa, Arya, and Gunther that will pay off soon, I assure.
And that concludes the riot of King's Landing! Next two chapters should be fun. First, a bonus POV for a glimpse at the invasion of the westerlands. After that ... Robb's next battle.
Chapter 87: The Young Kraken
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The Crag was more ruin than stronghold.
It was a romantic ruin, certainly, jutting up brave and mighty above the crashing sea behind. Still, there was little gold or glory to be reaped here. The Westerling mines had failed years ago, he was told by the maester at Ashemark, their best lands sold off or lost. The Lord of the Crag was captured at the Whispering Wood, the rest of the men that had marched with him slaughtered beneath the walls of Riverrun.
The walls of the Crag loomed gray and grim in the misty morning light, a squat thing of stone and stubbornness perched atop the cliffs. The light was dimmer when he had taken Ashemark in the rain. He could still see the banner of House Marbrand, the burning tree, and how it fluttered bravely from its high tower until the moment it fell. He could still see it, torn down in the storm, soaked and trodden into the mud.
There, he had ridden at the head of the vanguard alongside Patrek Mallister and Torrhen Karstark. Patrek Mallister was an amiable sort; they shared a taste for wenches, wine, japes, and hawking. Torrhen Karstark was quieter and more solemn, but he smiled more in their presence after Ashemark, where Theon had saved him from a red-cloaked spearman hoping to stab the Northman while distracted.
That had been a glorious battle.
The garrison at Ashemark was nothing to scoff at. Two hundred men. But they had been taken by surprise, and stolen from their slumber. They came with the rain and the dark, emerging like prowling wolves on the hunt, and had descended upon the east gate before the sentries could properly react. The fight within was short.
And when Ashemark fell, with Lord Damon Marbrand slain beneath the shadow of his tower, it was his name they had shouted.
“Greyjoy,” Patrek Mallister laughed, “first through the breach!”
He remembered the laughter and cheers, the casual slaps on the back and the japes, the tankards of ale passed around in the hall of Ashemark after the battle. Theon had never felt half so bright, half so alive. He remembered standing on the battlements of Ashemark, watching the banner of the burning tree replaced by the leaping direwolf of Stark, the eagle of Mallister, and the white sunburst of Karstark. He remembered looking over the fields of the Westerlands with Patrek Mallister and Torrhen Karstark, the three sharing wine and words as night fell around them.
The Crag was not half as proud as Ashemark, nor strong, nor rich, but Robb had commanded him to take it and given him a thousand men for the task.
Of the thousand, they lost seven-and-twenty at Ashemark. Two scores were wounded, and left behind there, with a garrison of fifty men. He still had close to nine hundred men, more than enough to take the Crag, weakened as it was.
“Loose!” he heard Patrek Mallister command, a sharp bark in the dawn mist.
A volley of Northern arrows hissed through the morning air. Theon watched them arc and fall like a cruel, dark rain over the battlements. Men screamed. One tumbled from the wall, limbs flailing like a dropped puppet, with an arrow in his throat.
The ram was crashing against the weak gate, like a slow drumming writ large. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Thick wooden shields and plate mail protected the men holding the heavy ram against what few archers dared to peek their heads and bows above their battlements. They were too busy, Theon laughed, what not with the arrows and the men scaling the walls. He spied Torrhen Karstark leaping over the grey stone, and a dozen men clashing swords with the panicking Westermen.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Theon was mounted atop his courser that he had named Arrowwind. The brave steed had served him well when he rode with the Blackfish’s outriders in the Riverlands, and at the Whispering Wood, and Riverrun, and Oxcross. It was swift and fearless, yet graceful in the way that only a rain of arrows could be.
“How much longer before the gate falls, you think?” He shouted to Patrek.
“A few good thrusts and the maiden will faint!”
Theon sniggered at that, and the northern riders around him as well. A fist of mounted men and barded steeds, with sharp lances. They did not have to wait for long. The gate came crashing open, like a whore spreading her legs. Theon took a drag from his waterskin, sloshed the water in his mouth, and threw it aside.
“Ride!”
And they did. Some were shouting, “Winterfell!”. Others roared for Karhold or Seagard. “The North!” was common, as was “Young Wolf!”
The men had dropped the ram by now, and threw themselves aside. Armored riders rode past them roaring, sword in hand, the morning wind biting through the seams of their mail. They trampled the line of men at the gate, who could barely hold their shields together in time, and rode past splinters and sprawled corpses.
Iron rang against iron, and he had never heard a sound more sweet.
A pale-faced man came charging with a spear, but he parried the long, sharp stick with his blade. Arrowwind flew past the man, and his sword fell. A red rain rose, and a pale-faced head soared through the air. Theon was laughing.
His sword fell again, taking the arm of some young squire. He caught the blade of a knight, but did not have the time to hack at him. Inside the yard, chaos reigned.
He saw his horsemen riding down the panicked defenders, blades catching the rays of the morning sun. The Westerling men tried to rally around the tower steps but a wave of arrows crashed into them. Theon moved like a storm, blade flashing, the ring of impact shivering up his arm each time steel met steel or bone.
A young man stumbled in front of him, no more than four-and-ten. Theon hesitated for half a second, enough for the boy to notice him. Clutching the bastard sword in his hand, he came with a yell. Theon parried, and thrust his steel through his mouth.
Above, Torrhen Karstark had claimed the walls and more men were streaming up the ladders. A surge of defenders were rushing out of the keep with swords and spears, the last of the sour surprises within, he would wager. He gave a quick glance behind, and saw the Mallister eagle fluttering closer. Good, he thought. Patrek Mallister was leading the third and final wave. “Charg-” he wanted to roar, but a hot burst of pain bloomed in his side, just above the hip with a thunk.
His hand pressed to the shaft of the arrow jutting from his side. Oh, Theon realised, that is how it feels to be shot. It felt wrong, foreign, like someone had stuffed a burning brand into his flesh. Get it out, he wanted to say. Out, it hurts.
Before the last of the Westerling men could come unto him, arrows fell upon them with a hiss, and Patrek Mallister arrived with steel. Around him, the battle raged into its final embers, but the sound was fading into something faint and far. He thought he heard someone yell, “They’re falling back! The Crag is taken!”
But the noise of steel and screaming and shouting had become a dull ringing. His sword slipped from his fingers. He thought of Ashemark, of the cheers and the drink, how Robb had trusted him with the command …
Then the stone of the yard rose up to meet him. No, I’m falling. And Theon Greyjoy knew no more.
When he woke once more, it was to the scent of lavender and the softness of linen.
It was not the maester’s tent, nor a cell, nor the seven hells or the watery depths. It was a room, quiet and warm, with firelight flickering and licking gently in the hearth. And beside him, a girl was washing her hands in a basin of water.
She had curly chestnut hair, a heart-shaped face, teats the size of apples, and doe-like soft brown eyes. Slender and willowy, the girl gave him a shy smile when she saw him. “You should not move,” she said, her voice soft but not weak.
“Where-” His voice came out dry and rasped.
“The Crag,” she replied, handing him a cup of water. “You have been fevered for three days.”
Three days? Theon downed the cup with a single, thirsty gulp. “You’re not a servant.”
“No,” she said softly.
“Who are you then?”
“Jeyne Westerling.”
Theon was amused. Though when he let out a soft laugh, his ribs punished him sorely for his audacity. “The daughter of the defeated.” He glanced suspiciously about the room. “Where are Patrek and Torrhen? Where are my men?”
“Lord Mallister has taken some men to scout near the Banefort,” she told him, drawing a seat. “Lord Karstark is in his chambers. It is late.”
They were not yet Lord Mallister and Lord Karstark, their fathers bore the title. He was not Lord Greyjoy yet either. He did not see fit to remind her of that. I must get used to the sound. They will call me as such, soon. “Where are my guards?”
“Outside, my lord,” she said, refilling his water. “They watched me the first two days I tended to you, alongside the maester.”
And they should be here, he fumed. She could see the look on his face. “I-I mean you no harm, my lord.”
“I took your castle,” he pointed out, half amused, half cautious. “Your father is a prisoner.”
“My father is a prisoner,” she pointed out. “If anything were to happen to you under my care …”
She was not wrong there, though Theon did not wish to admit defeat. “Who taught you the healing arts?”
She gave him a quick look. “The maester.”
He felt a flush on his face. His wits were addled, he decided, by the fever and whatever concoction they had given him. “Why learn it?”
“A lady should know more to sew and sing,” Jeyne Westerling folded her hands in her lap. “And I enjoy the process.”
“Enjoy the process.” Theon was befuddled. “Do you enjoy peeling arrows from wounded men? Pouring boiling wine into their holes?”
The girl giggled. “Not so. My stomach does not turn so harshly at those. But there is a … pride to be able to nurse men back to life, like watering a plant.”
He did not care to be compared to a plant. Theon tried to rise but a pang of pain screamed in his side where the arrow had bit him. Jeyne rose instead, frowning.
“You have to rest, my lord,” she protested. “The maester said-”
“Bugger the maester,” he ground out, “I have a war to fight in. Battles to win.”
Robb, he thought. Robb was marching to confront Tywin Lannister, he was not going to slumber in soft sheets while there was glory to be reaped. He commanded me to take Ashemark, so I did. He told me to take the Crag, so I did. Though he had not said to take the Banefort, Theon could take it. The glory called to him eagerly, sweet as a siren's song.
“The war is not ending on the morrow,” Jeyne pointed out.
There was a certain hilarity in the girl telling him so. Theon barked out a harsh laugh, and his ribs gave him a good rush of pain for that. “How long?” he rasped.
“You can walk properly after a moon’s turn,” she told him, “but another fortnight may be needed for you to fight and ride.”
That was too long. Six weeks, Theon’s mood grew dark. “Who was the man to shoot me with the damned arrow?”
“Dead by now,” she said solemnly. By your hands, she meant.
Theon sighed. Does she want me to apologise? It was war. “No matter,” he sighed again, “I will speak with Torrhen on the morrow … and write a letter.”
“As you say,” she made to leave.
“And…” he started awkwardly. He cursed his hesitance. When had he ever hesitated before a woman? “Thank you.”
Jeyne Westerling did not turn to look at him, but she giggled all the same.
It was a sweet sound, more honeyed than all the false moans the whores of Wintertown had given him, that he had bought with Stark silver. When the door was shut, the only sound left in the room was the flickering of the fire.
His head crashed against the soft pillow again. Theon let out a soft groan.
Six weeks, he thought again. Robb would never let him live this down. He sighed. It could be worse, he supposed. He could be dead, the arrow could have found his throat or eye or heart instead of his side. And it could have been six moons or years instead of six weeks. And he had taken the Crag despite the injury he sustained.
Ashemark and the Crag, Theon was satisfied, closing his eyes. The banner of House Westerling was six seashells, white on sand. He imagined that golden banner falling, a golden kraken rising in its place. A smile bloomed across his face, wide and proud.
The Westerlings are proud and ancient, with a lineage dating back to the days of the First Men and the Age of Heroes. House Marbrand is not so young either, and Ashemark is old. He faintly recalled Maester Luwin saying that Jaehaerys the Conciliator had visited the castle. Theon Greyjoy conquered both of them.
The satisfied smirk on his mouth grew sleepy. He could still hear the chanting and roaring of “Young Wolf!” in his head. Robb had won that name at the Whispering Wood and Riverrun, and proved it again at Oxcross and Sarsfield. After this, Theon thought sleepily, they’ll call me the Young Kraken. They will.
It was a sweet sound. He tried to imagine how his father would react to the news, that his son had taken two castles of the proud West. I paid the Iron Price, Theon yawned, I claimed them with steel. He found that he could scarcely remember what Balon Greyjoy, the Lord Reaper of Pyke, looked like. Nor could he remember Asha, his last living sibling. He could not even conjure up his mother’s face.
It was Robb’s face that he could remember, grimly affable in the dark tent after Oxcross. He remembered Robb’s smile. Though the other Starks had little love for him, nor the Lady Catelyn, the oldest of the Stark children had been more of a brother to him than the bloated bodies of any of Balon Greyjoy’s blood. He recalled the bloody beatings that Rodrik and Maron Greyjoy adored to give him.
They are dead and gone now, Theon thought, and here I am. The Young Kraken …
The title was sweet to him, as were Robb’s words of trust. Sweeter still was the honeyed sound of Jeyne Westerling’s laughter. Her voice and smile and scent lingered in his mind as he faded to sleep. Theon did not know why.
Notes:
A non-Reek Theon is an absolutely fascinating character to write about. He will be upgraded to a full POV next arc, for any Theon fans! There are a few other characters who will be raised to POV characters next arc, but we will get there when we get there.
Hope you enjoyed this short, little peek (peek, peek, it rhymes with reek) into what Theon has been doing. Theon/Jeyne Westerling is also a hilarious pairing. Canon Robb looking at this like: ???
Next, we go to the real show ...
Robb Stark vs Tywin Lannister ... The Battle of the Fords
Chapter 88: Robb II: The Battle of the Fords
Summary:
It has been awhile since the last proper battle, huh?
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Two days’ ride west from Riverrun, Robb’s host of two thousand horsemen met the encampment of Martyn Rivers.
He was Ser Perwyn’s half-brother, whom he had sent with his mother’s escort to Storm’s End. The camp was held in the stone shell of a shattered holdfast, beside a roofless stable, a small stream, and a hundred fresh graves. The Blackfish had ridden ahead of their hosts to make sure that the man knew they were coming. Rivers made to bow as Robb dismounted, but he waved that off.
“Well met, my lord of Stark,” he said with a grin. “Lord Edmure charged us to keep an eye out for your host.”
“I am here now,” Robb told him. “Ser Brynden?”
“Racing for Riverrun.”
That was good. He did not need the Blackfish to rush back to him, not when his talents could be used elsewhere. “And Riverrun?”
“Lord Tywin is coming,” Rivers said grimly. “He has left Harrenhal and marches west with all his power. Eighteen thousand men, thereabouts.”
Robb allowed a satisfied nod. The lion has left its den at last. “How long until that host is upon us?”
“Three days, perhaps four, it is hard to know. We have eyes out along all the roads, but it would be best not to linger.”
And they did not. Rivers broke his camp quickly and joined their host with a hundred horsemen. They set off again, flying beneath the direwolf of Stark, the leaping trout of Tully, the mailed fist of Glover, and the twin towers of Frey. Martyn Rivers joined Robb at the head of the host, alongside Galbart Glover and Grey Wind.
“There’s a singer come to Riverrun, my lord,” the man broke the silence, “Rymund the Rhymer, he calls himself. He’s made a song of Oxcross. Doubtless you’ll hear it sung tonight, my lord, for your glory. Wolf in the Night, this Rymund calls it.”
Robb grimaced at them, to Lord Glover’s amusement. “This man makes a sweet song of butchery?”
“The men seem to like it,” Martyn Rivers said apologetically.
“Songs follow battles like crows, my lord,” Galbart Glover remarked. “No doubt we’ll be hearing more of that in the moons to come.”
Robb was dismayed. “There is no place for singers in a war.”
“There could be,” Glover told him. “These songs boost morale, my lord. It keeps the spirits up, the men like to hear of their battles won.”
He could not deny that. Victories do that as well, he thought, and victories they were reaping. Sarsfield had fallen with a whimper. The castle had been left untouched on their ride to Oxcross, so as to not alert the West … but after Oxcross, there was no need for such caution. Without siege engines, they could not take Casterly Rock nor Lannisport but the land was ripe for the taking. The Greatjon, Lady Mormont, Lord Karstark, and Theon all played their parts, biting and clawing at the Westerlands.
Sarsfield had only two hundred men for a garrison, and half were asleep when Robb’s host fell upon them with two thousand. By dawn, they feasted in its halls.
After, they took the mountain trails and goat paths into the riverlands once more, bypassing the Golden Tooth again. They spent one night at Wayfarer’s Rest, and the smallfolk there were put to work already, digging deep trenches and felling trees to sharpen stakes. Those ones would be set facing east to await the lion’s arrival.
That night as they made their camp, he dined again with Lord Glover. Grey Wind was curled by his feet, pawing at a long bone. He found that he liked the man; loyal and leal, steady, with a good head on his shoulders and wise advice to give. “I meant to speak with you, my lord,” he said, “about Deepwood Motte.”
“The Motte?” Glover was confused. “What of it?”
“It is surrounded by woodlands,” Robb said. “I mean to make use of that.”
“For timber,” Glover narrowed his eyes, deep in thought.
“Aye, and for space. I wish for the Motte to be expanded.”
“Expanded,” Glover scratched at his brown beard, pondering. “That will take coin and men, my lord.”
“Coin we shall have in plenty at the war’s end,” Robb said with a wry smile. “The west will be most willing to provide, I think. Men, I intend to provide.”
“You honor me, Lord Robb,” Glover bowed his head. “But … if I may, why?”
“The North must be strengthened,” he declared earnestly. “The Motte is not the only place I mean to put our blood gold to use. Widow’s Watch and Ramsgate in the east, Flint’s Finger, the Stony Shore, and Barrowton in the west.”
“Settlements with access to the sea,” Glover understood. “Ports and coastal towns.”
Lord Wyman had written to him, informing him of the letter that his father had sent. The North would soon grow its fleet once more, and wood would be needed in abundance for it, gold and silver as well. He did not want to stop there. Though his father was still the Lord of Winterfell and the North, he would have to take his place in time, though he did not want to think too deeply on the matter yet.
The North had never been a naval power, nor would it become one in the years to come, but more ships to patrol its coasts would not hurt. If they could expand the coastal towns, more trade could flow to the North, and more shipyards could be built.
“I mean for the Motte to expand out to the coast,” Robb told him. “I understand that the outer walls are wooden? You will get the gold to replace it with stone. More towers, trenches, and tunnels. The main hall must be expanded, along with hearths and homes, barracks and granaries, quays and wharfs for fishermen.”
“The woodlands around can be cleared for pastures and fields,” Glover mused. “It will take time … and many hands to expand to the coast.”
“It will be done,” Robb promised. Their discussion continued until dark.
They found the Red Fork late the next day, downstream of Riverrun where the river made a wide loop and the waters grew muddy and shallow. The crossing was guarded by a mixed force of leather-clad archers and mailed pikemen wearing the eagle badge of the Mallisters. He eyed the sharpened stakes with an approving eye as they were led across. He saw the iron spikes under the water, the caltrops scattered among the rocks. The archers were all ready and watching, bows in hand.
“All along the river, my lord,” the scout told him, “the same on all the fords, by Lord Edmure’s command. The Lannisters can impale themselves on these bloody spikes.”
The next day, a stream of smallfolk parted before them. They were making for the safety of Riverrun. Some were driving animals before them, others pulling wayns, but all made way as his two thousand rode past, and cheered them with cries of “Stark!” and “Young Wolf!” Half a mile from Riverrun, he saw a large encampment where the scarlet and black banner of the Blackwoods waved above the lord’s tent.
He could spy a second camp strung out along the bank north of the Tumblestone, familiar standards flapping in the wind. Marq Piper’s dancing maiden, Darry’s plowman, and the twining red-and-white snakes of the Paeges. Riverrun’s banner men, the lords of the Trident. Edmure had called them back here.
Something dark was dangling against the walls of Riverrun, he saw from a distance. When Robb rode close, he saw dead men hanging from the battlements, slumped at the ends of long ropes with hempen nooses tight around their necks, their faces swollen and black. The crows had been at them, but their crimson cloaks still showed bright against the sandstone walls. Lannisters, he thought in disgust.
“They have started without us,” Glover jested.
The portcullis was up as they approached.
Ser Edmure rode out from the castle to meet them, surrounded by three of Lord Tully’s sworn men. He recognised the master-at-arms, the stewards, and the big bald captain of guards. Edmure wore a blue-and-red cloak over a tunic embroidered with silver fish. He had not shaved since they had departed, his beard was a fiery bush. His eyes were deep blue orbs that watched him with equal parts relief and dismay.
“Nephew,” his uncle greeted jovially enough, “we heard about your victories.”
“We shall share in them soon enough,” he said, shaking Ser Edmure’s hand. The heir to Riverrun had not been overjoyed to hear of his betrothal to a daughter of Walder Frey, without his consent or knowledge. He could not have consented nor known, for he was a prisoner of the Kingslayer. Still, Ser Edmure reserved his displeasure to sullen stares and scowls, and no more. “How fares Lord Hoster?”
“One day he seems stronger, and the next…” He shook his head. “He has asked for your lady mother.”
“I pray we see her soon,” he waved a hand at the bodies. “Who are these men you have hanged?”
Edmure glanced up uncomfortably. “They came with Ser Cleos when he brought the queen’s answer to our demands.”
Robb raised a brow. “You killed envoys?”
“False envoys,” Edmure declared. “They promised peace and surrendered their steel, so I allowed them freedom of the castle. For three nights, they ate my meat and drank my mead while I talked with Ser Cleos. On the fourth night, they tried to free the Kingslayer.” He gestured with a finger. “That big brute killed two guards with naught but those ham hands of his, caught them by the throats and smashed their skulls together while that skinny lad beside him was opening Lannister’s cell with a bit of wire, gods curse him. The one on the end was some sort of damned mummer. He used my own voice to command that the River Gate be opened. The guardsmen swear to it, Enger and Delp and Long Lew, all three. If you ask me, the man sounded nothing like me, and yet the oafs were raising the portcullis all the same.”
The Imp’s work, he suspected, but he could not be sure.
“How did you catch them?”
“Ah, as it happened, I was not in the castle. I’d crossed the Tumblestone to, ah ...”
You were whoring, Robb would have said, but he decided to give his uncle the courtesy of silence.
Ser Edmure’s cheeks were as red as his beard. “It was the hour before dawn, and I was only then returning. When Long Lew saw my boat and recognized me, he finally thought to wonder who was standing below barking commands, and raised a cry.”
“The Kingslayer?”
“Retaken,” Edmure assured. “Jaime Lannister got hold of a sword and wounded Delp but the boy will live, bar for a scar. The whole thing was a bloody mess. At the sound of steel, some of the other red cloaks rushed to join him. I hanged those beside the four who freed him, and threw the rest in the dungeons to rot. The Kingslayer too. We’ll have no more escapes from that one, nephew. He’s down in the dark this time, chained hand and foot and bolted to the wall.”
Robb was of a mind to take off the bloody man’s hand, but his sisters would suffer for that. “And Cleos Frey?”
“He swears he knew naught of the plot. Who can say? The man is half Lannister, half Frey, and all liar. I put him in Jaime’s old tower cell.”
“And the words he brings?”
“Unpleasant,” Edmure said, “but not unexpected. There are other things you should know, Robb. Renly is dead.”
“Dead.” Robb was stunned. Last he had heard, Renly was the undisputed master of the south, whose host was a hundred thousand strong. “How?”
“The tales we have heard have been most queer,” Edmure grimaced. “There were no battles fought between Stannis and Renly … Some say that Stannis sent a cutthroat to Renly’s pavilion. Others say it was washerwomen. Some agree that it was some southron woman. But all the tales seem to agree on two things. Women killed Renly Baratheon, and he was slain the night before battle.”
That meant that his mother and father were safe. He would not mourn Renly Baratheon. “And King Stannis?”
“He has taken Storm’s End, but we have had no ravens from there.”
They will be marching for King’s Landing soon.
“There was another thing. A wandering crow came to Riverrun, some weeks prior. Yoren, the name was. He had with him recruits from King’s Landing … and he told me that this Brotherhood Without Banners brought him to the Red Fork. A northman guided him to Riverrun, by the name of Harwin. He said he was from Winterfell.”
Robb remembered the man. “He was one of my father’s guards. A good, loyal man.” And sent to slay the Mountain. “Is he still at Riverrun?”
Edmure shook his head. “He did not linger long. Wanted me to tell you that he’s fighting with this brotherhood for now, but he will return to Winterfell when the war has ended, if you will still have him.”
“I will,” Robb nodded. “And Yoren?” He remembered the crow as well. He had come to Winterfell with the Imp.
“I sent him north with supplies and a few more horses. He should have crossed the Twins by now.” Ser Edmure’s face soured at that. “Walder Frey has sent another letter to me, asking when the wedding will be held.”
Robb met the man’s stare. “Let us speak of this after the coming battle, uncle.”
“Aye,” Edmure said sullenly, “we shall.”
They trotted over the drawbridge, putting the row of dead Lannisters behind them. As they rode out into the bustle of Riverrun’s upper bailey, a naked toddler ran in front of the horses. Robb jerked his reins hard to avoid him, glancing about. Hundreds of smallfolk had been admitted to the castle, and allowed to erect crude shelters against the walls. Their children were everywhere underfoot, and the yard teemed with their cows, sheep, and chickens. “Who are all these folk?”
“My people,” Edmure said. “They were afraid. I opened the gates for them.”
Riverrun might soon be under siege, Robb thought, but he did not speak. Instead, he offered his uncle a nod. “Ser Brynden has ridden ahead?”
“He has,” Edmure confirmed. “To go around Lord Tywin and harry any messengers coming to him, though this brotherhood seems eager to do so as well.”
“You have done well, uncle. I have seen the fords.”
Edmure jutted his chest out. “We shall hold them no matter what. If Tywin Lannister thinks to cross it unbloodied, I mean to teach him a hard lesson.”
Robb looked at him. “We shall bloody him … but let him cross.”
His uncle snapped his head to them so swiftly it was almost dangerous. “What?”
“The yard is no place to discuss plans, uncle.”
“As you say,” Edmure flushed. “The godswood, then.”
The two of them made their way along a gallery to the godswood gate. Three, if you included a quiet Grey Wind. He sent Galbart Glover to make sure their northern riders were settled. When they were alone beneath the trees, Edmure turned to face him. “You mean to let Lord Tywin cross?” He demanded.
“I do,” Robb confirmed calmly.
“Why?”
“We raided the west to lure him out of Harrenhal, and we did. If we commit to a pitched battle and fend off Lord Tywin, then he will return again to Harrenhal … or look south. King Stannis and my father are preparing to march on King’s Landing, our scouts tell us. Lord Tywin and his host do not know that yet, not with their ravens shot down and riders slain. With Ser Brynden in the field, they will be blind and deaf. How many men do we have?”
“When all my strength is marshaled, I should have eight thousand foot and three thousand horse,” Edmure said.
“And I have brought two thousand riders with me.”
“We can win against those odds,” Edmure insisted. “And there’s Roose Bolton. Lord Tywin defeated him on the Green Fork, but failed to pursue. When Lord Tywin went to Harrenhal, Bolton took the ruby ford and the crossroads. He has ten thousand men. I’ve sent word to Helman Tallhart to join him with the garrison you left at the Twins—”
“I left those men to hold the Twins,” Robb said, feeling a fury rise in him.
“And they have,” his uncle was stubborn. “The Freys fought bravely in the Whispering Wood and at Riverun, and Ser Stevron holds a strong camp at Oxcross. Ser Ryman and Black Walder and the rest are in the west, Martyn has been of great service scouting, and Ser Perwyn is part of your mother’s guard. You have betrothed me to one of old Walder’s daughters, and Roose Bolton has wed one, I hear. And haven’t you taken two of his grandsons to be fostered at Winterfell?”
Two hostages if need be.
“Bolton needs Frey’s men, and Ser Helman’s as well. I’ve commanded him to retake Harrenhal whilst it is weak.”
Robb frowned. If Harrenhal should fall, Lord Tywin will have no safe retreat.
Edmure went on. “If he attacks across the river, he’ll end as Rhaegar did when he tried to cross the Trident. If he holds back, he’ll be caught between Riverrun and Harrenhal, and our two hosts can smash him.”
There was some sense to what his uncle was saying. “It’s too risky,” Robb insisted however. “If we meet him on the open field, we could win … but how many men must die for that? The Riverlands have been utterly ravaged, uncle. Farms and fields have been burnt, villages and towns sacked. When peace comes, if it does, men will be needed to repair and rebuild. The North as well.”
Edmure could not answer him. “What do you suggest then, Robb? Lord Tytos agreed that the plan was well, Lord Jonos too. When did Blackwood and Bracken agree about anything that was not certain, I ask you?”
Robb ground his teeth. “We hold the fords,” he agreed, “for if we do not, Lord Tywin will be wary of a trap. We bloody his host, slay with arrows and spikes and spears … and we let him cross. We leave a strong host to hold Riverrun, such that he cannot take it. The bulk of our host will march west, to Wayfarer’s Rest.”
“Wayfarer’s Rest?” Edmure frowned. “It is a small seat. It will not hold against an attack.”
“The keep will not,” he agreed. “But the road is narrow.”
Edmure was not slow to realise his meaning. “We can dig in and let Lord Tywin come at our single defense.”
“He has only the one road to take to reach the Golden Tooth. With Riverrun and the river at his back, he will have to march at us and we will bloody him again if he does. If he sits and wait…”
“Then King’s Landing will fall.” Edmure was deep in thought. “What if he marches on Riverrun?”
“We have a strong host of horses,” Robb reminded him. “Riverrun is strong and can be held easily. Should the Lannisters march upon it, our riders will descend upon their rear.”
“The more time Tywin wastes here,” Edmure realised, “he cannot march to King’s Landing. That’s why you had my uncle ride past Lord Tywin.”
“No messages from King’s Landing will find him,” Robb said grimly.
“I see,” Edmure scratched at his fiery beard. “There is sense in that plan. If Tywin marches upon us at Wayfarer’s Rest, our position will be strong. If he doesn’t, he wastes his own precious time. If he tries to march back east, he has to cross the Red Folk once more, and he cannot return to Harrenhal either…”
His uncle was looking at him with a glint in his eye that spoke of admiration.
“And his men are not like to love this endless march either,” Robb pointed out. “The west is burning. Many have lost their castles, friends and families.”
“I see,” Edmure repeated once more, in a softer tone. “We will do it your way, Robb.”
He gave his uncle a nod. “Your plan had its merits as well, uncle… it is just not the right tool for the task.”
“Aye,” Edmure waved it off, “no matter, nephew. I must go speak to my men now.”
“Go in peace, uncle,” Robb told him, “I will stay in the solace of the godswood for a moment.”
When he was alone in the godswood, he knelt before the slender heart tree again. Grey Wind had stalked off somewhere. The carved sad face watched him once more. The last he had been here, it was before the lords had declared Stannis Baratheon to be their king. It did not feel so long ago.
He closed his eyes.
Old Gods, Robb prayed, thinking of the white wolf. Watch over me in the battles to come. That was the other matter.
The night after the Battle of Oxcross, he dreamt of the shrine of the wolf. Grey Wind was with him, and the two braved a white blizzard. He remembered the battleaxe, black and ancient and mighty, and the wild warrior with the wolf-skin cloak who watched him. He could still hear the howling of the wolves, still remembered how cold his hands were when he woke, with hoarfrost on them.
He did not know how to react.
When he warmed his hands over the brazier, the hoarfrost melted away slowly, water dripping like dew into the flames. He did not speak a word of it to anyone, not Ser Brynden nor Lord Glover. He could not be sure how they would have reacted to the fact, to … sorcery. He did not even know how to feel about it. Fear? Joy? On the road, Robb tried to forget about it, to focus on the ride and the battles to come. But here, before the melancholic eyes of the heart tree, his hands were cold.
Was that from you? He wanted to ask the white wolf.
The godswood was silent, bar the soft whispering of the wind. He found no answer in the night. Grey Wind came to him again, licking at his face. Robb chuckled lightly at that, brushing his hand against the direwolf’s muzzle. The mother wolf had gone south with Lady Catelyn, while Nymeria had grown restless within Riverrun. Robb allowed the wolf, as much as man could allow wolves, to hunt free in the riverlands. He was told that once a week or so, Arya’s wolf would appear before the gates of Riverrun with a mighty pack, howling with fresh blood on their fangs as if they were outriders returning from scouting and skirmishing.
Give me the fangs of the wolf, Robb prayed in the dark.
Give me the claws of the wolf, he thought of his axe.
Give me the coat of the wolf, he ran his fingers along Grey Wind’s fur.
And I will show them the mercy of the wolf.
When Robb rose, his thoughts flew north to the troubles back home. Lord Wyman’s letter had not been all about ships. He was aware of the dispute in the Hornwood and of the Bastard of Bolton’s bloody deeds. A foul deed that. Daryn Hornwood was furious, swearing great vengeance against Ramsay Bolton. Roose Bolton must answer for his son’s fell act, Robb decided. Disappearances, Manderly had written too, but they both knew who did the fell act. Robb swore that there would be justice for that, when the war was ended down south.
His mother had never any love for bastards, believing that there was a wickedness in their blood. Robb never saw the sense in that. Bastards were just men, he thought, with every chance to be great or evil. He loved Jon like a brother, no, saw him as one and Jon Snow had always been good, but sullen. This Bastard of Bolton seemed evil in flesh. That reminded him of Luwin’s letter. The maester had sent the raven to Riverrun, and a rider brought it to Wayfarer’s Rest where Robb found it.
Bran has refused to allow Ser Rodrik and Lady Hornwood to enter Winterfell, Luwin wrote. He spoke of queer banners and shadows that no men could see, bar Jojen Reed. I fear that the stress of lordship and the departure of so many of his family are affecting young Bran most severely, my lord.
Robb did not know how to respond to the letter. He would do it after the battle, he supposed. Ser Rodrik would understand, and the Lady Hornwood.
There was just the one thing he wanted to do before he met his lords for council.
When he entered the tower cell, Grey Wind trailing behind him in the gloom with a growl, Ser Cleos Frey stumbled to his knees. “My lord, I knew naught of any escape. I ...The Imp said a Lannister needed a Lannister escort, on my oath as a knight, on my honor as a Frey-”
“Rise,” Robb sat. “I know no grandson of Walder Frey to break his oaths. Ser Edmure mentioned that the Lannisters have responded.”
“They did.” Ser Cleos lurched to his feet.
“Tell me,” he commanded, and the knight did.
“Lord Tyrion … demands that you must lay down your sword, pledge fealty to King Joffrey, and return to Winterfell where you may serve as its lord. You must … free Jaime Lannister, and put your host under his command. Each of your bannermen must … must surrender a hostage. He wanted me to let you know that … that Casterly Rock was raising a new host-”
The laughter left Robb’s throat. He held a hand out for Cleos’ silence, composing himself. “At Oxcross? Continue.”
“The Prince of Dorne has consented to wed his son Trystane to the Princess Myrcella,” Cleos continued. Robb frowned at that. The Dornish will never fight with the Lannisters, but the shadow of a snake is enough to invite caution.
“He offers a trade of hostages,” Ser Cleos went on, “Harrion Karstark and Ser Wylis Manderly for Willem Lannister, Lord Cerwyn and Ser Donnel Locke for my brother Tion. The bones of your father’s guards and servants have been delivered. He … he offers your sisters for Ser Jaime.”
He took a moment to consider the trade of hostages. “Did you see my sisters?”
Ser Cleos hesitated. “I … yes, they seemed…”
“Ser Cleos,” he said, as Grey Wind growled, “lie to me and I will feed you to Grey Wind. He has grown fond of flesh.”
The knight was damp with sweat. “I saw Sansa at court, the day Tyrion told me his terms. She looked most beautiful, my lord. Perhaps pale … and wan.”
And not Arya… That could mean many things. Arya had always been a wilder wolf. They might fear parading her in open court, they might have locked her away safely or… “ His terms, you say?”
“Tyrion spoke for queen and king. Cersei was indisposed that day, I was told.”
His father’s sword was not present as well. “You will stay here until the time comes that negotiations continue. If they become unnecessary…” Robb did not linger to look upon Ser Cleos’ face, running a hand through Grey Wind’s fur.
The rest of the day was spent overseeing Riverrun’s defenses, in council with his lords about their battle plans. When night came, he spared an hour for himself to hone his arm with the battleaxe under a moonlit night, as he had done all the nights prior. The next day was no less harried, and he took a late supper in the Great Hall with the garrison, learning the names of each and every man.
His father had taught him to not ask his men to die for a faceless stranger, and Robb learned that lesson well. He listened to the tales of Ser Gared Tallhart, a grizzled old man with a long scar down his cheek. The man had fought in the Greyjoy Rebellion, and knew how to make other men listen enraptured. Robb made a note to have him oversee the younger men and have him watch over the training of spears.
He shared ale with a spearman from the wolfswood, Darren by name, a broad-shouldered and blunt man. He hunted elk before war came, but held himself well at the Whispering Wood and the Battle of the Camps. Robb tasked him with holding a regiment of pikes and spears for one of the fords.
Rymund the Rhymer was singing through all the courses and he closed with the song he had written about Robb’s victory at Oxcross.
“And the stars in the night were the eyes of his wolves, and the wind itself was their song.” Between the verses, the singer threw his head back to howl, and by the end, half of the hall was howling along with him. Their voices rang off the rafters.
Robb could not help but to smile at that, raising his horn of ale high to the men.
When the night was truly dark, his footsteps brought him to Riverrun’s dungeons.
It was a windowless and damp place, with doors heavy of wood and iron. As Edmure promised, the Kingslayer was chained hand and foot, bolted to the door. It did not seem to erase the smugness from the knight. “Young Wolf,” Jaime Lannister rasped.
Robb ran his hand through Grey Wind’s fur, feeling the direwolf’s growing growl. “I take it you have heard of Oxcross.”
“Pray tell,” the knight stared at him, “the guards are most taciturn.”
“Your uncle, Stafford Lannister, was mustering a host of ten thousand at Oxcross. I slaughtered his army, and he died as well. Fewer than a thousand managed to flee.”
“Uncle Dolt,” the Kingslayer murmured. “Did he put up a fight at least?”
“As good as the one you gave,” Robb went on. “I took Sarsfield. Ashemark has fallen, as has Kayce and Feastfires. Dozens of mines have been looted, hundreds of farms pillaged. The coast of the Westerlands is aflame.”
The look on the knight’s face was sullen. “Casterly Rock will never fall.”
“It does not need to,” Robb assured. “Renly Baratheon has died.”
A bitter chuckle emerged from Jaime Lannister’s throat. “So Stannis has killed him? A miracle … I never knew which of Robert’s brothers I detested more.”
“King Stannis marches on King’s Landing,” Robb told him bluntly.
“The city will hold,” Jaime said, though he could hear a trickle of doubt.
“Will it?” Robb tilted his head. “Your lord father is marching to confront us.”
“And he will defeat you,” the Kingslayer glared.
“He has tried,” Robb snorted, “and he has failed. He lost you … or rather, you lost the army he gave you. He lost Stafford Lannister and his army. Half of the castles in the Westerlands are fallen or soon to be. It occurred to me that your father is not as terrifying as the songs make him out to be. When Balon Greyjoy rebelled, Lannisport was the only port that burned. You lost your fleet. When Robert Baratheon rebelled, your father’s only accomplishment was the sacking of a defenseless city, and the murder of children. All men like to whisper of Castamere and Tarbeck Hall, yes, but what great battles did Lord Tywin fight? He had the numbers, and surprise, and brutality… and nothing else. What wars has Tywin Lannister won that I should fear him? The War of the Ninepenny Kings, more than three decades ago?”
“And you, Kingslayer, what great battles have you won that you should wear that proud smirk? You won one battle against my uncle, that is true, but you lacked the patience for a siege and for that, I captured you. What battles have you fought in the last two decades, ser?”
He gave the lion of Lannister a contemptuous look, like a roach in need of a hard heel. “Stannis Baratheon has sent ravens to all the lords of the land.”
“Has he now?”
“King Joffrey Baratheon is neither a true king, nor a true Baratheon. He is your bastard son.” His mother had given him quiet words before she left for the south, about Bran. “An abomination born of incest and sin and treason.”
“If that is true,” Jaime said, his eyes on a growling Grey Wind, “Stannis is the rightful king. How convenient for him.”
“My father swears the same, on his honor as a Stark,” Robb shrugged. “What man can deny his honor?”
“Honor,” Jaime laughed bitterly. “The honorable lord of Stark, who bore a bastard son. Who was the mother? Some Dornish wench?”
The fire in Robb’s eye grew. “Jon is thrice the man that your bastard can never be. My brother, Bran, saw you and the queen. You pushed him from the tower.”
The Kingslayer met his gaze. “Do you have proof?” He challenged.
Robb rubbed Grey Wind’s fur. “I have an army,” he said, “one that has won against you and yours at every turn, and will continue to do so.”
He left the knight at that. Let him stew with the rats and roaches.
Another hour was spent with his battleaxe, and Robb fell into a deep slumber after.
Grey Wind was in his dreams, and the direwolf howled with the blizzard wind. They were marching up an endlessly high mountain with a white, wintry peak that pierced the heavens like a stone spear. Robb was wearing furs, leathers, and bronze for armor, but he felt warm where he should have felt cold. The howling of wolves awaited them at the top, as did a white fire that burnt like the winter sun. The dream ended before he even saw the summit, and he woke to the blaring of warhorns.
Lord Tywin had come at last.
Olyvar helped him with his armor. His squire did not like to speak unless spoken to, but his hands were swift and confident. First came the padded gambeson, thick with layers of stitched northern wool. Robb held his hands open as Olyvar slid it over his shoulders, adjusting the fit at the waist. The weight settled across his back like a familiar burden. Next, the mail hauberk; a heavy coat of black iron rings that hissed like rain as it moved. Olyvar brought it in from the side, folding it across Robb’s torso.
As Olyvar tugged at the sides to ensure the steel links did not catch, Robb spoke. “Where did you learn to do this?”
“For my brother,” Olyvar Frey murmured softly, “Ser Perwyn.”
His squire reached for the brigandine, a sleeveless vest of riveted metal plates hidden beneath dark grey. He slid it over the mail and began fastening the buckles up the front, all five of them. Each buckle clicked shut with a small finality.
Then came the vambraces. Olyvar wrapped the steel forearm guards snugly over his sleeves, adjusting the leather straps. Pauldrons followed, his squire setting them into place with a satisfying weight. He crouched to fit the greaves next, encasing Robb’s shins in cold steel, and then the sabatons. When he stood again, Olyvar handed Robb his gauntlets. He flexed his fingers into the leather-and-iron gloves.
“You should wear a helm, my lord,” his squire tried to insist once more. He had done so before Oxcross, and at Sarsfield. “A stray arrow or …”
“You sound like my mother. Let the men see my face,” Robb said again.
In place of a helm, he wore a cloak of wolf skin. It came from a maddened beast that Grey Wind had hunted some time before they left for the West. The leather workers at Riverrun had turned it into a magnificent wolf mane for him, toughened and shadowed, and he wore it like a cloak, the dark grey fur shadowing his face.
He gave his squire a long look. “I am of a mind to leave you at Riverrun.”
“My place is beside you, my lord,” Olyvar protested. “By your side.”
Robb furrowed his brow, giving the boy an intense look. Olyvar Frey met his stare.
“Good,” he grunted.
He found Edmure in the yard, mounted atop his warhorse and every inch the lord in his bright mail and flowing cloak. A silver trout ornamented the crest of his greathelm, twin to the one painted on his shield. He gave Robb a nod, though his eyes lingered on the wolf skin. “A new look, nephew?”
“Let all men see me,” Robb declared, joining his northerners, “friend and foe alike.”
Ser Edmure gave him a dashing smile, and reached a hand across. Robb took it. “The gods be with you, uncle.”
“And you.” Edmure Tully raised a mailed hand. Trumpets sounded, bright and brazen, and a drum began to boom. The drawbridge descended in fits and starts, and they led their host out from Riverrun with lances raised and banners streaming. The direwolf and the leaping trout fluttered in unity in the morning sunlight.
Every river crossing north and south of Riverrun was defended by a strong force. Lord Jason Mallister held the defense of four fords, including those closest to the castle. Karyl Vance commanded those upstream, while Tytos Blackwood held those downstream. Martyn Rivers led the Frey contingents to plug in the gaps. Ser Desmond Grell commanded the remaining garrison of Riverrun, though that was a paltry sum of squires and untrained boys and old men.
Edmure took the crossing by the Stone Mill, north of Pinkmaiden. Robb held a high hill close to the centre of the Red Fork, where he could see the land for leagues. He had given half of his host, a thousand riders, to Galbart Glover. The cautious man was waiting in a copse of woods not too far from Pinkmaiden, on the far right of their front. Four hundred riders were given to Karyl Vance to reinforce the far left.
Robb was mounted with six hundred of his best heavy horse.
Each man wore mail and plate, dulled by ash and soot. Their surcoats bore the leaping direwolf. Helmets came in all shapes, some with nasal guards, others full-faced, and some eschewed the helm in favor of their lord. They rode destriers bred in the hills of the North, hardy beasts with shaggy manes and deep chests. Some bore long lances of Northern ash, others hefted axes and hammers and swords. And at the center rode Robb Stark, with Grey Wind padding beside him.
Many of his guards who had fought fiercely alongside him had been deliberately scattered across the many fronts. Torrhen Karstark and Patrek Mallister joined Theon in his campaign, though his brother Eddard kept by Robb’s side. Dacey Mormont led her axe-sisters with Rickard Karstack’s coastal campaign along with Lucas Blackwood and Robin Flint, while the Smalljon and Daryn Hornwood accompanied Maege Mormont as she scoured the fields of the Westerlands. Owen Norrey and Donnel Locke accompanied the Greatjon in his ride across the Pendric Hills. It was his hope that spilled Westermen blood would nourish the bonds of his northmen. Olyvar rode close by him, and Eddard Karstark with his greataxe.
The west bank of the Red Fork was higher than the east, and wooded. Ser Edmure hid archers in the trees, and placed scorpions further behind as support. Rows of sharpened stakes and traps lined the paths, while caltrops and iron spikes waited hungrily in the Red Fork. His uncle had not been idle, it seemed.
The first engagement was nothing more than the clashing of outriders. Beneath a blaze of banners, a purple unicorn came for them. A son of Lord Brax, Robb knew, whose men were milling about uncertainty near the edges of the water. A trumpet blast sent the horsemen forward at a ponderous walk, splashing down into the current. For a moment they made a brave show, all bright armor and streaming banners, the sun flashing off the steel points of their long lances and helms.
It was there that the Mallister men received them, with arrows and stones.
First blood was drawn by the Mallister eagle, and the purple unicorn of Brax was not seen anymore. Battle did not come again until night fell.
They had built watchfires along the bank. Edmure had wondered if the Lannisters would think to find them night-blind. His uncle had the right of it. As they waded in to breast their way across, men stepped in hidden pools and went down splashing, while others stumbled over stones or gashed their feet on the hidden caltrops. The Mallister bowmen sent a storm of fire arrows hissing across the river, strangely beautiful from afar. One man, pierced through a dozen times, his clothes afire, danced and whirled in the knee-deep water until at last he fell and was swept downstream. All across the Red Fork, small pockets of men died in the dark.
Robb Stark had not yet drawn blood when the night fell. Grey Wind sensed his growing impatience, and was growling softly by his side. It would not do to spring the direwolf so hastily, and that was a strategy he meant to hold to. Still, the boredom gnawed hungrily at him, more than any battle or wound would.
The brush of Lord Tywin’s fingers, Robb understood. The Old Lion was probing for a weak point, trying to find an undefended crossing. The golden finger trailed all along the Red Fork, and found nothing but steel that left a hundred bleeding cuts.
At dawn, Ser Flement Brax tried to force a crossing at a ford six leagues to the south, banking on the rising sun to their back. The sun did not help them much in the end. The Lannisters shortened their lances and advanced across the river behind on foot, but the Mallister bowmen had rained high arcing shots down over their shields, while the scorpions his uncle had mounted on the riverbank sent heavy stones and long bolts crashing through to break up the formation, skewering men like meat.
Further upstream, Karyl Vance held the fords, turning it a shade of scarlet that flowed down to them as the day went by. The current carried bloated corpses past like driftwood; Lannister crimson mingled with the white foam, streaking the river with long red ribbons of death. By the second day, the water stank of blood and rot. Men refused to drink from it, and horses reared violently at the scent.
Vance sent an outrider to report in the afternoon. The man came with a torn brown cloak and a dent in his half helm, bloodied but unbowed. “They came in waves, my lord,” the man told them proudly, “and we broke each wave.”
Every hour, new skirmishes danced along the red river. A dozen here, three scores there. Horns and drums echoed over the hills in strange rhythms. Once, a shadowy host gathered torches on the far bank in a feint that went nowhere. Later that night, a dozen naked corpses floated down river, with their bodies filled with arrows.
The lion’s claws were scratching everywhere, and blood was drowning the river.
The japes had stopped, as did the boasts. Their bowmen had stopped laughing, firing grimly with methodical silence now. The river was dammed at parts with small hills of bodies, bloated and baking. The fire arrows lost their allure, crashing down in the dark with gloomy quiet. Through it all, Robb waited and watched.
Then came the third dawn. The river was still; no horns, no skirmishes, no sound save the buzz of flies. And then, all at once, the hammer came.
It started with thunder, with hooves pounding and drums beating like the living pulse of war. The woods exploded with motion as red riders and golden knights swept wide across the flank. South and east, banners rose like a violent storm; burning trees, raging boars, the purple unicorn come again, and the golden roaring lion.
Lord Tywin had arrived, with the last might of the west. Thousands, moving as one. A golden tide was surging for them, baring red steel fangs.
Let them, Robb watched from the high hill, mounted in his grey steel, his direwolf pacing restlessly at his side. “And now it begins,” he whispered.
The sun had broken through the clouds in shards of brilliant gold, glinting off pike-tops and helm-crests and horse barding. The ford below them churned with mud and blood, horses floundering in the rising current as Lyle Crakehall’s men surged forward in tight ranks. The Strongboar himself rode at the front, a mountain of steel on a massive black destrier, his helm blood-slick and gore-strewn.
The rivermen held the line with grim resolve. Mallister pikes anchored in the shallows, their points braced low. Levy spearmen rushing in to plug the gaps. Archers loosed from the banks, arrows hissing like serpents into the press of red-cloaked men. Further behind, twin scorpions loosed bolts at the ranks.
Still, they came.
The Strongboar was a skilled rider, stirring his warhorse with only his greaves. One hand held a bloody longsword that parried a pike, and the other crashed a flanged mace against the skull of a spearman, shattering it violently. The Lannister riders were pushing fiercely, and the rivermen were struggling to hold them.
“They’ll break the line,” Eddard Karstark muttered to his side.
“Not yet,” Robb murmured.
Another wave of arrows fell, another hiss of scorpion bolts soared past them, riders were falling and screaming, and the Strongboar raged.
A horn blast cut the air; urgent and strained and loud. “Now.”
Grey Wind answered them with a low, terrible howl. His six hundred answered with silence, as they began their descent. From a slow trot grew a canter, and it swelled into a thunderous gallop down the slope and toward the red river. A breeze was stirring across the field, out of the west. Cold and sudden, it whispered through grass and armor like the hiss of wolven breath. He felt the chill on the back of his neck, beneath the heat of his gorget, and in his palms. He had felt it before; in the stillness of the Whispering Wood, in the chaos at Riverrun, during the slaughter of Oxcross.
The boar’s vanguard never saw it coming.
Robb led the charge himself, axe in hand, his wolf-cloaked shoulders hunched forward in the saddle. He raised his battleaxe, long-hafted and crescent-bladed. The steel caught the light and gleamed like dark ice. The front line of Crakehall men turned just in time to see the wall of armored riders bearing down, a direwolf leading them. Some tried to flee, others braced with bristles, but few survived.
The crash was deafening; a shock of steel on shield and hoof on bone that shattered the line. The ford exploded into chaos and screams.
Robb’s axe rose and fell, cracking through a mailed shoulder, slashing through a leather-armored wrist, tearing a man from the saddle. The charge cracked through the Crakehall line with a fell effect. Grey Wind was howling and biting, he saw a northern lance crash through an open jaw and emerge from the back of a knight’s face. Elsewhere, Eddard Karstark’s axe fell upon a screaming man.
A redcloak swung at Robb with his sword, but he parried it with the blade of his axe. With force greater than he expected, the axe hit the blade with such force that it was wrenched from its wielder’s hand. The cold steel severed head from neck a second after. Robb did not spare the corpse another second, already riding past.
And then Lyle Crakehall was there, stomping through the shallows. His longsword and mace were dripping with blood, and there was a cold hatred in his eyes.
“Stark!” The Strongboat bellowed. “You killed my father. I will have my fight, and I will have your head, and your wolf’s.”
A savage smile threatened to bloom across Robb’s face, wild as a wolf. Here was a foe that he would be glad to meet. Dismounting without a word, the sounds of the ford fell still around them. He saw only Lyle Crakehall; how the knight gripped his weapons, the red in his eyes, the snarl across his face.
And Crakehall was on him in a blur of steel. His sword hacked, but Robb caught it on the haft of his axe. The mace struck, a second faster than Robb expected, and it glanced off his shoulder with a crunch that numbed his arm. It felt cold and biting, rather than the searing pain he expected. He stepped back, testing his grip. The Strongboar was, perhaps, the best warrior he had fought so far.
Lyle Crakehall pressed with a howl of rage, roaring as he came. His sword flashed, his mace whirled, and his sword fell again. An unrelenting whirlwind of brute strength, it was all Robb could do to deflect the twin tusks of the boar.
He parried the sword, ducked under a mace swing, blocked the blade again with the haft of his axe. He circled the Strongboar, patient and watching. He let the blood sing in his ears, and the harsh wind to guide his motion. When the next swing came, he ducked low and swung the axe across Crakehall’s knee.
At the last second, Lyle Crakehall stumbled back but the sharp steel still bit into the side of the armor. The knight was cursing, limping, and swinging his weapons again.
“I will make a cloak from your wolf, Stark,” the Strongboar promised.
“You can try.”
The next blow came from the right, with mace raised high. Robb brought his axe to block it, but it was merely a feint. The sword came biting instead. It pierced the mail below his left arm, nicking the flesh within. If the Strongboar had thought the pain would make him falter, he was, then, wrong.
Robb’s axe crashed down on Lyle Crakehall’s shoulder, shearing through plate and mail and leather, and into meat. Crakehall dropped his sword with a howl of pain. With his other hand, he tried to crash the mace against Robb’s leg, but the blade of the axe was there. He smashed a mailed fist against the Strongboar’s face, wrenched the mace from his grip, and threw it into the ford.
He held the blade of the axe against Ser Lyle Crakehall’s throat.
“You are no coward, ser,” Robb told him plainly, with blood on his face. “I have no wish to end your journey here.”
“I will never stop trying to take your head,” the Strongboar promised, spitting.
“I await your coming.”
All around, the ford was silent, save for the gurgle of water and the groans of the wounded. One by one, the redcloaks dropped their steel, and fell to their knees. Eddard Karstark came to put Lyle Crakehall in chains, and his men were taken as well. Robb ran a hand through his hair, slicked with sweat and river spray. To his side, Grey Wind was devouring a face, blood all across his smoky fur.
“Take them to Riverrun,” he commanded. “The wounded as well.”
For the rest of the day, riders swept in as if carried by the river too.
“Lord Lefford drowned at his crossing,” one scout reported.
“Ser Addam Marbrand has been forced to retreat twice,” another told him.
“Lord Karyl Vance has shattered a host of knights trying to outflank us, he thanks you for the riders you provided him,” a third said.
“Lord Glover has decimated a thousand riders,” a horseman with the mailed fist of Glover on his surcoat confirmed, “he met them as they were crossing the ford and fell upon them.”
“Lord Edmure is fighting fiercely at Stone Mill, where Ser Gregor Clegane led the assault,” a fifth man was saying, as Robb nursed a horn of ale, “so many of his men fell that their dead horses threatened to dam the flow. They are gaining the west bank, but Ser Edmure is preparing to throw his reserve at them.”
“Let his reserve bloody the Mountain’s men,” Robb rose, “and wheel away.”
“Away?”
“Prepare to sound the horns as well.”
“To charge?” The scout was perplexed.
“To march west,” Robb told him. “Tell my uncle that my horsemen will cover his retreat.” The man obeyed.
An hour later, they found Stone Mill aflame.
Black smoke curled skyward from scorched palisades and twisted wagons, while fire danced in the shallows of the Red Fork, which had truly earned its name on this red day. Dismembered corpses of men and broken cadavers of their mounts alike floated in the sluggish, scarlet current, caught on splintered stakes or bobbing with water-logged armor. The stench hit first, and stronger than any mailed fist could, charred flesh and damp earth and rotting corpses, blood and bile.
From the high ridge to the east, he could see Ser Gregor Clegane driving the last of his massive wedge. The Mountain left hundreds dead in the water, but his knights and foot were crashing against Edmure’s lines like a siege ram again and again and again, buying inches of the west bank with blood. The Tully banners were holding, barely, blood-smeared and licked by fire. Edmure’s reserves had charged in.
“Sound the horns,” Robb commanded, and Eddard Karstark obeyed.
The sound was low, long, and wolfish. Grey Wind answered with his own mournful howl, the sound lingering in his bones. From behind the treeline, more than five hundred riders emerged like a grey tide, thundering down with steel in hand.
“Winterfell!” Robb roared as he spurred his shaggy mount. His battleaxe caught the last rays of the dying sun, the haft wrapped tightly in his fist.
The wind was rising, cold and sudden and sharp. It blew against the stench of blood and rot. Somewhere distant, a wolf’s howl rang out, but it was not Grey Wind’s. It sounded deeper and older, and he could feel it in the marrow of his bones.
The charge smashed into the flank of the Mountain’s Men. The red tide was met by grey and white, and they shivered. His riders came like demons, with sword and lance flashing. Grey Wind plunged in, tearing men from saddles, his coat soaked in crimson. He saw Olyvar holding well, plunging a spear into the heart of a redcloak.
His uncle’s forces made use of the charge without hesitation, withdrawing from the battle in good order, marching west and north. Robb met his uncle’s eyes from afar, and raised his axe in salute. “Away, away,” he commanded, wheeling his horse. It would not do for their mounted force to be bogged down in a tide of infantry, for their riders to be pulled down and hacked at with axes.
A roar of utter rage caught his attention. He saw a giant in dark steel surrounded by corpses. His greatsword was swinging in wide bloody arcs, and dismembered bodies were on the ground before him. A grim banner was strapped to his back with a long pole. It was once gold with three black hounds, but it seemed drenched in blood now, with cracked skulls dangling from the wood with rusted swaying chains.
Robb’s fingers were tight on the haft of his axe. At that moment, their eyes met.
The Mountain’s eyes were blood-shot, with a foul rage in them that Robb had never seen in a man. All around him, wolves were growling, low and slow like a warning. Robb narrowed his eyes, and raised his black battleaxe. It was not in challenge, nor in salute, but in promise. One day, he swore, one day.
Then, he turned his horse. And far away, across the smoke-wreathed fields, a great shadow in rusted red armor watched them go, and did not follow. His riders wheeled away, their horns blowing proudly. They did not flee in panic, but in triumph. The Mountain had gained the ford, yes, and he had paid a bloody price to do so. Lord Tywin would follow behind, with an exhausted host.
He found his uncle mounted atop a hill. Behind him, his foot was marching like two snakes slithering away. One force was marching north, for Riverrun. The other looked west, for Wayfarer’s Rest. As they had agreed upon.
Four thousand foot would hold Riverrun, under the command of Lord Tytos Blackwood who had already done so once, during the first siege by the Kingslayer. All the knights and lords they had taken captive that day had already been transported to its dungeons; Lyle Crakehall and Ser Robert Brax chief amongst them. They wagered that Lord Tywin would not have the time nor the supplies to siege Riverrun again, and a direct assault would be too bloody a meal for the lion.
Robb and Edmure would lead the rest of their host, some four thousand foot and four thousand horsemen, to Wayfarer’s Rest where defences were already being established in preparation for the coming of the lion. The road there was narrow, with no chance for Lord Tywin to bring his superior numbers to outflank them.
If Tywin Lannister wanted to cross into the west and defend his lands, he would need to smash his army against their reinforced position at Wayfarer’s Rest. If he turned around to march on Riverrun, Robb and Edmure could descend upon him from the rear with a swift host of horse. Crossing the Red Fork again to march east would cost the Old Lion days, not that he would have any reason to, not with Ser Brynden Tully slaying all the ravens and riders that could come from King’s Landing.
The Golden Tooth was two days’ march west from Wayfarer’s Rest, but the great golden fort would not stir to aid Lord Tywin’s host. Blind and deaf to what was happening around, Ser Forley Prester had no way of knowing that a major battle had just been fought mere days away.
No doubt, Tywin Lannister still outnumbered their force of eight thousand by a few thousand… but a narrow road and deep trenches did much to negate such numbers, as did sharp stakes and hidden traps and arrows.
Lord Glover and Vance had accomplished the tasks they set out to do as well. Shatter the cavalry power of the Lannisters, Robb had told them. Let Tywin Lannister march west with a slow, weakened host of foot. He will send his knights and horsemen to try and outflank us at the river. Meet their cavalry and shatter them. We will let their foot gain the center of the river, but they will pay a bloody price.
And they did.
The scouts had reported that Lord Tywin marched upon the Red Fork with eighteen-thousand men. Now, the crimson banner of Lannister fluttered over the Red Fork, which he had paid for with red blood. They estimated that Old Lion had lost a third of his numbers to gain the crossing, and a good number of that was his cavalry.
Edmure was smiling when Robb clasped his hand. “I will admit, nephew,” he admitted, “I had my doubts.”
“And now, uncle?” Robb eyed his uncle with a glint of respect. While he had floundered at his first battle, against the Kingslayer, he had proven himself thrice over this day. Edmure Tully was no fool, it seemed.
“And now, I shall await your command for the battles to come,” Edmure said.
Robb laughed. “Come, uncle, one more awaits us.”
Ser Edmure joined him and his riders in racing west. Their horsemen fanned out in a loose screen, scouting the wooded ridges and shielding the march of their foot. Pockets of riders were sent ahead and to the flanks to prepare traps along the wooded roads, pulling down limbs, digging pits, and stringing hidden lines between trees to break up any swift pursuit. Robb was not idle during the ride.
When he was not in council with his uncle, he rode among the men, speaking with them, asking after wounds, names, and family. He listened to boasts and jests, shared bread and water, and praised courage where he saw it. At night, the riders made sparse camps beneath the trees, fires kept low, horses picketed among the brambles. Robb would sit with Edmure over rough maps, the ink smudging beneath their fingers as they argued lines of retreat and where to plant the hammer’s fall.
Grey Wind patrolled the perimeter, his amber eyes glowing in the dark, a shadow among shadows. Not all of Robb’s dreams were of the shrine in the snow now. Some of them were in more familiar lands.
He dreamed of running through the woods, strong muscles rippling beneath fur, the wind sharp and rich with scent; blood, fear, steel. He saw through eyes that were not his, heard the slow beat of hooves before the branches even stirred. In those dreams, he leapt without thought, his jaws closing around throats, tasting warm copper and bone. The dreams were thrilling and terrible, and he woke from them with clenched fists and a racing heart, his hands aching for the kill.
At times he saw more.
Red banners he did not know, men wearing bronze masks shaped like snarling hounds. Once, he glimpsed what he thought was a throne of brass, distant and looming, set upon high hills of skulls with rivers of blood coursing across the field before it. The air there stank of iron and rot, and the sky burned crimson. But always, just before the vision could swallow him whole, the howl of a white wolf cut through the din; clear, fierce, and ancient. The sound tore him from that nightmarish realm and hurled him into a different dream, one of snow and silence, where the world was pale and breathless. Each night, he was a step closer to the summit of the cold mountain. White wolves waited on the winding side of the stone steps, watching and waiting and howling, as if announcing his presence like primal heralds.
Every morning, he woke with his hands cold.
He told no one of these dreams. Not to his uncle, not to Olyvar or Eddard, not even to Grey Wind, who sometimes met his gaze in the morning with a knowing tilt of the head and a glint in his golden eyes that was too clever and human.
When he found himself in Riverrun again or Winterfell, he would have to pray in the godswood once more, Robb decided. For now, there were bigger concerns than his wolf dreams.
Behind them, Lord Tywin was coming, marching westward with his host. Good, Robb thought, satisfied with their victory. Let him. They would meet him in battle, and shatter his host in the ground of their choosing, or let him grind himself down in futility and distance. Regardless, he welcomed the Old Lion’s approach. Let him march to face us … and away from King’s Landing.
The War of Four Kings, by Maester Yandel
In the Year 298 after the landing of Aegon the Conqueror, the Riverlands bore witness to the struggle now known as the Battle of the Fords, fought across the fords and mills north and south of Riverrun. The battle was preluded by the successful invasion of the westerlands by the cavalry forces of Lord Robb Stark, which achieved its strategic intent of luring the army of Lord Tywin Lannister from Harrenhal to meet them in open combat. Though the Lannister host under the command of Lord Tywin outnumbered the Tully-Stark forces slightly, the victory they purchased was merely pyrrhic and tactical, and its strategic cost would shape the course of the war.
The battle was not a single clash, but a grinding contest over three days. Edmure Tully, newly seasoned by earlier failures, commanded the defence of the crossings with cunning and industry. Stakes, caltrops, and hidden pits awaited the attackers, while archers and scorpions reaped a bloody harvest from the banks. In this manner, Lord Tywin’s probes were checked again and again, the river running red with the mingled blood of knight and commoner alike.
The critical moment came with the arrival of the main Lannister strength under the Strongboar, Ser Lyle Crakehall, at the southern fords. There, Lord Robb Stark, the Young Wolf, committed his heavy horse in a sudden and devastating counter-charge, shattering the vanguard and taking Ser Lyle captive after a fierce single combat. Elsewhere, Lords Vance and Glover accomplished their charge of breaking the Lannister cavalry’s power, ensuring that Tywin’s host would henceforth march as an army of weary foot. The final hours saw Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides, forcing a passage at Stone Mill, yet this gain was allowed by Stark design. Northern riders struck hard upon Ser Gregor’s flank to cover Edmure’s orderly withdrawal, yielding the ford only after inflicting grievous losses.
Though the Old Lion claimed the Red Fork’s west bank, he did so with a host diminished by near a third, and deprived of the swift striking arm of his horse. Robb Stark and Edmure Tully fell back upon prepared positions at Wayfarer’s Rest, denying Tywin Lannister both the means and the opportunity to bring his superior numbers to bear. In the humble judgement of this maester, the Battle of the Red Fork marked a turning in the Riverlands campaign. It was not the sort of victory sung by bards; its laurels lay in trenches, broken fords, and patient discipline. Nevertheless, it bled the Lannisters white in men and horses, fixed their lord far from the capital, and granted the Young Wolf the initiative for the next stroke of the war.
Notes:
One of my longest chapters so far! Hope you enjoy this treat. Will be resuming school on the morrow, so I thought I would put this out there. Updates may slow down slightly from here.
Attached was the map for easy reference! For anyone expecting a bloodier and even more pitched battle, I wanted to focus more on the overall strategy of the campaign, as hinted at in canon. That reminds me, I really do not like how the show handled Edmure. Can't believe they turned him into an utter joke.
Anyways, there will be more battles to come, grander in scale and blood. Robb has another battle to fight before the arc is done, and of course the fate of King's Landing hangs in the balance. For any one curious about the state of the Mountain, let's just say that the corruption is a slow process.
Hope you enjoyed the little maester's excerpt at the bottom as well! Wanted to try something a bit different. Might do it for significant chapters in the future :)
Chapter 89: Catelyn III
Summary:
A trout takes to the sea.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Catelyn had dreamt of the Mother again.
She stood in a field of golden wheat, warm summer wind stirring her hair. The scent of earth and grain hung heavy on her tongue. By a gentle stream, a woman waited, cloaked in green and brown, her face veiled by strands of ivy. Her hands, green as fresh leaves, cradled a swollen belly, and a crown of flowers adorned her brow.
The Mother did not speak to her, but Catelyn felt a deep calm within her when she took her seat on the green grass by the lady. They watched the stream in silence.
Within its waters, visions danced; strange and wondrous and impossible to explain. A white wolf snarled at a lion across a red river, luring the proud beast deeper into the forest. A snow dove landed on the shoulder of a maiden in white, cooing gentle lullabies and sweet songs. A black cat prowled a shadowed street, grinning as it led a cub through winding alleys. Ravens and crows circled a winged wolf, and a bird with feathers dark as night perched atop it, a black rose clutched in its beak.
Then she saw the smallest of the cubs, alone and afraid and angry, and his eyes met hers. Wide, worried, and wild, he saw her.
My children, Catelyn thought, lamenting. Her heart ached to plunge her hands into the stream, to pull them close and whisper in their ears. She wanted to tell Robb he could lay down his sword, to find a wife, and live. To Sansa and Arya, her sweet daughters, she longed to whisper that they were safe, and to guide them home. She thought of Bran and Rickon, so young, so small. They must be so frightened...
But when she reached out to the stream, her hands touched only cool water. The images blurred and vanished like morning mist. As she drew her numb fingers back, the reflections changed amidst the ripples.
Now she was looking up at Ned.
Her lord husband stood beneath the gloom of a heavy pavilion, the weight of command in the frown carved deep upon his brow. She recognized the tent around him; the banners and the candles, the maps and the flickering brazier. Stannis Baratheon stood nearby, rigid and cold. Andrei was there too, sharp-eyed and silent. But it was the woman in red who caught Catelyn’s gaze and held it.
The red woman was as unsettling as she remembered; tall, serene, with eyes like burning coals banked beneath a veil of calm. Melisandre’s voice echoed in Catelyn’s memory. Your son, the white wolf, he has fought well. I have seen him too, amidst others who shall war for the dawn.
Catelyn had not liked it then, and she liked it no more now. It felt wrong for that foreign priestess to speak of her son, to twist his name into prophecy and fire.
Andrei had told her that the Red Woman had magic, that she could wield sorcery like a man wielded a steel sword. The thought frightened her more than she could have known. She had always believed that magic died with the dragons yet …
It was there that the dream ended, abruptly and without farewell.
She thought she woke in the hour of the wolf, judging by the black and quiet of night. Sleep offered her little comfort. The Wraith creaked and sighed around her, the wooden boards murmuring softly. For a time, she laid still, listening to the groan of wood and the whisper of waves against the hull, but sleep would not return to her.
Wrapping her cloak tightly around her shoulders, she rose and slipped from her cabin. Catelyn climbed the steps to the deck in shadow and silence.
A cold wind greeted her, sharp with sea salt. The waters stretched endless and black in every direction, bar the coast to her left, and the stars were distant in the sky. The moon had hidden its face tonight as if the Maiden had closed a pale eye. She made her way to the prow, where the Wraith cut through the dark waters like a blade.
The figurehead loomed above her; a pale woman wrought in bleached wood, her eyes blindfolded. Catelyn leaned against the rail and breathed deep the salty air. The cold of the night cleared her mind, and gave her some peace.
Peace, she thought. When will we see it once more?
Ned was marching with king and army for King’s Landing. Robb was warring against the Lannisters. Her daughters were in the jaws of the lion, and her youngest sons were the rulers of Winterfell now. She was being sent for the safety of Dragonstone.
Still, she would do her duty … even if that duty meant leaving her husband’s side and waiting for the battles to pass. She was not unfamiliar to that. When Robb fought at Riverrun and the Whispering Wood, she waited. When Ned left to fight the Greyjoys, she waited at Winterfell. When he was still a solemn stranger, off to fight the last of the dragons, she waited at Riverrun. Before that, she waited for Brandon Stark, or her uncle, or her father who would smile at her as he left.
She had always done her duty. Her two older brothers had both died in infancy, so she had been son as well as daughter to Lord Hoster until Edmure was born. Then her mother had died and her father had told her that she must be the lady of Riverrun now, and she had done that too. And when Lord Hoster promised her to Brandon Stark, she had thanked him for making her such a splendid match.
She was thinking of the sept at Riverrun, the seven-sided sandstone temple set amidst her mother’s gardens and filled with rainbow light, when Dale Seaworth came to her. “My lady?” the captain asked cautiously. “It is dark.”
He was the man who had ferried Ned to safety, she recalled. “Ser Dale,” she greeted gently with a nod. “The night air is pleasant for me.”
“Just captain, my lady,” he laughed, “my father’s the knight.”
“Then you shall be one at the war’s end,” she told him. “House Stark remembers their friends well, and my lord husband owes his safety to you.”
“I was just doing my duty,” the captain glanced away bashfully.
“And your duty saved my husband’s life,” she said earnestly. “For that, I thank you.”
Dale Seaworth dipped his head. “The gods smiled on us all that day. A wind blew me west and there was Lord Eddard and his swornsword on a small boat.”
She would pray that the gods kept smiling on them. “You have captained this ship for a long time?”
“A full decade,” he said proudly. “King Stannis had the ship made. One of the fastest in the Royal Navy.”
That was why she found herself upon the ship, with Storm Singer and Fury’s Wake as escort. Her husband would not have her anywhere near a battlefield, and the king was like to agree. She was not the only one on the ship carried for Dragonstone. In one of the cabins, Edric Storm was slumbering after a day of sparring and climbing. Below the decks, Ser Loras Tyrell was kept in chains in the dark, fed thrice a day. Stannis would not allow such a valuable hostage near the battlefield either.
A lady, a young knight, and a king’s bastard. The gods had their sense of humor.
“A finer captain I have never seen,” Catelyn told him politely. “You will not linger long at Dragonstone?”
“No,” he shook his head. “When I have seen you and Edric Storm safe and sound,” and Ser Loras safely held, “our ships will rejoin the rest of the fleet.”
“I shall pray for you, good captain, ” she said earnestly.
Dale bowed his head. “I pray that you do not linger long on the deck, my lady. These waters are safe and the Wraith steady, but it is not wise to stay above deck in the dark if you do not have strong sea legs, begging your pardon, my lady.”
She understood his meaning. “I will be on my way, captain.”
By morning, they had passed Stonedance. Its jagged cliffs rose like the broken teeth of some old beast along the coast, a great grey silhouette in the dawn light. Gulls wheeled overhead, and the wind carried the cries of sea-birds and the ever-present roar of the white waves crashing against rock. The Wraith kept her course steadily north, Dragonstone drawing nearer with every gust of sea wind and every bird cry.
Catelyn stood at the port rail, watching the coastline fade into the haze. The cold still clung to the deck, though the sun had begun to rise. Pale light filtered through the clouds, painting the sea in bruised blues and silvers.
Her thoughts drifted, as they often did now, to the gods.
She thought of the painted marble image of the Seven in Riverrun; the Father with his stern face, the Maiden with her loving eyes … and the Mother. She had knelt before them so many times, and before the ones in Winterfell as well. Yet, in her dream, the Mother had not been stone. She had been earth and flower, stream and soil. She had not spoken, but she had been alive. Beautiful, blossom-broad, and hot with life. Catelyn remembered the scent of barley on the wind, and the feel of grass beneath her fingers. She remembered peace and a sweet summer smell.
A shout of laughter broke her reverie. A ghost was on the deck, dancing.
Edric Storm came darting across the swaying deck, a short wooden sword in hand, his cheeks flushed with the chill air. He spun around one of Dale Seaworth’s sailors with a clumsy flourish, laughing as the man half-heartedly parried with a coil of rope. A crowd of men laughed at the sight, cheering on the boy. Another sailor called out a loud jape, and the boy turned to answer, full of pride and mischief and youth.
She could see the Robert Baratheon of her youth; the dark hair, the bold grin. She saw the father in the son more clearly than ever before.
“A good dawn to you, my lady of Stark!” Edric called, catching sight of her. “Did you see? I got him square on the leg.”
She offered him a slight smile. “I did.”
“I’ll be better than Ser Cortnay before long,” Robert’s bastard said with an impish grin, puffing out his chest proudly. So young, thought Catelyn, still a boy. With his jet-black hair and deep blue eyes, she could see Renly’s shade before her as well. He had the jaw and cheekbones of the House of Baratheon, and the large ears common to the fox of Florent. The thought of Renly made Catelyn think of the Knight of Flowers, sullen in his grief and chains. She resolved to talk to the boy before they reached Dragonstone, for that was what Ser Loras was as well, still a boy.
Edric Storm was gone, shouting and chasing after the sailor with his makeshift blade. Catelyn watched Edric dart across the deck, his laughter still echoing against the sails as he clashed jests with the sailors. Her fingers tightened around the rail.
He was a sweet boy, earnest and brave and kind in his way. Too young to know the danger that clings to him like morning mist. Edric Storm was a living token of Robert’s appetites and carelessness. He was a king’s bastard.
Jon Snow. The name came unbidden, as it often did.
Her husband’s shame, and her own bitter wound that would never heal. He was an eternal reminder that Ned had lain with another. Catelyn found herself thinking of Jon’s mother, that shadowy secret love her husband would never ever speak of. Does she long for Ned as I do? Or did she hate him for leaving her bed for mine? Does she pray for her son as I have prayed for mine?
Those thoughts were uncomfortable and futile. If Ashara Dayne had been his mother, as some whispered, she was long dead. Still, she was struck again by how strangely men behaved when it came to their bastards. Ned had always been fiercely protective of Jon, and Ser Cortnay Penrose was insistent on Edric’s safety.
Catelyn had always believed bastards to be born with a seed of black in their hearts. She was raised on the tales of the Blackfyre Rebellions, of Daemon Blackfyre and Bittersteel, and it was taught to her the threat of bastards against the rightful inheritance of true sons. She had always feared that Jon would rise one day to steal Robb’s seat. He could not do so now that he had sworn himself to the Wall.
She should be satisfied with that matter … yet there was a gash in her heart that she did not understand. When Catelyn opened her eyes, Edric was chasing gulls along the rigging, shrieking loud laughter as they took to the air.
The morning wore on, grey and cold, though the wind had softened slightly. Catelyn pulled her woolen cloak tighter about her shoulders and made her way aft, where Dale Seaworth stood at the helm of his ship. The captain was quiet, squinting into the sea spray with one hand resting lightly on the spokes of the helm. He turned as she approached, nodding politely. “My lady.”
“Captain,” she nodded, “I pray I am not disturbing you.”
“Of course not, my lady,” he said. “Only so much to do once she’s on course. The wind’s in our favor. Gods are good.”
If it were so, she would be relieved. Catelyn leaned beside him, resting a grey gloved hand on the railing. The sea was endless and blue and calm, broken only by the foaming wakes of the two warships that flanked them. “Why is your prow a blindfolded woman, captain?” she wondered.
“Justice,” he explained. “My father told me that in Braavos, there are some who believe that a blindfolded woman represents justice.”
Catelyn thought she looked more like mourning. “And justice is what King Stannis has given your father.”
“The king punishes according to the law,” Dale kept his eyes on the sea ahead, “and rewards appropriately.”
“You have served him far longer than we have,” Catelyn mused. “Was he a good lord to you?”
“A fair lord,” Dale insisted. “He took my father’s fingertips for the crime of smuggling, but gave him knighthood and lands for his bravery. He gave a smuggler’s son duties that other lords would never think of giving, and when done well, I was rewarded with my own ship. King Stannis is a hard man, aye, but he is fair and just.”
The Seaworths were loyal to the end for their king and lord, she noted. Good men all. “Do you have a wife, captain?”
“Married in the sight of the Seven,” he smiled, “and praying for a child.”
“I shall pray for you as well.”
That evening, as the sun bled into the sea, Catelyn joined the men for supper on the deck. The day’s cold had softened with the lowering light, and the west was painted in rich hues of gold and rose, the clouds trailing like smoke over the horizon.
A fire brazier had been lit near the mast, and the men gathered close, wooden bowls in hand, their breath curling in the air. The cook had managed a thick fish stew, rich with onion and pepper and garlic, and warm enough to chase the chill from their bones. They had found a small barrel of ale too, diluted with water to make it last, but still enough to draw laughter from the lips of tired sailors.
Dale Seaworth offered her a place beside him on an overturned crate, and she took it with a quiet nod. Edric was already there, legs swinging, tearing into a heel of warm bread like a boy twice his size. He joined the sailors in their japes and tales and songs, laughing loudly and playing eagerly with their games.
As the stew was scraped from bowls and the fire burned low, Edric Storm made his rounds like a young lord at a feast. He moved from sailor to sailor with the boundless energy of a boy who had yet to learn war or loss, his wooden sword slung over one shoulder like a knight’s banner, grinning as he demanded tales and songs.
“Harl,” he said, tugging on the sleeve of the scarred, broad-shouldered sailor. “Tell me again how you fought off those pirates at the Stepstones.”
“Poor buggers that lot is, begging your pardon, my lady,” the sailor laughed, “stab their hands as they climb on deck, cut their climbing ropes as they come…”
The sailors had all taken to him with ease. Yes, she could see the charm of Robert in his bastard son. She watched as he tried to wrestle one of them, a wiry youth named Timmon, and was immediately thrown into a pile of rope coils. Catelyn watched it all from her place by the brazier, her hands wrapped around a warm cup of watered ale.
Delena Florent was his mother, she recalled. Robert had carried her upstairs to the bedroom of the newlywedded Stannis and Selyse Florent, and broke in the wedding bed. For the Lady Florent had been a maiden of noble birth, the king had to acknowledge the child as his royal bastard. Delena Florent was wed to one of her household knights, if she remembered it true, and bore him two sons.
Did she ever visit him? Catelyn wondered. Surely a married woman with two sons could not visit her bastard son…
She took her leave of them, with a mutter of polite words.
The next day, Dale Seaworth pointed out the large stone watchtower of Sharp Point, the seat of House Bar Emmon, upon which a great orange fire burnt atop. That night, she made for the lonely cell below the decks. She had resolved to speak with Ser Loras Tyrell … and would do so despite her apprehension at the task.
The lower deck was narrow and cold, the lanterns swinging gently with the ship's motion. Shadows danced on the timbered walls, long and reaching. Catelyn descended the steps with a small tray of food cradled in her hands; stew, hardbread, and a cup of warm watered wine. Two guards in mail stood at the cell’s threshold, their arms crossed and expressions unreadable.
"Give us a moment, good men," she said softly.
They hesitated. “He’s dangerous, my lady-”
“Ser Loras will not harm me,” she said, “and he is chained, no?”
There was a pause, then they stepped away at her command, though their boots scraped reluctantly down the corridor. Inside the small cell, Ser Loras was seated against the wall, chained at ankles and wrists, his once-fine surcoat stained and torn. His face was pale, gaunt from days of silence and poor sleep. His eyes, once bright and proud, were shadowed now, hollowed by loss. He loved Renly.
Catelyn knelt and placed the tray before him. “You have not eaten.”
The Knight of Flowers gazed at her with a dull, tired look.
“I mean you no harm, ser.”
“You came to ask.” Loras’ mouth twisted bitterly.
Catelyn said nothing. She only sat on the opposite side of the cell, her hands folded in her lap. And she waited. Loras looked down. For a long moment, silence settled between them, broken only by the creak of the ship’s timbers and the distant call of gulls. Then, with a snarl, a single word emerged from his mouth. “Brienne.”
She had heard plenty of the women accused of slaying Renly. “I will listen to you, ser. Tell me it all. I will listen to it.”
“It was Brienne,” his voice cracked. “And that foreigner he kept around for reasons I never understood, Lucia.” He drew a shaking breath. “I saw him … His head, it was shattered… destroyed. It could only have been a mace, and that woman wielded one. She is strong as well. His chest was pierced clean through, like someone had driven a sword through his heart with great force. It must have been Brienne…”
Catelyn’s brows drew together. “You saw them?”
“Fire,” Loras Tyrell was muttering. “Fire … there was fire. Renly’s tent was aflame. When I came, he was dead already… The two of them were fighting against other men… Gods, I killed Robar Royce. I did not mean to … I … I saw red. I was fighting them. Lucia first, and then Brienne when others came. Then, I felt a pain in the back of my head and when I woke, Alester Florent had me in chains and was ready to deliver me to Stannis. By the Father, Lady Catelyn, did Stannis do it? Tell me it true, swear to the gods, did he order Renly’s death? Did he?”
“I do not think that Stannis commanded his brother’s death,” she said earnestly. “We were ready for a battle, to receive your charge.” That we might have lost.
“So he was just the vulture,” Loras spat, “swooping in after the kill was done.”
“Would Renly have spared his brother?”
Ser Loras looked away. A heavy silence lingered between the two of them. He is so young, Catelyn thought. A year older than Robb, and no more. Mere boys, fighting wars for kings. They should be home, kissing girls and laughing.
“I failed him,” Loras whispered hoarsely. “I was his lord commander, the head of his seven. I was his knight … I was … I failed him.”
Catelyn watched him quietly, her heart aching for this boy who had loved too fiercely, lost too suddenly, and now sat alone with nothing but grief and cold chains. “I did not know Renly,” she said truthfully, “but I do not think that he would wish to see you gaunt and pale as a ghost.”
“What does it matter?” He gave her a bitter, broken laugh. “He is dead. I am a hostage to Stannis, meant to make sure my father will not move his host.”
“And when the war is done,” she reminded him gently, “you still have a father to return to. A mother, brave brothers, and a sweet sister. You are young, and you have tasted your first grief. Life does not end there, ser.” Her voice softened, the memories pressing gently behind her words. “I tasted my first grief when my lady mother died in childbirth. I was not much older than you are now. The pain does not vanish… but the road does not end with sorrow. It bends, and it carries us on.”
She stood then, smoothing her skirts. The chains clinked faintly as Loras shifted but said nothing. “There is still life waiting for you, Ser Loras,” she said, her hand resting for a brief moment on the iron bars. “When you are ready to return to it.”
Catelyn turned and left the cell, the guards stepping aside as she passed. The ship creaked around her, the sea sighing sadly just beyond the wood. And as she climbed the steps back toward the lantern-lit corridor, she heard the soft scrape of a spoon against a bowl and the quiet clink of a cup being lifted. Catelyn let the sound carry her up into the light, a small smile upon her face.
The smell of salt and smoke clung to her, and the memory of Ser Loras’ hollow voice lingered too near. She made her way to the small cabin that Dale Seaworth had given her; modest and narrow, with a low-beamed ceiling and a cot barely wide enough for one. The sea rocked her gently, but sleep did not come easily.
She lay on her side, eyes open in the dark, listening to the groan of timbers and the distant wash of waves against the hull. Her thoughts drifted first to her children. Robb in the field of war. Was he cold? Was he safe? She had chided him in private when she heard of his duel with the Kingslayer, wounded as he was. She imagined her girls in King’s Landing still, birds in golden cages. She thought of Bran and Rickon, small and brave and left behind in a castle too large for their young shadows.
And then there was Ned. Please, she prayed to the Seven, do not save him from one end merely to bring another.
Her mind flicked to Edmure, still young and brash, and her father. Lord Hoster Tully was always so proud and strong… and now he was a gaunt ghost in his sick bed, drifting further down the current with each breath. She wondered if he would still be there when she returned to Riverrun next. Grief and ghosts all around, she thought.
The ship groaned, the wind whispered through the cracks in the wood, and still she lay awake. Catelyn closed her eyes, and in the darkness behind them, the Mother waited by the stream once more. She stood once more in the golden field, where summer wind stirred the tall wheat. It should have been peaceful. The earth was rich beneath her feet, the scent of grain heady and warm in the air. But something had changed. The sky was not as blue as before and the wind smelled of smoke.
The woman waited by the stream again; cloaked in green and brown, her face veiled by strands of ivy. Her hands, moss-green and gentle, still cradled her swollen belly. But the crown of flowers that once adorned her head had begun to wither. The petals browned, blackened, and fell in slow, crumbling spirals, one by one like bitter tears.
Catelyn moved toward her, drawn by the same calm she had felt before, but the calm was thinner now, brittle and fraying. Together, they sat on the grass beside the stream, and the water ran not silver and clear, but red and black. She looked into the stream, and once more, the waters twisted and darkened, revealing sights that tore at her soul. No, thought Catelyn, aghast. No, no, no.
She saw Robb, her son, her firstborn, standing upon a blood-soaked field. The sky above him was red with blood, and ash drifted like falling snow. He faced a monstrous giant clad in blackened iron, his helm shaped like a snarling skull of brass. The man’s greatsword was aflame, trailing smoke and embers as he advanced. Though Robb raised his snowy axe with grim resolve, the earth trembled beneath the steps of the monster. Behind them, the banners of House Stark burned.
She saw Arya and Sansa within the walls of King’s Landing. Bells screamed in agony and the streets were churning with the madness of battle. And the night sky was green with fire. Then came Bran. He was alone in the cold heart of Winterfell. The snow fell black and baleful around him, and there were laughing things crawling for him, singing and shrieking. The sound was beautiful and terrible all at once.
And then the field itself, once so golden, began to blacken and curl.
She turned her head, and all around her the wheat was wilting. Stalks bent and twisted as if beneath an unseen weight. The earth cracked open like old bark. Carrion birds gathered in the sky, screaming, and the stream frothed red. She reached for the Mother again, but this time, her hands passed through nothing but blood-strewn air. The lady of ivy was gone and the wheat was ash.
Catelyn Stark woke with a start, gasping in the dark. The cot creaked beneath her, and her skin was slick with sweat. Above, the timbers groaned, and the sea still sighed, but something else stirred in her chest now. Fear, as cold as ice.
She did not speak of it when she rose. There was no one to tell, and even if there were, what words could she use to make sense of what she had seen? These were not things one spoke of in the morning light. These were burdens carried in silence.
She would pray in the sept at Dragonstone, Catelyn decided.
She wrapped her cloak around her shoulders and stepped up onto the deck, where the salt air met her like a swift slap. It was still early, just past the rise of dawn, and the sea was painted in shades of pale greys and blues, the horizon shrouded in white mist. Dale Seaworth stood at the rail, his eyes fixed on the north. The captain turned as she approached, and gave a respectful nod.
“My lady,” he said quietly. “You’re just in time.”
She followed his gaze. There, rising from the sea like a brooding mountain, was Dragonstone. Its jagged towers clawed at the sky, and the morning fog clung to its rocky base like smoke from a great fire. The castle seemed less like something built and more like something birthed from the earth itself, black and cruel and dreadful, shaped by dragonfire and time. Catelyn said nothing. She simply stood beside Dale, her hands tucked beneath her cloak, the wind tugging at her hair.
The next day, the Wraith cut its way through the grey waters, her sails flapping furiously as the wind carried her to port beneath the looming cliffs of Dragonstone.
Catelyn stood at the prow as they made their final approach. From the sea, the castle loomed like a creature crouched upon the mountain’s shoulder, its tall towers carved into the shapes of dark dragons in flight and serpents of stone rising. Smoke curled faintly from chimneys, mingling with the morning mist, and it shrouded the isle with an almost spectral appearance. The waves crashed like drums against the stony shore as they drew close to the dock where figures waited for them.
Behind her, Edric Storm chattered excitedly, his curiosity outpacing his nerves. “So this is Dragonstone,” the boy breathed, "where the Conqueror planned his conquest." Ser Loras, shackled and silent, was kept below, watched by guards who gave him a wide berth. Catelyn said nothing. She had too many thoughts and too little trust in words right now.
The warships flanking them let out low horns as the Wraith was moored. Sailors scrambled, ropes were cast, and planks were lowered to the worn stone pier that clung to the base of the cliffs. Smoke and salt and sulpher filled the air.
Waiting for them was a small honor guard, a dozen men in the black of Dragonstone, stiff and silent. At their head stood three figures: a woman tall and gaunt, her face a sharp arrangement of bones and severity, crowned; a young girl cloaked in furs and with stone on her cheek; and an old man bent like a willow, leaning on his cane. Queen Selyse Florent, Princess Shireen, and Maester Cressen.
The queen was clad in dark velvet, her hair swept back, her lips pressed into a line that had forgotten how to smile. “Lady Stark,” she said, her voice brittle as dry parchment. “Dragonstone welcomes you.”
Catelyn inclined her head. “I thank you, Your Grace.”
The old man beside her coughed softly and stepped forward. “Lady Stark,” said Maester Cressen. “We have prepared chambers for you and your party. King Stannis has informed us of your arrival.” At his side, Shireen peered up at Catelyn with curious eyes. She glanced at the old maester, blinked, and turned to her.
“Be welcome to Dragonstone, Lady Catelyn,” the princess smiled shyly.
Catelyn gave the girl a small smile, bowing her head. “Princess.” She remembered how Renly had mocked her at the parlay. There was something solemn in the child’s gaze, as if she knew well all the mockery the world had to levy upon her. It stirred something fierce within her.
As to your daughter, I understand. If my wife looked like yours, I’d avoid both of them as well, Renly had said. That was ill-done. The jest lingered in her ears long after, bitter and ugly. Now, seeing the little princess, shy and strange, Renly’s words grew uglier. She was your niece, she thought to a dead king and man.
“You must tell me more of Dragonstone in the days to come,” Catelyn said gently. “The king made mention that you are well-read.”
“Did he?” Shireen Baratheon’s smile was bright. “Maester Cressen teaches me a lot. We were learning about the Kings in the North yestermorn.”
Behind her, Queen Selyse had already begun the climb, stiff-backed and silent. They followed. “The Kings in the North?” Catelyn wondered.
“The North and the riverlands were the first to declare for my father,” Shireen said earnestly. “I never knew much of their history before… but it felt wrong not to now.”
The stone path winding up toward Dragonstone’s gates was like a serpent’s tongue. “And what have you learnt, Your Grace?”
“Call me Shireen,” the girl replied sweetly. “I was reading about Brandon the Builder first, it felt right. It reminded me of the tale of Storm’s End, Elenei, and Durran Godsgrief. I was telling Ser Yeltska of that… before he left with Father and the army.” A mournful look settled on Shireen’s face but she shook it off. “I read about the War of the Wolves, and how the Starks took Sea Dragon Point from the Warg King. The Thousand Years War, the war for the Marsh…”
She went on, cheerful now, the words tumbling out in excited breathless bursts. “... and King Jon Stark, who founded the Wolf’s Den. There was his son, Rickard Stark, who conquered the Neck from the Marsh King and married his daughter for peace. King Rodrik Stark, who won Bear Island in a wrestling match. I have had more time to read now that no one is here to play with me. Devan is gone and Patches …”
“Patches?” asked Catelyn.
“Her fool,” said the queen. “The broken thing has gone twice-mad.”
“There were the children as well,” the old maester said suddenly, “and the giants. Was there not, princess? An old man’s memory fades. Tell the lady of those tales.”
The little princess blinked away her sadness. “The children of the forest,” she said, with wonder in her voice. “Those are my favorite.” Catelyn listened with a smile as Shireen talked of the Dawn Age and the coming of the First Men.
Maester Cressen listened with fondness writ plain on his face, and even Queen Selyse's features grew, if not warm, then at least less stern. Shireen was the same age as Arya, it struck Catelyn suddenly. Two girls more different the gods have never molded. Catelyn saw it clearly now, as Shireen spoke of her lessons.
Her mind could not help but drift toward the memory of Arya’s defiance, her determination to be something other than a proper lady, something more wild and untamed. Shireen’s eagerness for knowledge was no less than Arya’s thirst for adventure, but they sought different things. Catelyn had never approved of her daughter’s stubborn defiance, but if she could hold her daughter again, she would forge Arya her own armor and sword if need be.
As they neared the gates of Dragonstone, looming like the teeth of a great beast of old, Catelyn’s thoughts were on her family.
Notes:
Shorter chapter this time, somehow ship chapters are always fun to write. Anyways, I am heartened by all the support that the previous chapter received. Robb is one of my favorite characters and I enjoy writing him. More will come for him.
The next three chapters should be fun, as we catch up with Lucia, Lorenzo, and Andrei in that order!
Chapter 90: Lucia III
Notes:
"Our mother of battle, she who keeps our blades keen, who keeps our shields ready, and our armor strong, grant us the grace to know our enemies, and the honor to stand against them, and the strength to defeat them. This we pray in Myrmidia's name."
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The fire crackled low in the circle of stones, casting faint flickers across Brienne’s dirt-streaked face. Her jaw was clenched tightly, her longsword across her armored knees, and her blue eyes were hollow with grief.
Across from her, Lucia sat cross-legged, methodically polishing her breastplate with an old cloth. Even at rest, there was a steel-edged tension in her posture; shoulders squared, spine straight, movements precise. The firelight danced across the polished curves of her armor, flickering off her pauldrons and greaves. The scent of roasting boar drifted over the camp, mingling with the musk of damp earth and pine. They had not stopped for proper rest since fleeing Renly’s camp at Storm’s End.
As if the hounds of hell were at their heels, they had ridden hard up the kingsroad, leaving behind a waking army and a dead king. They had seen no sign of pursuit, but dared not risk slowing. On the first day, they rode without pause, halting only to let their horses breathe. They took turns sleeping; two hours apiece, huddled in cloaks, weapons always within reach, then mounted again before dawn broke.
Their saddlebags carried meager provisions: salted beef, hard bread, dried fruit, and skins of sour red wine. They ate in the saddle, drank while riding. The second day was just as silent and swift, and the third saw them bypassing Bronzegate.
“It will be Stannis’ now,” Brienne told her with a voice full of grief. “And no friend to us, I would think.”
And so, like ghosts in battered steel, they slipped into the shadow of the Kingswood as the sun dipped behind the trees. That was a day ago.
Now, deeper into the woods, they dared to finally make camp. It was Brienne who found the boar first, dared it to charge at her, and ran her sword through its maw when it did. Whilst Lucia skinned the beast and cleaned it, the girl spent the time with the horses, brushing out their coats and pulling stones from their iron shoes.
As they sat to eat their meagre meal, Brienne’s blue eyes were still empty. A silence lingered between them, their exhaustion palpable. Her broad face was a pond of still, unmoving water, with no hint of what might live in the depths below. Still, it was Brienne who broke the silence. “A shadow,” she murmured. “They say … Stannis Baratheon has a red witch with him, a shadowbinder, a sorceress from Asshai.”
“They will think it’s us,” Lucia warned her. Shadows did not shatter skulls with maces.
“I saw,” Brienne said stubbornly, gazing into the fire as if searching for an answer. “I saw the shade, and heard it scream.”
She remembered that horrid sound, when her glowing mace smashed against the king’s shadow. The thing screamed with a thousand tormented tongues, each darker and more foul than the other. Yet, it did not die. It dispersed into wispy black to be sure, but it reformed again to plunge a dagger of dark in Renly Baratheon’s heart.
And here they found themselves, two kingslayers on the run.
“It must have been Stannis,” Brienne bit out, clutching the hilt of her sword with thick callused fingers. The grief in her eyes was warring with her hate.
“It matters not now,” Lucia told her. “If we ride south, thousands of men will be searching for us. West too.” The only way was to ride north, as far away from the Baratheons and the Tyrells … and into more war.
“I will kill him one day,” Brienne said darkly. “I swear it.”
She could not deny another woman’s thirst for vengeance, not when she had her own old ghosts left to hunt. “I hope you find it,” she said earnestly, “but for now, we must survive.”
“Your companion,” Brienne muttered, chewing on a piece of hard bread, “the bard…”
Lucia blinked. Lorenzo was still at Bitterbridge and the queen’s singing bird. When news of Renly’s death reached them … “He will survive.”
“As you say.” Brienne warmed her hands over the flickering flames, staring hollowly at her. “Where shall we go? Where can we…”
“The riverlands, I was thinking.”
“Lord Tywin has a host there,” Brienne murmured, deep in thought. Lucia looked at the Maid of Tarth, but she did not speak.
“That golden light … how did you … how?”
“Faith,” Lucia said quietly, and Brienne was silent.
The next morning, they broke camp before the sun had fully risen, dew still clinging to their cloaks. The forest was thick with mist, the underbrush damp and dark, muffling the clatter of hooves and armor. After hours of slow riding, the trees parted just enough to reveal the dark, steady current of the Wendwater River.
As their mounts cantered along the bridge, Brienne spoke suddenly. “It was here that the Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion was ended.”
Lucia glanced at her with curiosity flickering in her eyes. Brienne went on, speaking more to herself than to her companion. “The third Daemon Blackfyre landed at Massey’s Hook with the Golden Company but Aegon the Unlikely met them here. The Blackfyre was slain by Ser Duncan the Tall himself. And that was that for the Blackfyres until the War of the Ninepenny Kings.”
“You know these tales well.”
“I was raised on them,” said the girl wistfully. “Songs of summers too.”
They said nothing more that day. The next day, they drove deeper north into the Kingswood, the trees growing thicker and older, twisted with age and moss. The sunlight came down in broken shafts through the canopy, and strange birds called from the branches above. Again, it was Brienne who broke the silence.
“Have you heard of the Kingswood Brotherhood?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Brigands and killers,” Brienne said quietly. “Smugglers, outlaws, hedge knights. They robbed and kidnapped nobles, and smallfolk helped them for hate of crown. Once, they even attacked Princess Elia Martell’s escort through the woods.”
Lucia raised an eyebrow. “And what became of them?”
“Eventually, King Aerys sent Ser Arthur Dayne to deal with them,” Brienne replied. “The Sword of the Morning won the smallfolk to his side with his generosity and chivalry. Ser Barristan the Bold slew their leader, Simon Toyne, and the Smiling Knight was defeated by Dawn, Ser Arthur’s sword of fallen star.”
The irony of a former bandit now fleeing through the woods, once haunted by bandits, like a common brigand again was not lost on Lucia. She snorted. “You like tales of knights.”
“In the songs, all knights are gallants,” Brienne said quietly, “all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.”
Life is not a song, Lucia wanted to say, but found that the world was harsh enough on this poor girl. “Tell me more about this Sword of the Morning.”
Brienne did so without complaint. The look on her face was not so severe when she spoke of knights and heroes of old, and all the legends from times that were better. By nightfall, Lucia knew the names of a dozen great knights and a score of songs. She spoke of the Demon of Darry and Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, and told Lucia of Red Robert Flowers and Long Tom Costayne. Then came the tale of Ryam Redwyne, the Dragonknight, and Ser Gwayne Corbray who fought Daemon Blackfyre with his sword of Valyrian steel, Lady Forlorn.
By the time they reached the Blackwater Rush, the trees had begun to thin, giving way to stretches of open bank where the river ran fast and cold over smooth stones. The river song was a constant murmur, winding through the wilds. They did not cross. King’s Landing loomed beyond the black river, and they only spared it a brief glance. Instead, they turned north and west, riding along the river’s edge.
Brienne rode in silence, her gaze distant. Her horse picked its way over tangled roots and muddy banks. Every so often, the Maid of Tarth turned to look south.
“I do not think they are chasing us,” Lucia told her.
“I am not worried about them,” Brienne said softly. “I… I cannot return to Tarth. I was sworn to protect Renly … I stood by his side, and saw him die. And now the whole realm would think that we killed him. My father cannot host a kingslayer on his island, in his keep, in his halls.”
The wind stirred the leaves above them. The Blackwater whispered on. “This shadowbinder of Stannis … She sent the shadow to kill Renly, I am sure of it. I swear it, by the Seven, I will avenge Renly, or die trying.” Brienne looked north grimly. “Even if I must swear to Lord Tywin.”
“The Lannisters?” Lucia glanced sharply at her.
“The Starks have sworn themselves to Stannis,” Brienne snapped, “They take him, him, for a king. I cannot … I cannot go to them. The Tyrells will hang me on sight. The Stormlands are not my home anymore … where else do I have to go?”
Lucia did not have an answer for her. They rode on, the river murmuring beside them, the path narrowing, and the trees thickening once more.
It was four days later when their supplies had run out. They had followed the Blackwater Rush to where it met a tributary stream. The two of them watched the river, deliberating quietly on what to do.
The last of the salted beef had been shared two nights ago, and the bread was gone before that. They’d stretched the dried fruit as long as they could, chewing slowly to fool their staving stomachs. The wine was finished yesterday. Now, their bellies ached, and their strength was starting to wane. They stood by the water’s edge where the Blackwater Rush met a smaller tributary stream, the two rivers twining together in a chorus of rushing foam. Trees arched overhead like weary sentinels, their roots twisting into the banks as if drinking from the same source that sustained, or failed to sustain, them. They look as tired as I feel.
Lucia crouched by the water, helmet tucked under one arm, her face drawn but calm. She dipped a hand into the stream, lifted it to her lips, and drank. Brienne stood behind her, arms folded, eyes scanning the far bank.
“We are in the riverlands,” the girl scowled.
Without a map, they could not be sure, but there was an abundance of rivers here. “Is there a town nearby?”
Brienne’s jar worked slightly, as if chewing on her thoughts. She closed her eyes, as if trying to recall a map. “West is … Deep Den, the seat of House Lydden, sworn to Casterly Rock. North and east is the God’s Eye and Harrenhal, where Lord Tywin sits. North is … Pinkmaiden … and the Stoney Sept.” She blinked. “It should not be too far from here, if I recall rightly.”
“The Stoney Sept?”
“The Battle of the Bells was fought there, during Robert’s Rebellion. Lord Jon Connington swept in to try and find Robert, but Jon Arryn and Eddard Stark came.”
Lucia rubbed her gauntleted fingers together. “A place with history, then.” And food, if it still stands.
No town could be trusted to draw breath when war crept close from all sides; roving bands of sellswords, bandits, rampaging armies, desperate deserters. Still, it was better than wandering aimlessly in the wild, and they needed food.
They crossed at a shallow place in the stream, where the stones were smooth and the current gentle. The horses stepped carefully through the water, hooves slipping slightly on the moss-slick rocks. On the far bank, they found an overgrown grove of pine and elder, just enough cover to make a discreet camp.
That night, the stars blinked through a canopy of twisted branches. Their fire was small, just enough to warm their hands and heat a strip of bark peeled from a log for roasting what little root vegetables Lucia had dug up along the riverbank. It was not much, but it kept their stomachs quiet, and the flame stayed the cold.
Brienne had sharpened her sword in silence, while Lucia cleaned the head of her mace with an old cloth. She caught Brienne watching her across the firelight. “You want to know more,” Lucia grunted, not unkindly.
Brienne’s eyes were on the mace. “I do.”
“The shadow screamed when my mace struck it. It dispersed, but it formed itself again, though not so solidly. It was not the steel that hit the shadow, but the light. The holy light of Myrmidia, the light of the rising sun.”
“Myrmidia?” Brienne tested the foreign word.
“A goddess of war in the east,” Lucia said, praying that Brienne of Tarth did not know well the deities of Essos. It seemed she did not.
“And … that … was a blessing?”
“A rare one, and not one I have control of,” Lucia admitted. “It comes when … dark things come. Foul foes, wicked … things.”
“Dark things,” Brienne muttered. “Have you fought a shadow before?”
“Shadows, no,” Lucia glanced at the setting sun. The dark was coming. “But foul things, yes. Men and more.”
They fell silent again. Lucia took first watch, but she did not think that Brienne rested easily either. By late morning, they saw smoke curling in the distance, not the thick, dark smoke of pillage and war, but the thin grey wisps of hearthfires and cooking stoves. The scent of bread rode the breeze like a sweet promise.
They crested a low hill and saw the town nestled in a curve of the river: stone walls, sagging in places; watchtowers that looked more decorative than defensive; tiled roofs faded by weather and war and wind. The bell tower still stood above all, crooked but proud. It was a big town, near as big as Bitterbridge was.
Lucia slowed her horse. Brienne scanned the distant gate, where a pair of small figures stood leaning on pikes, barely armored. No banners flew. They halted at the edge of the woods, where the trees gave way to low, scraggly fields that stretched toward the stone walls of the town. Lucia studied it with narrowed eyes.
The walls were no more than twelve feet high; old riverstone mortared unevenly, with moss and ivy creeping between the joints. In three places, the stonework visibly sagged like the teats of an old whore. One section to the north had clearly been patched with timber and daub. There were no crenellations, nor raised parapets, and no sign of watchmen walking the walltops. The town had no moat, only a shallow ditch filled with brambles and discarded refuse. The gates were open, too open, broad wooden slabs iron-banded in the older style, standing ajar like a merchant’s stall on market day. A rusted portcullis hung above the archway, unmanned and half-lowered, its chain slack like a throat waiting to be cut.
She spotted only two guards flanking the gate, no more than local militiamen, not soldiers. One leaned on his spear like it was a walking stick. The other scratched at his beard and yawned. If a hundred men came down from the north at night, or rode in from the west, this place would fold and burn before nightfall.
Behind her, Brienne waited in the trees, the wariness in her eyes unspoken but understood. There was a critical look in her eyes as well.
“I will go alone,” Lucia said quietly. “A sole woman at the gates is one thing,” she hooked her helm to the saddle. “Two in full steel will be remembered.”
Brienne understood, and helped her with her breastplate and her pauldrons. “I will wait here.”
“Food and water,” Lucia mused, removing her greaves. “I will buy however much I can.” Under her steel, she wore a shirt of mail over a red gambeson and brown breeches. She took off the mail as well, and entrusted the mace to Brienne.
“You should ask around as well, or at least hear what the townsfolk are saying … about the war.”
“I will,” Lucia nodded, patting the dagger at her hip uncomfortably. She felt naked without the steel around her, and her mace… but it was necessary. Brienne would be even more remarkable, and easy to recall. News would soon spread across the realm that two tall women in armor had butchered King Renly, and she would wager that both the Tyrells and Baratheons would want their heads.
Without her armor, she looked like a traveler, lean and dust-streaked. She misliked the feeling intensely. She walked toward the gates at a steady pace, head high, steps measured. “Hail,” Lucia called to the two guards, stopping a few paces off. “I seek supplies, food. I have coin.”
The taller guard squinted at her. “You Dornish?”
“No,” Lucia shook her head.
That earned her a long, assessing look. Then, after a tense pause, the taller one jerked his chin toward the town. “There’s an alehouse on the east side of the market, with white-washed walls, called the Peach. You can’t miss it.”
Lucia dipped her head. “Many thanks.”
Inside, the town was quiet. She could see the sept on its hill, and below it a stout strong holdfast of grey stone that looked much too small for such a big town. In the market square at the town’s heart stood a fountain in the shape of a leaping trout, spouting water into a shallow pool. Women were filling pails and flagons there.
On the east side of the market square stood a modest inn with whitewashed walls and broken windows. Above the door hung a wooden shingle painted as a peach, with a big bite taken out of it. The Peach, she held back a snort. Lucia stepped in.
A buxom red-haired innkeep turned her head to her. “Oh, a traveller? Rare sight nowadays, where did you come from, friend? Oh, no matter, you must be weary and thirsty and hungry. We’ve got mutton stew and warm ale, and warm baths too.”
“I just need food for the road,” Lucia told the redhead.
The innkeep gave her a throaty chuckle. “That we have, but the Peach is not like to let its guests go unwashed and cold. Stay for a bath, stay for a stew … we’ve got girls too, but no boys…”
Lucia stiffened. “Just food for the road.”
The innkeeper pouted. “If you insist,” she shook her head.
Lucia took a seat by the hearthfire as the innkeep, Tansy, gathered bread and biscuits and jerky into a large leather satchel. She saw more serving wenches than any inn could want, and most of them young and comely. One of the girls sat down on the bench beside her. “I’ve never seen a woman so tall and tanned as you.”
“Have you ever left this town?”
The girl laughed sweetly. When she did, her gown slipped off one pale shoulder. She had curly hair as black as coal, and bright blue eyes that shimmered with her laugh. “One day, maybe. You came from far away? Braavos? Dorne?”
Do I look so Dornish? “No.”
“Keep to your secrets, then,” she pouted. “I’ve got one of mine own, you know. Do you want to hear it?”
Lucia kept a stubborn gaze on the fire, but the girl did not relent.
“I’m a king’s daughter,” she leaned in to whisper, her chest pressing against Lucia’s arm. “How do you like it? I’ve got royal blood in me, you know.”
“Sure you do.”
“They say King Robert fucked my mother when he hid here, back before the battle. Not that he didn’t have all the other girls too, that he did, but Leslyn says he liked my ma the best.”
“The Battle of the Bells?”
“The same,” she nodded. “I’m named Bella, for that.”
Lucia stared at her a moment, before muttering, “Maya.”
That was the first name that came to her. It was her mother’s, a whore herself, who died in a brothel while an angry child stood sullen and silent beside her.
When the innkeeper came with the heavy satchel, Bella rose with a playful bow that exposed too much. “See you around, Maya.” Lucia only gave her a stiff nod.
She had kept an ear for the other conversations in the inn, or brothel, or alehouse. One man was loudly talking of Lord Tywin’s host, having crossed the Red Fork two days past, and marching to Wayfarer’s Rest to confront the Young Wolf. “The Red Fork is drowning in bodies, I’s swears it,” the man was saying loudly, “they say Lord Tywin has the Young Wolf running, tail tucked behind his furry arse.”
Another man disagreed. “The Old Lion’s being led in a trap by Robb Stark, I wager. That boy knows war better than all the Westermen.”
A third man, drunker than the other two, proclaimed that the Kingslayer was leading the host at Harrenhal, but all men ignored him. Drunk men loved their talk, it was nonsense most of the time. She heard mention of a bannerless brotherhood, of how the Brave Companions were skirmishing around High Heart but were being fought fiercely by wolves. Of the furry kind, or the ones in steel, she did not know.
Another voice chimed in, lower and full of unease. “Wolves and worse, I heard. There’s talk of a beast up by the rivers, not wolf nor man. Tall and big as a horse, with red eyes and a coat black as pitch, walking like a man but with claws like sickles. It tears out men’s throats and vanishes back into the trees.”
That earned scoffs. “You’ve had too much of Tansy’s ale. My cousin saw it, said it was no more than a half-starved outlaw with a wolfskin cloak.”
“A wolfman?” another laughed mockingly. “Every hedge knight who dies in the woods, you lot cry wolf.”
“Not a wolf,” the first insisted, his face pale. “A monster of night. My cousin swore he saw it in the mists near Maidenpool, with a face like a man’s. A cursed thing, come out of the old gods’ trees, yes.”
“That cousin was drunk,” said a third, earning a round of laughter. “Drunk as you.”
“No,” a woman said from near the hearth, her voice sharp, “my brother’s lad saw it by moonlight, tearing apart a goat like kindling. Said its jaws snapped through bone.”
“Old wives’ tales,” another man sneered. “Next you’ll say it sprouts wings and pisses fire. The next day, you’ve got folk saying the dragons are back.”
“Roose Bolton has taken Harrenhal,” another was saying, shifting the talk.
Lucia committed the names to memory. The fields whispered with wind as Lucia made her way back to the tree line. The light had shifted. Shadows stretched long and lean across the grass, and the birds had gone silent. The horses were still there, cropping quietly at the grass, their flanks dappled with dust. Brienne sat nearby, legs folded beneath her, cleaning her longsword with slow, deliberate strokes.
And there were two corpses. They lay twisted at the edge of the clearing, one sprawled on his back with a broken neck, the other slumped forward, throat a red ruin. Flies had already begun to gather. Lucia raised an eyebrow.
“Sellsword scouts,” Brienne offered by way of greeting. “Scum.”
Lucia stepped closer, eyeing the bodies. Their armor was a patchwork of rusted mail, cracked leather, and stolen plate, bearing no sigils save for filth and dried blood.
“They came sometime after you left,” Brienne explained, sheathing her sword. “They wanted the gold and the horses, and more.” Her face was pale, but steady. Only her eyes betrayed the storm beneath. “I gave them my sword.”
There was a dark, haunted look on her face. “Brave Companions … they … sellswords hired by Lord Tywin.”
Ah, Lucia recalled. “I heard the talk. He has crossed the Red Fork, wherever that is, to march on the Young Wolf.”
“That is … north and west of here,” Brienne frowned. “Lucia, they were talking of a septry to the north. Half a day’s ride from the Stoney Sept. Brothers of the faith do not carry steel, but they do have silver and food.”
“You want to ride for it.”
“I do,” Brienne said stubbornly. “I have failed a father, a queen, and a king. The Seven gave me this chance. I will not fail the gods as well.”
“How many did they say are there?”
“A score, and more.”
She means to ride to her death, Lucia realised.
“Do not come with me, I pray. Ride … ride east. To Maidenpoole or Duskendale, board a ship and return where you came from,” Brienne gave her a broken smile. In the twilight, she was beautiful. “I will ride for the Seven.”
Two against twenty, Lucia mused, glancing at her breastplate, leaning against a tall tree. Myrmidia’s strictures were emblazoned proudly on them. Her eyes were on two in particular. Show no mercy to the unrepentant enemies of Humanity, one reminded. Preserve the weak from the horrors of War, another commanded.
“I am coming.”
“Why?” Brienne’s mask cracked.
“Faith,” Lucia said simply.
They rode through the night, hooves muffled by loam and mud and fallen leaves, their breath misting silver in the cold night air. The moon was a thin sliver smile above the treetops, a white lamp half-hidden by drifting clouds, and the forest pressed close around them; dense and ancient and suffocating.
Lucia rode slightly ahead, her mace strapped to her saddle, her eyes scanning the path, ever-alert. Brienne of Tarth followed in silence, her sword resting across her thighs, her great cloak pulled tight against the wind. Neither of them spoke. Branches clawed at their faces, and unseen birds fled screeching into the dark. Somewhere far behind, a wolf howled once, low and mournful as a dirge.
By the time dawn began to bleed into the eastern sky, their legs were stiff and sore, and their horses foamed at the bit. Then they smelled smoke.
They watched from atop their horses, on the crest of the wooded ridge that overlooked a septry with a mill, brewhouse, and stables. A desolation of weeds, burnt trees, and mud that surrounded them. The trees were mostly bare now, and the few withered brown leaves that still clung to the branches did little to obstruct her view. Black plumes curled into the sky, like dark fingers reaching for the heavens.
The eastern horizon glowed gold and pink, and overhead a half moon peeked out through low scuttling clouds. The wind blew cold, and she heard the sound of screaming. One of the outer buildings was ablaze, and figures moved below, small at this distance but unmistakable in their chaos. A horse whinnied. A man shouted.
“By the Seven,” Brienne whispered, clutching at her sword.
Two against twenty, Lucia was grim, but she drew her mace nonetheless.
The whitewashed walls of the compound were splattered red. A broken door hung from its frame. She could make out the shapes of riders circling the outer buildings, and men on foot kicking in doors. Robed figures ran for cover, or fell, or died.
A third of the men were mounted, but many were on foot. Some bore crude banners, their sigils obscured by mud and blood, but the black goat was undeniable.
Brienne had drawn her blade. She looked down the hill, eyes full of fire. “To pillage a sept,” the Maid of Tarth spat.
Lucia lifted her eyes to the smoke-streaked sky and murmured a quick prayer to Myrmidia. O Lady of War, bless our steel to deliver justice against the wicked.
“You are better mounted than I am,” she said, “can you deal with the riders?”
“I can … but there are many more on foot.”
“I can handle that.”
She said nothing else, and they kicked their horses into a gallop. Before Brienne of Tarth wheeled her horse to the right, she offered Lucia a fierce nod.
And the battle was upon them.
A pale, lean man stood above a begging brother, his spear poised and leaking with a purple poison. He was grinning, thick worm lips curled with cruelty, as the unarmed man whimpered on the ground. Lucia ended his sickening smile with a thunderous crack. Her mace caved his skull in with a wet crunch, splattering blood and brains across the dirt. She rode past without looking back. One.
The smoke was thick, rising in greasy plumes, but she could still see well enough.
A second spearman turned toward her, colored scars dancing across his cheek, and his mouth falling open in surprise. She swung wide and hard, her mace smashing through his jaw and sending teeth flying in a spray. He fell choking on shattered bone, and she brought her weapon down to pulp his head like rotten fruit. Two. The horse was whinnying something fierce, and it wheeled against her command.
Fuck this, she thought, leaping from the brown mare. I’m not a knight.
She drew her heavy kite shield from her back, and it was just in time as well. Amidst the grey haze, a spear came for her. She caught it on her shield, broke the haft with her mace, and brought it crashing against a snarling man’s throat. He was Westerosi, Crownlander maybe, and dead. Three.
A brown-skinned man with feathered black braids danced around her with twin shortspears, cackling like a mad thing. He darted in and out, jabbing low and high, playing with her as though stabbing a caged dog. She caught one spear on her shield, trapped the second under her arm, and lunged, smashing her helmet full into his face. Bone crunched, and blood sprayed as his front teeth scattered like seeds. Her shield edge slammed into his throat, crushing it flat.
Four, she thought, wheeling to meet a curved blade. It was shaped like a sickle, and the copper man swung it like he was harvesting wheat. She took the blade on her pauldron, watched the foreigner’s eyes widened, and thrusted the blunt tip of her flanged mace against one of those eyes. It burst like a white crushed fruit, and he howled in pain. The howl was cut short when she brought the mace to the side of his head. Crack, it rang violently. Five, she counted.
There was chaos all around her; smoke and fire and shouting. She thought she saw a brown mare dragging a dead man. Then, two squat hairy men came at her with shaggy shields and axes made of bone. Dwarfs? She wondered for a mad moment.
They were taller than Dwarfs though, and far weaker. She had never fought the stubborn mountain folk, nor had she any desire to, but she heard of their stout strength. She blocked one axe with her shield, barely feeling the impact. Steel against bone. The other, she parried with her mace. She slammed her steel shield against the hairy man on her left, and thrusted her mace’s tip at the other.
To his credit, he blocked it with his axe of bone, though cracks grew across the white surface like spider webs. She kicked him in his pot belly, and that he could not block. The other one was on her before she could finish the bowled over man. She took his axe on her shield, once, twice, and smashed his wrist with her mace on the third. Before she could finish him off, a swordsman with a forked beard of green and purple and blue came laughing. He bore a long, ornate blade that shone in the smoke. “I fuck you,” he spat, snarling with a smile as his sword came for her.
She misliked the smile. She parried the blade once, twice, a third time, and smashed her heavy shield against his face. When she pulled it away, a red ruin was left behind, with jagged, broken white things where his teeth were. She raised her mace … and a bolt wheezed past her face.
Another crossbowman poked his helmed head out from a window, took aim, and fired. She raised her shield, felt the crash of the bolt against the heavy slab of metal, and grunted in satisfaction. Lowering her defense, she cracked the mace against the swordsman’s skull. Six, that made.
Then the septry erupted, the men boiling out in waves of blades and filth. Two more squat, hairy brutes came with their shaggy brown shields held high. Behind them came a towering copper-skinned man with a great curved blade and bells in his braid, and behind him three men in mail with fierce tattoos on their face. More were climbing out windows, and leaping to the ground. The smoke was thickening.
They leered at her with hungry, hateful eyes, and sharp steel in their hands.
She counted eleven.
Lucia met them with a snarl, raising her shield and twirling her mace. Then, a tall shadow in steel mounted atop a grey horse crashed through the crowd before her. Her horse trampled one man, and Brienne’s bright blade took the head of another. And she was gone, chased by three roaring riders with spears in their hands.
Lucia was on them at once. She crashed into the lumbering copper man with her shield, sending him stumbling to the ground. She jabbed her mace at the throat of one of the mailed men, flicked the steel tip up to crash against his jaw, and brought it down to crush his skull. Seven.
The other two came at her with swords. She parried and blocked, but the two hairy brutes charged. She let them. When they were close, she slammed her steel-clad feet against the groin of one of the tattooed men, ducked under an axe, and took the other with her shield. One of the hairy bears fell, his skull dented at a strange, sickening angle. Eight. The other charged dumbly, roaring in rage and grief. The two must have known each other, she realised idly. She sent him to the same hell their people went, breaking his wrist and his neck. Nine.
Steel scraped against her back, but her plate took the pain for her. She wheeled at once, crashing her mace against the copper man’s shoulder. He grunted in pain. The fool is not even wearing armor. He tried to raise his curved blade but her mace shattered his collarbone, then crashed against his neck with a wet snap. His body twitched, then stilled. Ten.
Smoke bit her lungs. Blood stung her eyes.
The crossbowman leaned out of the window, but an arrow took him in the eye. She barely had the time to watch him fall before a dark Dornishman was on her. But he was no Oberyn Martell, and she broke his spear with three strong blows, ending his life on the fourth. When he fell, she saw a bowman with a powdered cheek on the ground, an arrow in his throat, and his hands were clutching at it in vain.
A hunting horn was blowing. She saw a one-eyed man with a rusty pothelm blowing the cracked wooden thing. A fierce, brawny man was clashing blades with another of the copper men. He wore a large, hooded yellow cloak patched with deerskin, with a brigandine of steel rings under. In his hand was a longsword, and he killed his foe with it easily enough. Another man was even bigger, with a bright green beard and a spear that he buried in the large belly of one of the hairy men she was fighting. The arrows were coming from a young, skinny archer with freckles and red hair. Each arrow he nocked found its way to the eye or throat of another man.
The last of their numbers was just a boy with pale blond hair, dark eyes, and a pale purple cloak. He wore a shirt of dark mail, and wielded a sword passably well with a bright steel buckler, slaying one of the bowmen with a slash and a stab.
The battle did not last long after that.
A lancer astride a horse striped with black and white came charging for her. She was ready to parry his cracked lance, but the man had no eyes for her. Behind him, a blue giant in steel was chasing him. The archer put an arrow in the lancer’s throat, and he fell from his strange mount, tumbling violently from his maddened mare.
They had no time for pleasantries. The first three of the men braved the burning septry, while the archer took the boy to check the brewhouse and mill. Brienne joined her in the smoky yard, and the two gave the gift of mercy to the few who tethered on the edge of life and death. “Please,” one of the Westerosi-born was begging. “Please … mercy…” She slit his throat with his own dagger.
The three men emerged from the smoke and flames with eight brown brothers, one so weak that the large man with the green beard was carrying him across the shoulder. There was another as well, round-shouldered and balding, with black chainmail over grey robes. The one-eyed man held a sword by his neck, forcing him to march forward. Their two groups eyed each other cautiously. Behind the greenbeard, she saw the one-eyed man giving a questioning glance to the yellow cloak, who only shook his head with a grunt.
There was some distance between them; far enough that they could back off at once, close enough that they could speak … but none were eager to talk.
It was the archer who broke the silence, when he returned with the boy in purple. “None left,” the young bowman said cheerfully. “We counted four-and-twenty in full. Seven-and-ten died to your hands, I think.”
The one-eyed man whistled. “Mighty impressive, says Jack.”
The one with the yellow cloak snarled at the sight of the black septon. “Utt.”
“Septon Utt. A man of god.”
“What god would want the likes o’ you?” growled the yellow cloak.
“Lord Beric would want a fair trial for the whole miserable lot of you,” the archer mused, “but Lord Beric ain’t here … and my sort of justice is fast rather than fair.”
“A trial…” the wicked septon was muttering. “A trial.”
The bowman smirked, swaggering to him. “I have a confession to make, Septon Utt. I can’t bloody stand the sight of you.” And he drew a dagger, slashing just below the man’s right eye, reaping a scream. “Ah, many pardons. I saw a fly.”
“Careful there,” Jack hollered, laughing, “you almost cut his eye.”
“Well,” the archer mused, “I can’t have folk saying I missed.” And he sliced, carving out the man’s right eye, earning a shriek of agony. “Careful now, almost hit the other.”
“No, no…” the septon was saying, clutching at his ruined eye. “Justice, a trial…”
“Lord Beric is sure to give you a fair trial, but Lord Beric isn’t here,” said the smiling archer. “What would a bunch of peasants know about justice and the law? Well, we know something about murder, though, and murdering murderers.”
“The boys are witness enough,” whispered the boy in purple, with haunted eyes. She wondered what he saw in the brewery.
“Well!” the archer declared. “Our little lord has spoken.”
“My lady,” Greenbeard said to her. She nearly bristled. “I know a warrior of faith by the sight of the strictures on your armor. You look more pious than our red priest, I must admit, and more impressive as well. And… it was the two of you who fought the bulk of them. You have the right, me says, the last right.”
“Aye,” the one-eyed man agreed. “We were watching … and only that. With Lord Beric and the others to the east… no matter. We could not have fought them without the two of ye. He is yours.”
“So long as he dies,” the yellow cloak grunted.
“We are in agreement, then?” the archer glanced at his companions. The boy in purple gave a small nod, his eyes fixed on Brienne. She stood still and silent beside Lucia, her cobalt armor painted in blood and soot. Her eyes were hollow, but steady. She met Lucia’s gaze and gave a single, solemn nod.
Lucia stomped forward, drawing her mace. The black septon was on his knees in the ash, his robes torn and dark with smoke and filth. He was weeping, muttering panicked prayers through cracked lips as his eye wept blood. His hands were bound behind him with thick rope, his face streaked with sweat and snot.
“Have mercy on my weakness, please,” he was begging pitifully, “I … I pray to the Warrior for strength, to the Father for justice, but the gods made me weak. The boys, the sweet boys … I never meant to hurt them.”
Lucia said nothing. She looked into his one eye, and saw no contrition, only fear. Her fingers clenched tight around her mace. The blood boiled in her chest, surging like a tide of fury. She heard the clanging echo of Myrmidia’s commandments in her mind: Preserve the weak from the horrors of war. Show no mercy to the unrepentant enemies of Humanity.
She brought the mace down on his knees. The crunch was wet and hideous, bone and cartilage folding under steel. He screamed.
Again, she struck, crushing the other knee. The same sound ripped through the air, accompanied by cries of agony. His pleading collapsed into screams. “Please! Please, I beg you!”
She broke both his wrists next. The bones snapped like dry branches. Then came his ribs; left side, right, sternum, one after the other like breaking fence posts. His breath came in short, panicked gasps, bubbling with blood. “Mercy!” he sobbed. “Mercy, mercy!”
Lucia stared down at him with cold, burning fury. She did not answer. Myrmidia was not the goddess of mercy. She crushed his collarbones. One, then the other. His arms lolled, useless, broken things now. Finally, she stood over him as he wept and writhed, his body shattered, prayers slipping from his lips like filth.
She raised the mace one last time and brought it down on the last thing he’d ever used to harm the innocent. The scream that followed echoed across the blackened stones of the septry, mingling with the smoke and the silence of the others. When it was done, she let the mace fall. Blood soaked the dirt beneath her boots. The black septon twitched once, twice, then was still. Forever now, she thought, satisfied.
And that was the matter done.
By the time the septry collapsed in a roar of smoke and flame, the two of them were tending to their horses, ready to ride. The eight brown brothers were watching with resignation and a solemn silence. The archer, Anguy as he called himself, led the one-eyed man, Jack-be-Lucky, in looting the dead. Greenbeard was talking to the eldest of the brothers, who wore a small iron hammer on a leather loop about his neck.
“Before the war, we were four-and-forty, and this was a prosperous place,” the septon was saying. “We had a dozen milk cows and a bull, a hundred beehives, a vineyard and an apple arbor. But when the lions came through they took all our wine and milk and honey, slaughtered the cows, and put our vineyard to the torch. After that ... I have lost count of our visitors. This false septon was only the latest. There was one monster ... we gave him all our silver, but he was certain we were hiding gold, so his men killed us one by one to make Elder Brother talk.”
“How did the eight of you survive?” asked Greenbeard.
“I am ashamed,” the old man said, looking down. “It was me. When it came my turn to die, I told them where our gold was hidden.”
“Brother,” Greenbeard placed a firm hand on the man’s shoulder, “the only shame was not telling them at once.”
Lem Lemoncloak was sitting on a moss-covered stone, wiping his blade with a cloth he had ripped from one of the dead. But the boy was walking to them. “I have never seen anyone fight like that,” he said quietly to her, “not even Lord Beric, or Thoros, or the other one.”
She looked at him. “Who is Lord Beric?”
A smile grew on his face as he tilted his head. “The lightning lord,” he said, as if it explained it all. “Lord Beric Dondarrion. He leads us.”
“And who is us?”
“The knights of the hollow hill,” the archer said from behind the boy, smiling.
“The brotherhood without banners,” the child told her, considering her with eyes that were piercing for his age. “We fight in Robert’s name. You should join us.”
“And why would I do that?”
"King Robert is dead," Brienne pointed out. King Renly as well, went unsaid.
“You fought to protect the weak,” the little warrior said, “as did we. King Robert is dead, but his realm is not. Both of you were brave … like knights. There is safety in numbers, especially in a land as ravaged by war as this. Many of the smallfolk support us, and give us shelter and supplies and vital information. We can do much together, many have seen that.”
The offer was tempting, but Lucia had enough of brigand bands waging war for the people. She had led one, and it ended in black blood. There is something he is not telling me, the paranoid parts of her mind reminded her. She glanced at Brienne, whose face was twisted in suspicion. “Your cause is admirable,” Lucia said, “we wish you luck.”
“Will you at least stay the night?” The boy was adamant. “The brothers are offering us shelter in the brewhouse, and they have food and hearth and wine.”
“The little lord has it true,” Anguy pointed out, stroking his bow. “Food and shelter, you won’t find much ‘o that in the riverlands these days. And the two of you look mighty weary. Be wise to take them while you still can. Else, the road from here stinks of ash and corpses and little more.”
“Little lord?” Lucia raised a brow.
The boy in purple smiled at her. “I am Edric Dayne, Lord of Starfall.”
She thought she faintly recalled Oberyn Martell mentioning that once, on the ship to Oldtown. That felt forever ago. Dayne, Dayne, she remembered Brienne’s tales. The Sword of the Morning was a Dayne. This one’s too young to be one.
“And what is the Lord of Starfall doing here?” Brienne’s curiosity overtook her sullen silence. “Dorne is far from here.”
“I was Lord Beric’s squire,” he said, “when he went to the Hand’s Tourney, I followed. When Lord Eddard sent him to fight the Mountain, I followed.”
“And when we were buggered at the Mummer’s Ford,” Greenbeard slapped his shoulder as he passed by, “the little lord pulled Dondarrion out of the river and stood over the body while the battle raged.”
She saw how Brienne stiffened at the mention of Lord Eddard, but she said nothing. Lucia met her eyes, but Brienne only gave her an uncertain shrug.
“We will share your fire and food,” she nodded, “but we will be gone by dawn.” Their fight was admirable, but she did not know how they would react once they knew two kingslayers were in their midst. How much gold would the Tyrells put on our heads?
“The company will be appreciated,” the archer bowed.
They sheltered that night in the brewhouse beside the little river. There were still stains of red that the brothers were wiping away at. Supper was simple; oaten bread, onions, and a watery cabbage soup tasting faintly of garlic. But it filled the stomachs. The brown brothers gave Brienne and Lucia each two skins of honeyed wine. When they offered a handful of silvers to Brienne, she refused. Lucia accepted it however. She was not so selfless, nor so charitable. We need the silver.
Her companion spent the night in quiet prayer and conversation with the brothers, but Lucia held a different deity. She prayed in the dark, whispering her worship to the Lady of War. When Brienne returned, Lucia did not ask her how her prayers went, nor did the Maid of Tarth ask her. The two retreated into their comfortable silence once more. Even here, the two of them took turns keeping watch, albeit subtly.
Dawn found them mounting their mares, filling the saddlebags with bread, dried fruits, and the honeyed jerky that the brothers offered them for their journey.
“Are you sure you will not join us?” the Lord of Starfall yawned. The others were still asleep, bar Anguy who was watching from the roof.
“No,” Brienne said stiffly, but not unkindly. “We have other roads to take.”
Not that they knew what roads those were. Still, Lucia nodded. “Take care, little lord of stars.”
“Are you sure you’re not Dornish?” Edric Dayne peered at her.
“No.”
“Half?”
“No.”
“And you, my lady,” he turned to Brienne with a curious gaze, “I can hear the Stormlands in your voice, but not the Marches, I think.”
Brienne stiffened at that even more. “It is no concern of yours, Lord Dayne.”
“Just Edric, I am but Lord Beric’s squire here,” he bowed his head, relenting. “Lord Beric would enjoy fighting by your side, I think. Thoros would share a fire, a drink, and a tale of faith with you. And ... well, I suppose it does no good to talk of roads that will not be walked. I pray our roads cross again.”
She found the little lord to be a pleasant sort; young and heroic and brave, but not naive nor a fool. Whoever this Beric Dondarrion was, he had taught his squire well, Lucia decided. The boy would grow on to be a decent kind of lord and man. “I will pray so too,” she reached a gauntleted hand across and Edric Dayne shook it firmly. “May the rising sun ever light your way.”
Brienne held hers out, reluctantly. “Well met, Lord Dayne.”
But by then, Lucia was no longer listening.
Her gaze had been drawn skyward, to the blackened remnants of the septry’s roof. There, perched amid the ash and ruin, was an eagle; proud and still, its silhouette sharp against the pale light of dawn. The first rays of the rising sun caught its plumage, and its eyes shimmered like molten gold. For a moment, the world held its breath. Then, with a cry like a clarion call, the eagle spread its wings, vast and regal, and soared into the morning sky. It wheeled once above them, casting a fleeting shadow across the clearing, before turning north and vanishing beyond the treeline.
Lucia watched it go. Edric Dayne left them with a nod and smile, and the archer was waving from the roof, and their horses began their canter. She turned her head toward the treeline, where the eagle had flown. “I know where to go now,” Lucia said.
Brienne looked at her, frowning slightly. “What do you mean?”
Lucia shook her head, a faint, knowing smile curving her lips, and her eyes followed the eagle’s path. And so they left, leaving the smoldering septry behind, and riding with the rising sun as their companion.
Notes:
And so the journey continues for Brienne and Lucia! I really like Edric Dayne and Anguy the Archer, I will not lie. Before anyone asks why the BWB did not bring Lucia to Folke, I urge you to read between the lines. I have it all planned <3
Expect the themes of war, religion, outlaws, and knights to play a massive role in their story moving forward. Admittedly, Lucia is a character that has been stifled by necessity of plot, but now that she is out there with a character she has an excellent parallel/dynamic with, I hope she gets the light she deserves. Of the party, she has always been the hardest character to write, I cannot lie. Anyways, Andrei is an easy character to have as favorite. Gunther has the black charm of a lovable rogue. Lorenzo, despite his flaws, is intriguing.
Lucia is a character with many conflicts. Faith and vengeance, companion or isolation, mercy or murder, and many more. An incredibly paranoid person as well. An inherently violent person, with a penchant for said violence, trying to adopt the path of a war goddess. It does not help that Myrmidia's tenets are incredibly complicated and nuanced. So yeah, good luck, Lucia. Anyways, before any one asks, Lucia has zero idea how to channel Myrmidia's blessings. Even on the campaign, most of the time her prayers go unanswered as she still struggles to keep tightly to the strictures and beliefs of the Cult of Myrmidia. She's self-taught, in a sense.
Also, you will notice that Lucia thinks of Brienne as a girl. Brienne is 17 (?) around this part in ACOK. Lucia is 24. Just a reminder for the party's age: Gunther (20), Lorenzo (23), Lucia (24), Folke (32), Andrei (38). Yeah, there is a generation gap going on.
Finally, here are Lucia's statline for anyone curious:
STR: 15(+2)
PER: 13 (+1)
CON: 14(+2)
CHA: 11(0)
INT: 11(0)
WIS: 11(0)
DEX: 11(0)
LCK: 12(+1)Next chapter will be an interlude from none other than the Rose of Highgarden before we fly back to Lorenzo!
Chapter 91: The Rose of Highgarden
Notes:
Wrote most of this on a bus ride, which is really fitting considering Marg's caravan ride
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The ornate wheelhouse swayed gently as it creaked along the dusty roseroad, but Margaery Tyrell sat rigid as carved stone.
Her knuckles were white on the velvet cushions, and the air inside was stifling despite the spring breeze. The scent of crushed flowers still clung to her, as did the bitterness from the days before. Bitterbridge was a place well named, for that was where their hopes and dreams for the throne had died, a garden of ambition trampled beneath bloodied boots, a flame extinguished before it truly even burnt.
Margaery had been in her tent, seated before a polished mirror of gold, her ladies brushing the dust from her gown and winding roses into her hair. The air smelled of lavender oil and cool linen, the murmur of the Mander drifting in faintly through the canvas. She was speaking softly when a horn sounded, sharp and short.
Then another, and another. It was dusk, and it was death.
She had not known at the time, but Lord Randyll Tarly had returned. With him came Lord Mathis Rowan and Lady Arwyn Oakheart, and four thousand riders behind them. Where Lord Rowan and Lady Oakheart rode for their camps, Lord Tarly chose a bloodier path. His riders descended upon the Florent tent with steel and fire.
That was when the horns gave way to shouts, screams, and the wet ring of steel on screaming steel.
She could still remember the silence in her tent, while the camp erupted in mad violence just beyond. The clamor had been deafening; shrill trumpets and sharp horns, the clash of spears, the shout of charging hooves and the shriek of dying men. She glimpsed fire, leaping from tent to tent like a living thing, hungry and roaring. Tyrell swords had rallied to their queen’s tent, forming a ring of steel that was impenetrable … but the sounds came to her still. It was the dying of their dream.
Alla had been weeping, her cousin clutched at the septa’s dress. Margaery was silent. By dark, the slaughter had ended, but their troubles had just begun.
King Renly Baratheon was dead.
The news came not as a shout, but as a sullen, solemn whisper. It slithered through the ranks like a viper in the grass, coiling around their hearts and striking when least expected. And it spelled utter doom for their hopes. Her handmaids wept anew when Ser William Wythers arrived to tell the tragic tale in full. Their king’s death was only the first fell blow, the first poisoned spear through their hearts.
Her brother had been taken prisoner amidst the chaos … a prisoner of Stannis Baratheon. Alester Florent had dragged him off in chains, despite Lord Tarly’s best efforts. That man is only good for butchery, she was furious.
Lord Randyll Tarly had decided to act swiftly, preferring to put the Florent foot to death, rather than see them go over to Stannis in all their numbers. He had neglected to inform his lord, who was at Highgarden, or his queen, who was not too far from the butchery when the Lord of Horn Hill deigned to start. He had not even informed her of Renly’s death before marching onto the bloody battle.
When his riders came onto the Florents with lance and torch and sword, the camp quickly descended into a madness of battle.
She saw the fallen banners, and men who wore similar surcoats dead on the ground, with steel thrusted in each other’s heart. Tyrell men had hacked at Florents, Oakhearts danced with the Fossoways, and Reachmen killed Reachmen. A fifth of the tents had caught fire, and towers of smoke were blooming. Horses had broken free from their stables, in fear of the fire and the fighting. It had been madness.
By the time the fighting ebbed, Ser Erren Florent and Parmen Crane had rallied their men across the river. They had arrived amidst the slaughter, gathering stragglers and loyalists beneath their banners, and beneath the fiery heart of Stannis Baratheon. Lord Rowan and Tarly had reformed their own lines on the west bank, each side watching the other under moonlight, as if poised for yet another war.
The camp grew ghostly then. Fires smoldered, the ground was sodden with blood, and the air buzzed with rumors as thick as the flies rushing for the corpses. Amidst the glimmer of moonlight, Margaery had tried, vainly, to make sense of it all. Riders brought a dozen tales, each more wild and feverish than the last. Some claimed Renly had died in battle. Others spoke of an assassin slipping through his tent. One mad knight raved that it was Lady Catelyn Stark who had struck him down. But most whispered two names. Brienne of Tarth, and Lucia, the queen’s shadow.
Renly was found dead, with a hole through his chest as if made by a blade, and his head was shattered by a mace. They had slain their king, many were saying.
Why else would they have fled?
That night, she remained in her tent, wrapped in silence. The sounds of the wounded moaning in the dark carried through the colorful canvas, drowning the encampment in ghostly sounds, and the sky was lit with a dull orange glow where the fires still burned. Even inside, Margaery could smell smoke and soot. Her cheeks were dry, but her soul felt hollow. She had never tasted treason in her life. Now, she found that betrayal tasted bitter.
Come dawn, Lord Tarly wanted to bring their numbers to bear on the traitors. Close to six thousand men had died amidst the chaos of the sudden bloodletting. They estimated that Ser Erren had rallied some nine thousand on the east bank of the Mander. Their own numbers were still strong, with forty thousand footmen gathered. A few thousand must have slipped away during the fighting, she noted, hedge knights and sellswords who saw that their star was waning.
Margaery was appalled at the Lord of Horn Hill’s desire for more fighting.
“My brother is a prisoner,” she told the lords sharply, “Renly is dead. Your king is slain. Thousands of Reachmen have died. Still, you want more to perish?”
“They are traitors, Your Grace,” the old warhawk told her.
“I am that, your queen,” she said, coldly. “You did not deign to inform me of my husband’s passing, or my brother’s capture before you committed to battle.”
Lord Randyll met her gaze, but he did not speak. Margaery was not so blind as he. She had seen the look in the eyes of the other lords and ladies, and had heard the whispers that curled like smoke around campfires. A moon ago, they had a king and the greatest host in the realm. Now, their king was dead before his glory, and their mighty army was a fractured, frightened thing. Like a wine barrel with holes at its base, their grand host would soon leak men like wine.
None had bristled when she ordered the retreat to Highgarden. Not even Randyll Tarly, who accepted his new command with only a grudging grunt; to hold Bitterbridge with five thousand men. That had been a week ago.
Betrayal is a bitter fruit, Margaery thought, sitting in the silent hush of her wheelhouse. Where once songs of summer played, now there was only the tired groaning of wheels and the rhythm of retreat. It was a sad, solemn sound. Summer has ended, Margaery thought, gloomily. The leaves have turned brown and the sky is grey. Soon, it is winter's day.
Before their departure, she had sent for Lorenzo.
She had left him behind in the keep of Bitterbridge, choosing to remain in Renly’s camp in those last weeks. She had preferred the sound of tents and river-song, the presence of knights and squires. Renly had insisted the bard stay in his quarters, high in the tower. She had thought it was jealousy, or perhaps paranoia. But maybe, in that moment, her king had seen something she had not.
Lorenzo bore the lion’s look; hair like silken gold, eyes like frozen wildfire. But Tywin Lannister was no fool; he would never send a spy so obvious. Would he?
Yet the hummingbird had fled his cage. How? The question rang in her head hollowly, over and over without end.
The guards assigned to his door were missing, and they only found their bodies amidst the thousands dead two days after the battle. Lord Caswell had closed his gates when he saw the encampment on fire, and she had forgotten about Lorenzo Voceleste entirely. She did not understand. Why were they in the encampment? Those two guards must have arrived just as Lord Tarly brought death to the Florents, and they must have been caught in the chaos. Were they trying to come to me? Did the singer flee before or after they left their post?
She would never know the answer.
The bard had sung his way into Highgarden’s heart… and to hers as well. It was his words that convinced her to take his sellsword companion as a royal shadow. My shadow, not Renly’s. Her husband had never told her why he wanted to take the woman with him… and he never would. Margaery looked down at the creased parchment in her hands, creased and faintly scented of lemon and ink.
The stag lies down in the field where lilies bloom too early. The shadow has passed over, silent and swift, and the light is no longer his.
I dreamt of a crown that shattered like glass, and a song that ended before it could start. It is not the lion that claws from the cage, but a hummingbird flying free. If the gods will it, the sea wind may blow the song to the queen in times to come. Roses shall linger in my songs.
He knew Renly would die, Margaery thought. Yet, those did not seem like the letters of a cutthroat to her. He was not the lion clawing from the cage, the singer was telling her but … If he is a cutthroat, he is a poor one.
She set the letter aside, a frown marring her face. A servant, loyal to her, had found it on the bard’s empty bed, and delivered it in secret. No one could say how he had escaped. No doors were broken, and no blood was left behind. An unarmed bard had slipped away in the night, past guards meant to keep him, through a keep with hundreds within. There was no way the singer could have returned to Highgarden or the Reach. Had he gone over to Stannis? She could not imagine such a bright, fair bard in the gloomy court of Stannis Baratheon. She did not have the time to unravel it, though. Other concerns pressed in. Her thoughts turned to Loras, now a prisoner.
All around her, the army trudged homeward, down the roseroad. Once, they had departed Highgarden with pageantry and pride. Songs had filled the air and garlands of bright flowers had been tossed before them. Their banners had gleamed so brightly then. Now, their colors were faded, muddied with blood and ash.
Here we are, Margaery thought, with a dry, bitter smile.
They had not fought a single battle. Yet their king was dead. Their army had splintered. And half of it had blown away like wilting petals on the wind.
Was she still a queen?
Highgarden rose before them when the sun broke over the horizon, golden light spilling across the fields of the Reach like honey over warm bread. The castle was unchanged; verdant and blooming and perfect. Yet to Margaery, it looked different now. The songs that had once gilded its tall white towers had quieted. The air seemed heavier, though no fires had reached its gates.
The wheelhouse rolled through the gates in solemn procession. There were no cheering crowds nor flower petals, just the clop of hooves and the creak of wood. Tyrell banners still flew, but the wind did not lift them high and proud.
Her mother, Lady Alerie Tyrell, was the first to greet her, clasping her hands tightly, her face pale with worry but composed. Her eyes searched within Margaery’s.
“You are unharmed,” her mother breathed. “Oh, Margaery.”
“I am,” she leaned into her mother’s embrace. She was not the queen then, just the daughter and the maid.
Olenna Tyrell stood just beyond, leaning on her cane, the sun glinting off her silver hair. Her mouth was pursed, her eyes sharp. She took in her granddaughter in a glance, and her lips twisted into something resembling a smile. The Queen of Thorns gave a brisk nod to the waiting retainers. “Get her something hot to drink, and something stronger if she wants it. She’s come back from a field of fools and fire.”
Inside the halls of Highgarden, the scent of flowers was almost oppressive; roses and honeysuckle, jasmine and thyme, carnations and lilies. Servants lit tallow candles and opened windows, letting in the fresh autumn air. The songs were played softly on harps and flutes, though they felt out of place. None were using lutes.
The servants washed the grime of the road from her, though she still felt uncleaned and weary when they supped at evening. It was just her and her grandmother.
“Your father rode to join Garlan’s host when the ravens came from Bitterbridge,” Olenna informed her over a plate of honey-roasted quail and lemon cakes. “They are marching on Brightwater Keep with a host. He means to send the Florents a strong message. Blood for treason, he said. For once, I am inclined to agree.”
Margaery said nothing at first. She pushed food around her plate and sipped from her cup. “Stannis has Loras,” she said eventually.
“And Stannis cannot threaten Loras over this,” the Queen of Thorns scoffed. “If he dares to even touch a strand of your brother’s curly hair, House Tyrell will enter the war once more. That, he does not want.”
“So we have exited the war?”
“For now,” her grandmother leaned back with a thoughtful frown. “I never cared much for this royal gamble, Margaery. It was your father’s idea, and Loras. A man dreams for a crown and an ugly throne. And Renly … who told him that he was ready to wear a crown? All men are fools, if truth be told, but at least those crowned with motley are more amusing than those crowned with gold. I have spoken to Mathis.”
“Lord Rowan?”
“We have misplaced a king, it would appear,” Olenna Tyrell said dryly, “and half of our host, but we still have some forty thousand men, I hear.”
“Stannis must be marching for King’s Landing by now,” Margaery mused, ignoring her thoughts on songs and singers and shadows.
“Let him,” Olenna waved her hand. “Lord Rowan will encamp himself, and twenty thousand swords, at Old Oak. The rest of this army you have returned with will await your father’s return, and Garlan. That is another twenty thousand or so, and Lord Rowan agrees that they should be placed at Fawnton.”
Margaery saw through her words at once. “Old Oak borders the Westerlands. Fawnton borders the Stormlands.”
“Willas saw that as swiftly as you did,” her grandmother smiled. “If Stannis should find himself defeated upon the Blackwater, then Garlan will lead twenty thousand swords to seize the Stormlands. Swift enough, castles may fall before ravens fly. What they do not know, Loras cannot be harmed for. If Stannis should win, then Lord Rowan will lead his host into the Westerlands. Well, what is left of that. I hear the Young Wolf has made a most bloody meal of Lannister meat. No matter. We have lost a king, but we have not lost a war, nor our sweet queen. Kings die all the time. We still have gold and grain aplenty to flood the realm, or feed them as we choose. The Redwyne fleet is moored at port, untouched by war, as are our farms and fields. No matter which stag emerges from the fire, they need our swords and ships, our gold and grain. Do not look so mournful, my dear. We have not lost.”
A smile grew soft and sweet on Margaery’s lips. “You impress as ever, grandmother.”
Olenna Tyrell huffed at that. “I will not lecture you on this business with your bard … I imagine your father will have enough words for that, when he returns from his march. Doubtless, the war horns make him feel young again. Young and vigorous and in the mood to lecture his children … Still, you were ever his sweet rose. Fear not your fat head father. Go speak with your brother, Willas. After spending so much time in a war camp, you must be missing the sound of wit and wisdom in a man’s voice. And your brother will understand your sorrow. Spend some time with your mother as well, she is a frightened, foolish hen and I do not blame her for it. Willas is busy running the castle, Garlan is marching at war, and Loras is a prisoner. Her sons have all grown from the little boys they were, and all mothers dread the day the boy becomes a man. Put down the crown, Margaery, and go let her be a mother. Go now, little rose. It will all be alright. I will make sure of it.”
She hugged her grandmother then. Prickly as she was, Margaery had always loved her deeply… and learned much from her.
Notes:
And so House Tyrell exits the stage ... for now.
A short and sweet chapter to shine some light on the Tyrells and the Reach. All eyes are turning to look upon the looming battle at King's Landing. (Also, did anyone catch a particular reference to a particular song?)
Personally, I've always liked all the Tyrells, bar Loras who I am indifferent about. I have always enjoyed Margaery and Olenna, and Garlan is just a great guy. Expect both Willas and Garlan to show up later in the story. God, I need a Willas POV in the Winds of Winter. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter, it's primarily introspection and politics and not much action, but these bonus POVs help to make the world feel bigger and real, and it's good practice for me.
Now, let's talk about POVs. They are fun.
Amidst this 'pile' of once-off POVs, some of them are just that, appearing once as a POV and most likely never again. For example, I don't think I'm giving Thoros or Yoren another. Some of them might get another bonus chapter in later arcs. A small handful will become full POVs in later arcs. Theon is one of them. Some of them, I am pondering whether they will become full POVs, like Margaery. Anyways, yeah, a lot of cool bonus chapters to come in the story. Just as a teaser, the next bonus POV is titled ... The Lion's Daughter.
Next chapter will feature Lorenzo as he discovers something ancient and priceless... (feel free to guess)
Chapter 92: Lorenzo III
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The night was dark, and the stars were hiding their bright eyes behind the black.
The village was but a scatter of humble dwellings clinging to the river’s edge, their timbers leaning as though weary from years of wind and rain, bowed like the backs of the elders who still dwelled within. Thatched roofs exhaled faint wisps of steam into the chill, releasing the last warmth of day into the moon-touched air. Fishing nets, damp and heavy, hung from wooden frames like ghostly sails, swaying with the chill breeze. The scent of fish lay thick upon the air; ripe, briny, and inescapable.
Smoke curled lazily from crooked chimneys, remnants of dying hearthfires where suppers had grown cold. Down by the riverbank, aged fishermen hunched over their nets beneath flickering torches, their faces carved with salt, soot, and sea. The water of the Mander flowed beyond them, dark as oil beneath the moon, winding like a great silver serpent between the reeds, whispering secrets to the wind.
It was peaceful and quaint, and not Tumbleton.
He said as much to the old fisherman as the boat nudged against the rickety, rotten wooden jetty. “This is not Tumbleton.”
“It is not,” the fisherman grunted, with a voice as coarse as gravel. “You said to sail upriver. The upper reaches are muddy and snugs. I’m not risking my boat.”
Lorenzo gave the man a tight smile. “How far away is the town?”
“Half a day’s walk,” he shrugged, “or more. Just follow the path.”
“You have my thanks,” Lorenzo said curtly, stepping lightly onto the old rotting planks of the jetty, and offering a quick prayer to Manann that it would not break. Today was not the day he died, not from drowning. It would be an inglorious end to the tale.
“I got yer coin, that’s all I need,” the old man chuckled. The bard did not bother to acknowledge him. He threw a slow, cautious glance along the settlement. There were no inns here, Lorenzo realised, no taverns nor warm welcome.
With a tired sigh, the singer drew his dull cloak tight about his shoulders, the thick wool his only armor against the black breath of night. The path ahead was narrow, a winding ribbon of dirt and gravel, worn smooth by the feet of farmers and the hooves of passing riders over decades and centuries. It meandered away from the village, clinging close to the river like a secret. He walked alone, the water’s quiet song playing a low lullaby for the land.
He remembered the lay of the country. North of Tumbleton were open fields and swathes of farmland, stretching toward the Blackwater Rush. To the east loomed the shadowed wilds of the Kingswood. South and west were closed to him; the banners of House Tyrell would be hunting, and he had no wish to be caught beneath them.
North, then, he decided. He would take the long road over the gloom of the woods anytime. The Reikwald of the Empire was enough dark forest for a lifetime. Even armies dread to march in that drear place. A cry pierced the stillness; a sharp, pained note from the reeds. It sounded like the broken note from a snapped string.
There, in the moonlight, a small scarlet bird chirped, its cry thin and pitiful. One wing hung limp and broken, its feathers matted with river silt and brown sorrow.
Lorenzo tilted his head, curiosity gleaming in his green eyes like emeralds caught in candlelight. Slowly and deliberately, he knelt, heedless of the mud that soaked into the fabric of his trousers. It was a rosefinch, he realised, trailing a slim, gloved finger along its fur with gentility and amusement. A red bird named for a rose, Lorenzo smiled at that. The gods had their sense of humor everywhere he went.
He cradled the creature in his palms, tender as a Shallyan’s prayer, and set it softly upon a curled, brittle leaf that had turned brown. The rosefinch chirped again, weaker now, almost pleading pitifully. Lorenzo unslung his lute. With deft fingers, he plucked a single note, sending it preening into the night. It rang clear and soft, like a maiden’s sigh beneath the pale moon. He tuned it gently and then began to play.
It was no tavern song, no bawdy tune for ale-soaked men. It was something older. A hymn once whispered in temple alcoves, sung by mothers at sickbeds, murmured beside dying fires. His voice rose not as music, but as invocation; a melody carried on the breath, wordless at first, a hum that drifted like sweet incense on still air.
"In tear and balm, in blood and grace,
Where pain has torn, let love replace.
Shallya, soft of hand and heart,
Let wounds be still. Let sorrow part."
The night held its breath. The breeze stilled and the river hushed. The reeds swayed in time with the verse, as though bowing to the sanctity of sound. Dew clung like silver pearls to every blade and branch, the world glimmering with quiet reverence.
The rosefinch gave a tiny shiver. Its wing stirred, once, then again. A twitch, a stretch, and a hop. Then it rose, unsteady but alive, on its narrow feet. It chirped, high and clear, no longer pained. With a flutter, it lifted from the leaf, bright blood wings clapping softly through the air. It landed on Lorenzo’s shoulder, nipping gently at his hair, trilling as if in thanks. Then it leapt once more, flitting upward in a spiral of red, like a bright ember caught in a gentle wind. Lorenzo watched as it danced ahead of him, trailing light and motion and sound through the darkness. Then it stopped, just a few paces on the path, and turned its head back, watching.
Lorenzo followed, smiling.
Through low grass and whispering willow, they wandered, past old stones half-sunk in mud and cloaked in thick moss. The river flowed beside them still, a silver murmur. Lorenzo said nothing. The bird’s flight was beacon enough, a little flying lighthouse. Finally, it halted, alighting upon a gnarled and twisted tree, whose great roots gripped the earth like the fingers of a sleeping giant. Beneath its limbs, moss blanketed the ground, and fallen leaves lay thick and scattered. The trunk curved like the spine of an old friend, and the rosefinch tucked its head beneath its wing and slept.
He leaned against the ancient tree, drawing his cloak around him to shield against the night’s cold, and let the stillness of the place wrap him like a soft lullaby. His lute rested beside him, like a companion dozing through a tale too long. Beneath the canopy of stars, and to the river’s hush, he closed his eyes and drifted into dreams.
The first time he woke, the world was grey and white.
Snow dusted the earth. The river had frozen over. Above him perched a black crow, its feathers slick with frost and upon its brow, a third eye, gleaming red.
“My dreams have been even stranger than before.” Lorenzo tilted his head upwards, meeting all three red eyes of the black bird with his own emerald ones.
“Stranger,” the crow croaked, “and clearer.”
“That is true,” he admitted. Before, his dreams were often feverish and broken, like glimpsing into the thousand shards of a shattered mirror. Now, they had begun to take shape, threaded together like chapters in a tale. Never before had he held conversation with the entities in his dreams. Now … “Why?”
“You know why.”
“Magic has returned to this land.”
“It has,” the three-eyed crow said quietly. “Your eyes are green, and you have seen the green. But soon, you will see more.”
“And how will I do that?” Lorenzo reached for his lute, strumming it carefully.
“You will see.”
“How insightful,” he winced at the sound that the string gave him. In his dreams, the strings of his lute could scream and shriek the most unnatural of sounds.
“Have you ever seen dragons?”
The question gave him pause. “I have seen their shadow,” he offered after a pause, “and their skulls in my dreams.”
The crow cawed again. It sounded like laughter. And he woke.
The morning had come with silence.
Mist clung to the river like bated breath on glass, delicate and trembling, softening the world in pale veils. The willow branches drooped under beads of dew, and the air was bright with the shy light of dawn. The rosefinch was gone. Only a single red feather remained, caught in the tangle of brown roots beside him; its color a distinct kiss of warm blood upon the soft, waking earth. Lorenzo plucked it with reverence and tucked it into the lining of his cloak, close to the heart.
He stood, brushed the moss from his cloak, and resumed the path north. By midday, Tumbleton appeared in the distance.
Its walls stood clean and unmarred, and beyond them, he saw rooftops tiled in red and brown rising like the backs of resting beasts. A soft haze lingered above its chimneys, and the air carried the scents of bread, horses and smoke. It was a small town in truth, quiet and peaceful, and a pale shadow to the cities of the Old World.
“Halt there,” the guard at the gate eyed him warily, his hand resting on an unblooded spear of ash and dark iron. “State your purpose.”
Lorenzo smiled, warm but not wide. He hoped no raven had flown from Bitterbridge, carrying words of warning. “Good man,” he said with all warmth and charm, “I am but a wandering bard, on my journey through the great land of the Reach.” He tapped his coin pouch. “I hope to find food, audience, and a soft bed here.”
“And the dragonskulls, I bet,” the man scoffed, waving him through.
Lorenzo blinked once, but he did not stop to talk to the man. Within the walls, Tumbleton breathed with life, loud and warm.
The streets were narrow and winding, paved in smooth stones worn pale by years of sun and sandals. Laughter drifted on the wind; children at play, merchants hawking their wares, the bray of a mule stubborn at the cart. He passed a baker drawing fresh loaves from a clay oven, the crusts golden and singing with heat. A potter shaped a clay jug with hands that danced like leaves in the wind. A woman sold herbs from a cart painted in fading green and yellow, and her basil smelled like summer.
The market square was modest, but vibrant. Stalls pressed in close, their awnings dyed in patchy blues and reds. He saw pears stacked in neat green pyramids, bolts of linen from the Reach, smoked eels laid out in rows on shaved ice. A troupe of mummers juggled bruised apples near a dry fountain carved in the likeness of a weeping maiden who, Lorenzo thought, must be mourning their lack of rhythm. A legless beggar played a reed flute by the steps of the Sept, and not badly, either.
Lorenzo wandered, without haste yet without idling. He did not know what he was searching for. He was not yet certain why he had come … not until he saw the sign.
Dragonskulls of Seasmoke and Vermithor, the banner read, faded and fraying and faint. It hung above the arched entrance of a long stone hall with narrow windows and a slate-gray roof. A young man, near the age of Gunther, sat beside the entrance on a stool, whittling a block of wood into the shape of a bird.
“Two pennies to look,” he said without glancing up, “an additional star to touch.”
“Dragonskulls?” Lorenzo raised a brow.
The man gave him an annoyed look. “No, bird skulls.”
Lorenzo shook his head, and flicked a silver star towards the man. As he fished the pennies from his pouch, the boy resumed his shaving, muttering about lost bards.
Inside, it was cool and dim. The smell of dust and old stone clung to the air. Candles flickered in tall sconces, casting shadows like dark claws across the walls. The dragonskulls were arrayed on low stone plinths, grey and cool. The first was large; easily twice the size of a bull’s skull, its fangs curved like white scimitars, still glinting faintly in the low light. A plaque at its base read: Seasmoke.
The second was vast, its bonemass as long as a cart and half as wide. It loomed at the far end of the hall, cracked along the crown, and yellowed by centuries. Its eye sockets were great and empty hollows, inky pools of black, deep as the regrets of kings. The bronze plaque at its feet bore a single name: Vermithor.
The eyeless holes of Vermithor’s skull watched him as he approached it. The bone was cold when he laid his hand upon it, and the world vanished.
He stood within a vast chamber; columns of green fire rising like pillars of cursed jade, shimmering like veiled dancers. The flames curled around black metal towers, their surfaces gleaming like obsidian veined with emerald light. Shadows leapt and danced along the polished marble floor, and the air hummed with a heat that should have burned but did not. Two shadows were talking as the flames danced. One was familiar, and the other was half its shade and size and stature.
“What he said about a spell, my lord…”
“You do not think that those wisdoms can conjure up magic from their palms, do you? I did not take thieves to believe in snarks and grumpkins.”
“Not at all, Lord Tyrion. Steel is the best spell.”
“A wise saying. Anyhow, magic is long dead from this world, no matter what my sister may claim about Eddard Stark’s pet magi, or whatever term she is using now.”
“I heard about the death of that lord?”
“Baelish. An exaggeration, I imagine. The fire, the smoke, the din of fighting in the throne room. Mayhaps, Stark’s savage crushed Littlefinger’s head with a hammer or his bare hands, and after that tale has travelled through a hundred mouths, that is how we hear of dragons come again.”
The conversation was fading away as he stepped into a subterranean darkness. One voice was Gunther’s, Lorenzo knew at once. The other, he could surmise. So, that is where he is. Beyond, long rows of tables stretched into the endless dark, with thousands of clay jugs upon them. And when he peered into one of the jugs, he saw a pool of bright green… and the dream melted away in a flash of emerald fire.
And the fire was there again, but they were red. The scarlet flames were dancing all around him, but he did not burn. Beyond the flames, he saw a tent, with three braziers in three corners, casting strange shadows that rippled like serpents. Outside, the air hummed with distant drums. Two figures were speaking.
The first was a tall and terrible shadow, in scarlet silks and crimson eyes, and her voice was rich and melodious, making him envision nutmeg and cloves.
“Soon, it will be night … and there will be no time for light and no room for warmth.”
“The cold, I am used to,” a familiar voice grunted. Andrei?
“I shall leave you with the choices, cold or warmth, ice or fire.”
Then, the fire around him turned from red to green. Columns of emerald rose like flickering serpents, and the tongues were licking at him. And red eyes were gazing at him, wide and watching. And the dream melted away in a flash of ruby-red fire.
The world had begun to steady again. Lorenzo gripped the edge of the cold stone plinth, breath shallow and frantic, his heart drumming in his chest like the hooves of a charging host. The image of green flame and red fire still lingered behind his eyes. He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his glove, and as his fingers brushed once more against the ancient bone, the world unraveled again.
The sound of battle was all around him. Bright banners tore in the furious wind, soaked in mud and blood. The sky was grey with rain and choked with smoke, the ground black with churned earth. Fires burned along the riverbanks, where corpses floated like driftwood. And amidst the chaos, two men were fighting.
The first was clad in white-and-green plate, with a helm crowned with silver wings and a white tower topped with flames upon his breastplate. He fought atop a destrier foaming at the mouth, with a longsword of polished, smoky steel and a pommel shaped like frozen green fire. Vigilance, thought Lorenzo, struck in awe. The second was an old, hoary warrior with a grey cloak clinging to his shoulders like a shroud of death. A shield, emblazoned with crossed silver axes, and axe met the smoky steel, and the warrior’s eyes were wild beneath his steel helm.
The two fought like demons in a dance. Steel sang and sparks flew, and the clash of steel on steel was echoing louder than even the rain. A younger man, who bore the sigil of the white tower came as well, and with his blade, took the shield arm of the wild warrior. Far from death and collapse, the warrior went into a blood frenzy.
The blade was spinning and soaring through the air, the rain catching on the polished edge, dull light flashing as it flew. It landed not in mud, nor man, but in the streams of the Mander. The current wrapped it in silence and pulled it under.
Days came and went, and the moon turned and turned, rising and falling and rising. Now it was dawn once more. The field was empty. A young soldier, young and hollow-eyed and dying, wandered the riverbank in silence. His hands were cut, his face streaked with ash and blood. He waded into the water without a word.
And the soldier saw the sword, glimmering faintly beneath the surface, caught in the roots of a half-drowned log. He pulled it free, held it in shaking hands, and walked.
Lorenzo followed, watched as he wrapped the blade in old linen, and watched as he walked into the woods. The young man dug a hole beneath a twisted tree, whilst crows cawed above him. The river could still be heard, whispering through the reeds.
Time passed, and the seasons were changing. Winter came and summer left, the snows melted, and the dawn came and went. The dream did not end.
The tree was growing older, and familiar.
Lorenzo woke with a start. His right hand was clenched tight around something cold and heavy and smooth. The world was silent but for the distant rush of the river. He was not in the hall, nor in Tumbleton. He was beneath a tree, tall and towering.
The same tree from his dreams, the same tree that the rosefinch had led him too. Now that he was peering at it in the light of day, he saw how twisted and ancient it was in truth. The roots were clawing into the soil like grasping fingers. It was looming above him, its barks scarred by time and moss veiled its lower branches. Crows stirred overhead, shifting in silence, and the rosefinch was there amongst them.
The earth before him was torn open, a pit of disturbed soil and scattered roots. A wooden lute pick lay in the dirt beside the hole, and his gloves were muddied. His nails were caked with dark mud, which normally he would have met with chagrin.
And in his right hand was the blade.
The blade shimmered, even in the shadowed morning light. The steel was black as smoke and silver as moonlight, catching the rising sun beneath its dark ripples. There was a faint, faded engraving beneath the crossguard. He peered at it.
“We light the way,” Lorenzo murmured. His green eyes were reflected in the pommel, shaped like frozen emerald flames, and he saw curiosity in them.
His feet were sore, his hands ached, and his back felt wet with sweat. Lorenzo limped for the river, his eyes frozen on the dark steel. The sharp edge was utterly untouched and undulled by the years, he observed. Without a scabbard, he drove it tip-first into the wet earth. It slid in like a reed into silt, drinking the soil as though it had roots. For a longsword, it was light, light enough that even he could wield it with little struggle. He bent his back, cupped his hands into the water, and he saw the reflection. A pale face, lined with sweat, watched him with curious green eyes. Lorenzo blinked, washed his face, and rose again.
For a moment, he stood staring at the blade, his lips curling into amusement. He could use the stiletto he had hidden passably well. That meant that he knew how to hold it and stab it into flesh… and little more than that. After all, what use did a bard have for steel? Gunther had no need, nor talent, with a sword either. Lucia knew only the mace, and Andrei never cared for blades.
A laugh, rich and melodious like the ring of a chime, escaped his mouth as his pale fingers took the blade once more. Never before has a sword for kings and great knights fallen upon more unsuitable, unworthy company.
He remembered the question he had asked of Lucia. His companion would much rather melt the priceless blade down to forge a new mace for herself, Lorenzo thought, amused. What use is Valyrian steel for a mace? He held the blade close to his face, thinking. He could not stroll about with such a priceless sword…
For even during the days when dragons flew the sky above Valyria, these swords were priceless, one Maester had written. And now Valyria was dead.
And it was no mere dragonsteel blade that he held in his hand. Vigilance, it was named. The heirloom and treasured blade of House Hightower, lost during the First Battle of Tumbleton during the Dance of the Dragons, he recalled from Inventories and his talk with Willas Tyrell so long ago. The Reachmen would gladly skin him, cover him in salt, and spit him over a roaring flame for the sword.
With his thoughts gathered, he rested the ancient blade within the reeds.
By the time he reached the gates of Tumbleton once more, the guard was peering at him with cautious eyes. “You alright there?” He asked cautiously.
Lorenzo wore a false smile, as fake as a Tilean’s word. “Why would I not be, friend?”
“You were in some sort of trance when you were heading out,” the man grunted, narrowing his eyes. “That normal?”
“Normal for bards, yes,” Lorenzo nodded sagely. “It is all too easy to lose yourself in the melodies, in the sounds of the world around. Inspiration comes from every source, friend, and the best singers hear them all deep and true.”
“Is that so?” The guard tilted his head curiously. “Me brother tried to be a bard but…”
“Not every man has the gift of the song,” Lorenzo agreed, smiling.
The blacksmith was a hoary old man, with thick arms curdled with muscles and eyes like a hawk. In a matter of seconds, the old smith glanced over him, judged him, and found him wanting. “You need a shirt of mail under all that cloth, lad. I have one ready. You need more than a lute to fend off wolves and brigands on the road, too. I’ve got a dirk, an axe, and a sword-”
“I have a sword,” Lorenzo said, with a smile that reached his eyes. “I only need a scabbard.”
“A sword?” the smith was doubtful. “It cannot be good steel.”
“It will do.”
The old man made a sound of displeasure, but relented. He handed over the coin, accepted the tough leather scabbard, and made his way out once more.
The scent caught him before the sight did; savory, spiced, and warm. It clung to the air like a lover’s touch, warm and inviting, and it turned Lorenzo’s steps toward a squat cart nestled between a cooper’s stall and a messy pile of firewood. A broad, brown-haired woman stood behind it, sleeves rolled high on thick arms, ladling steaming stew into wooden bowls. Beside her, skewers of meat sizzled above a black bed of coals, and flatbread baked on hot stones with a hiss.
“Two coppers for a skewer. Four more with bread and stew,” she called, eyeing him with the casual suspicion all smallfolk reserved for strangers who smiled too easily and wore little dust and dirt on their boots.
Lorenzo offered a bow as shallow as it was theatrical. “Such smell, it deserves more than mere copper.”
“Ain’t never met a man who asked for higher prices,” she snorted.
“A mere observation.” He passed her the coin, and she handed him a roughly carved wooden bowl filled to the brim; thick stew with lentils, onion, and bits of slow-cooked lamb, a skewer dripping with fat, and flatbread that steamed when he tore it. He took a seat on a nearby crate, chewing slowly as the warmth filled him from belly to fingers. The meat was better than expected; well-spiced, crisp on the edges. It was no fine course in a feast, but it filled his hunger well.
“You ain’t from here,” the woman said, leaning on her cart and watching him. “You from the westerlands?”
“Braavos,” he smiled at her.
“Braavos?” she wondered. The word must have been as far and foreign as the city itself. “That is mighty far.”
“The bard travels where song leads.”
“Why are you here, then?” She took a bowl for herself. “All the singers go to Highgarden or Oldtown.”
His smile was easy and smooth. “That is next on my list.”
“All anyone ever comes here for is the skulls,” she was complaining. “Good business it brings … but still.”
“A mark of history, I hear.”
“Bah,” she spat. “Them dragons burnt the town then, and still haunt the place. Tumbleton used to be bigger, much bigger, until the dragons danced. We should have just sold the skulls and used the coin to rebuild proper.”
“I pray that on my return, someday, I find you with a shop,” he bowed his head.
“You always flatter the women you find?” she laughed crudely. A woman in her early thirties, she could still be beautiful, in a rough, plain manner.
“Only those with talent,” he offered a chuckle.
“And your talent?” She eyed the empty scabbard hanging awkwardly from his hip. “A singer with a swordless scabbard.”
“A curious riddle,” he shrugged, rising. “You should sell riddles instead of stew.”
“Not to your liking?” she challenged.
“I cannot decide which I prefer,” said Lorenzo calmly.
She laughed, taking the bowl back. “Stew would sell better than riddles, what with the war about.”
He dipped his head. “I pray to taste your stew once more, madam.”
“Sing me a song next time,” she winked.
The same guard was leaning on his spear when he came to the gates. The town seemed to be in a dearth of men-at-arms. “Finding inspiration again, singer?”
“I find a balance of stone and soil to be most conducive for songs,” said the bard.
The guard blinked, scrunched his face in thought, and nodded as if in understanding. “You gonna sing in the taverns tonight?”
“If I have a song worth singing,” he told the man as he left.
He found the sword still untouched and hidden in the reeds, as he had left it… with the red rosefinch perched atop the green flamelike pommel. It chirped when it saw him. Lorenzo blinked, tilted his head, and reached out to run a gloved finger along the bird’s feathers. With another cheery chirp, it flew to land on his shoulder. With the bird’s gaze watching him, he took the blade. He slid Vigilance into the leather scabbard, hung it by his belt, and turned his head north and west.
The comfort of a warm hearth and bed was tempting, like the call of the sirens… but he had wasted enough time. Even now, riders could be coming to Tumbleton, hunting for a queen’s bard with blond hair and green eyes. Lorenzo grimaced.
The sky was darkening by the time he returned to the gate, dark enough that the guard did not care to glance at the sword at his hip. The rosefinch had flown off somewhere. The streets were emptying themselves of vendors and travellers, but not so empty that he could not yet purchase foodstuff and supplies for the road.
“A bard’s journey, ah?” the portly old woman behind the counter chuckled as she stuffed the hardbread and dried meat into a leather satchel.
“You understand it well, good lady,” Lorenzo chuckled along. “The charm of the road, the kiss of the wind, the call of the sea.”
“I left those behind in my youth, young man,” she sighed, handing him the bulging brown bag. He winced as he took it, adjusting his lute to sit comfortably. “Back in those days, there was peace and plenty. A maiden could have the time to float down the river or walk the roads. We had it good then, aye, and we did not know it.”
“During Robert’s time?”
“Aerys.”
“Every king has their charm,” Lorenzo said, bowing his head.
As he walked through the streets for a final time, the faint strains of music met his ears, lively and clumsy. It was leaking from a nearby tavern whose shutters glowed with torchlight, the smell of fresh bread, roast duck, and ale wafting through.
A bard was scratching out a merry tune, and voices were following, drunk and tumbling over the melody in tangled, bawdy verses. Laughter broke like waves against the walls and somewhere, a chair scraped noisily across the floorboards. Lorenzo turned from the warmth and light and stepped into the open dark.
As he passed beneath the stone arch of Tumbleton’s gate, his fingers tapped the pommel of Vigilance, playing with the frozen green flame. The road was quiet and empty, silvered by the rising moon and the last breath of dusk. The fields beyond spread wide, gentle hills of tall grass catching the starlight like waves. Crickets hummed, and the wind whispered low across the land. It was a beautiful sight, and a lonely one. Some songs are beautiful for their sadness.
He left through the south gate, where he had entered, and made his way to the riverbank. A shallow ford was where he crossed, still high enough that it passed his ankles. He walked until his legs ached, until the last glimpse of Tumbleton faded behind him and only the wild remained. Near a crooked fence post beside an old copse of trees, he made his camp. At the patch of flattened earth, he made a small fire, and bread and dried meat were torn with quiet fingers.
His cloak was wrapped tight around him, the priceless sword nestled beside his bedroll, the lute resting at his head like a loyal dog. And the rosefinch had come as well, a red slumbering star nestled on a dry leaf by the fire.
And beneath the stars, he slept.
The dream came quickly, flowing like the rushing of the Mander. He stood upon a high crag, a lonely tower above a sea of green flame. Black water boiled below him, and ash rained from a starless sky. He was looking up and down at the same time, and perched atop his shoulder was the three-eyed crow, black and baleful.
“You carry more than songs now.”
“You knew,” said Lorenzo, calmly. “The dragonskulls, the blade.”
“I saw a glimpse,” the crow cawed, like a dark chuckle, low and haunting. “And dragonskulls carry more than the weight of history. The flame of Valyria might have burnt out, but its embers still haunt the world.”
“And those who walk its breath.”
“Not all of them,” the crow told him. “Just those who sing the songs that the gods adore.”
“And do you?” Lorenzo challenged. Still, he knew little about the three-eyed crow.
The crow cawed. “A song there is. You will hear it in the days to come.”
He would glean no further from the bird, Lorenzo knew. Suddenly, amused, he wondered if this was how his companions felt. “What do I do now, then?”
The crow chuckled darkly. “Sing.”
And it flew away, cawing into the boiling black water, as the night sky turned green in its rippling reflection. The river and the sky shuddered, folded in upon one another. Black water and sky and green fire; each bled into the other, fusing in a blinding flare. From the chaos rose the outline of a blade, long and lean, quenched in night, rimmed in emerald fire. The pommel took form last, burning against the darkness like a bright green brand. The world shattered like glass, deafening as a dragon’s roar.
It was dawn when he rose, and Vigilance was in his hand.
Notes:
Quoting from the wiki:
"Tumbleton was famously restored by Lady Sharis, who pulled down burned buildings and had the town's walls rebuilt. The heads of Seasmoke and Vermithor were put on display in the town square, with travelers able to pay a penny to look at them and a star to touch them. Later Footlys followed Sharis's example, but smallfolk believed the ground to be haunted and the "new town" would never be a tenth the size of the old one."
"Ormund Hightower, Lord of the Hightower, wielded the blade [Vigilance] during the Dance of the Dragons, in which he fought for King Aegon II Targaryen. After the Battle on the Honeywine, he used it to knight Prince Daeron Targaryen, his squire and the king's brother, dubbing him "Ser Daeron the Daring" for turning the battle in their favor with Daeron's dragon, Tessarion. Lord Ormund was killed by Roderick Dustin, Lord of Barrowton, during the First Battle of Tumbleton. It is unknown what happened to Vigilance afterwards.
"Lord Roderick Dustin then led the Winter Wolves out a postern gate against the Hightowers. Although the northmen were outnumbered ten-to-one, the Winter Wolves managed to reach the commander of the greens. Roderick slew Ormund and his cousin, Ser Bryndon Hightower, before succumbing to his wounds."
Let's address the elephant (Illyrio?) in the room, first. Shoutout to the one commenter who guessed Orphan-Maker, you were very close. Now, the reason I did not use Orphan-Maker was because we genuinely do not know much about it and it would be too much of an asspull for that sword to be discovered by Lorenzo. Vigilance, meanwhile, does have a more concrete 'end', being lost during the Battle of Tumbleton during the Dance of the Dragons. Since I doubt we will get an answer to it anytime soon, I took it upon myself to provide an answer. Anyways, I like to keep things fairly realistic, so don't expect Valyrian steel swords to start popping up like mushrooms after a rain. Although, I find it funny that it is stated that there are over 200 of those swords in Westeros but we only see/hear fewer than twenty.
Question: if you were to give a noble house in Westeros a Valyrian steel sword, and name it as well, what would it be? Personally, as a big Baratheon fan, I think it would be very fitting if they had one named 'Thunder'.
Back to the chapter, Lorenzo's chapters always dance between politics and conversation and lore on one hand against magic and prophecy and song on the other. Considering that he has left the, let us say, employment of the Tyrells, the scale has swung more to the latter. I think that, considering that these are DND-esque characters, all of them excel on the road, especially Lorenzo and Lucia. Gunther, of course, as the rogue, shines best in a city. The conversation he heard between Tyrion and Gunther was from Tyrion III, dealing with the wildfire. The conversation he heard between Andrei and Melis- I mean, mysterious woman ... well, you will see.
I hope you see the string of speech checks that Lorenzo passed one after another while interacting with the townsfolk. Now, imagine either Lucia or Andrei in his shoes.
Oh, before I forget, I love foreshadowing things so this is a line from Bran I, all the way near the start of this arc. "He looked. A blond-haired man with bright green eyes peered at a sword in his hand. Its blade was smoky and dark and sharp."
Again, in Arya II: He leapt from the wall and landed without sound. “A lion flies like a bird. A bird is seen as a lion. Green fire passes through eyes; grey and green and black and red. The night will be green but dawn will come after.”
Anyways, next chapter will feature the return of Andrei! It has been awhile since we saw our old Kossar. Evidently, he is no longer the 'main protag' in the way he was during Arc 1. As promised, the others have stepped up, with each having their own role to play ;)
Chapter 93: Andrei II
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Bronzegate loomed behind them, nestled in tall wooden hills and watching like a slumbering giant, ancient and formidable.
The morning was grey and cold over the kingsroad, with a sullen mist clinging to the low hills and hedgerows. Hooves thudded softly against the damp earth as the host stirred, banners fluttering in the morning wind. Above them all, the fiery heart flew proudly. He was riding alongside Ned, a comfortable silence cloaking them.
Around them, the army moved as one. Six thousand had sailed from Dragonstone, and sixteen thousand had joined them from Renly’s host. Coupled with the northern riders and the former garrison of Storm’s End, the king’s army numbered twenty-three thousand. Of that number, eight thousand men had boarded the Royal Fleet, cramming themselves aboard the cogs and galleys, under the command of Lord Monford Velaryon and Ser Imry Florent. Stannis had chosen the men of the Narrow Sea and those from the coast of the Stormlands to fill the ships with.
“The knights of the Reach will fall off the ships before they can reach King’s Landing,” the king said bluntly to Eddard the night they left Storm’s End.
While the Onion Knight accompanied the fleet, his son, Dale Seaworth, brought the honored guests of the king to Dragonstone upon his Wraith. Lady Catelyn, Edric Storm … and Loras Tyrell. Andrei remembered the boy from King’s Landing, young and sullen and proud as all young warriors tended to be. Broken now, thought Andrei. Southern knights were of the like wherever he went, more bound to folly and flamboyance. It remained to be seen if the boy could be hardened from this grief, forged anew. He had seen men break from one loss, shattered into shards after, and he had seen greybeards fight on even after losing home and hearth and heart.
The rest of the host was primarily mounted, which made the process from Storm’s End a swifter march than he had expected. The knights of the Reach, mounted men from the Stormlands, the rugged riders of the North and the Riverlands. It was a far faster march to war than what he was used to. In the Motherland, snow made marches hellish and the rivers, be they frozen or rushing, only complicated marching more. It was a land of wide-open steppes and thundering icy rivers, where lonely villages stood isolated in the empty wilderness. “A cold bitch, all ice and glares and sullen silence,” a boyar proclaimed once before their regiment as they stood still upon the snow, “but you will never see a more beautiful maiden in your life.”
Still, he much preferred the cold blizzards of Kislev to the humidity of this land of storms. To gaze upon the snow-encrusted lands of the Tzardom was to see a realm of white and woe, a bloodied plain of snow and violence that bred men and women who were as hard as the land, and cold as the ice. He was grumbling to himself as he wiped the rivers of sweat from his brow, each near as mighty as the River Lynsk, his helmet hanging from the saddle of his mount.
They had arrived at Bronzegate the day prior. It had taken them four days of hard riding from Storm’s End, with little rest. As such, the king allowed the host to encamp before the castle, where they spent day, dusk and dark. The woodlands here reminded him of the Dukhlys Forest, the long stretch of forested hills at the foot of the World’s Edge Mountains. He had spent a rotation there, guarding the border towns where Kislevites and Dwarfs traded regularly, fighting alongside the mountainfolk against the greentide when they came. Good fighters them.
Dawn had broken three hours prior and, already, the ride had begun. The Kingswood loomed before them as the army narrowed itself into thin lines of riders, shuffling along the narrow road. Bryce Caron had been sent ahead with two thousand riders to secure the woods for the main host, foraging and scouting as well.
“What do you make of the battleplan?” he heard Ned’s voice ask.
Andrei turned his head to face the lord. He was silent for a moment. Before they had departed from Storm’s End, king and council went through another round of discussion, argument, and debate before the plan was finalised.
In the end, it was decided that the royal fleet, under the twin command of Imry Florent and Monford Velaryon, would strike first. They would shatter any ships the Lannisters attempted to send out, before splitting up. With over two hundred ships, they could afford such a maneuver. Florent would lead his half of the fleet to land troops not too far from the Rosby Road. With over four thousand men, it was hoped that they could quickly secure the Iron Gate and open a front from the north. Velaryon would lead his half into the Blackwater Rush, and secure the River Gate.
The rest of the host would await Velaryon’s ships south of the Blackwater, and take the time to create arrows, rafts, ladders, and siege weaponry. Once the Rush was controlled, the main host could be transported across to storm the River Gate in great numbers, or the Mud Gate as some called it.
It was hoped that with the defenders split between north and south, a strong and decisive assault could quickly take the southern gate. A foothold could be established there as their men braved the river crossing. From there, their forces could be split into four or more. He was given the honor, and the most arduous task, of leading the charge onto Aegon’s High Hill. Monford Velaryon would lead his men up the Muddy Way to secure the city square. Ser Guyard Morrigen would take the Street of Steel to capture Visenya’s High Hill. Lord Bryce Caron was given the task to secure the Great Sept of Baelor, to ensure that the sept was untouched during the assault.
The names of knights and lords, gates and streets, still swam in his head, each a fuzzy worm crawling in his mind… but he was learning.
“A good one,” he told Eddard Stark. “But … plan can always fail.”
“It can,” Ned agreed. “Tyrion Lannister is not a fool… and the city has had time to prepare. Traps and trickery will await us, I do not doubt.”
“The king has his plans,” said Andrei, “and his shadow.”
The king’s red shadow was what some of the men had taken to calling the Red Woman. He thought it fitting. The Lady Melisandre had accompanied them from Storm’s End, riding upon a red stallion by Stannis’ side during the day. Though the lords grumbled, none protested over much.
“So he does,” Eddard Stark said uncomfortably. “You will take the walls?”
“I will.”
“I would wish you fortune, but I do not think you need it,” said Stark.
Andrei’s lips curled slightly. Admittedly, he had more experience holding the walls than taking them. He had lost count of how many raids and assaults the Norsemen threw at the forts of the oblast. Ravenous and raging, the bastards came without end. Every generation of Kislevites had held the walls, fought upon the plains, and bled on the snows. For a thousand years and more, the black crusades had been pushed back, beaten down, and made a mockery of by the sons and daughters of the bear. With gunpowder and steel and horse, Ursun and Dazh and Tor, the hearts of Kislev’s children had stood against a bleak world that despised them for no reason save that they had the audacity not to lay down and die to the dark.
“More … fortune is never bad,” he said. “It is like drink.”
Ned smiled at that. The rest of their ride was silent.
As they entered the Kingswood, Andrei gave the forest a cautious glance. Though he knew there were no Orcs or Beastmen lurking around each tree, he had spent too much time in the forests of the Empire. Those were woods he cared not to return to, drear and humid and thick, crowded with critters and cravens. The matter made him ponder on Lucia. Kingslayer, she was named now, though she had ridden by the side of that same king not so long ago. Try as he might, he could not understand how and why she had found her way there. Then, the Kossar wondered where the bard were, before musing over where the Myrmidian would now be. His head was pounding an hour into the ride from his thinking, and drink soon replaced thought.
Fortune held with them, and no trouble came to the host. Bandits and brigands and broken men would have to be mindless to try their luck with a king’s army, or any army for that matter. As the men-at-arms cleared away at trees and stumps to make space for tents and cookfires and ditches, Ned gave him a nod. “The king will want to speak with me,” he said with a tired sigh. “There is much and more to discuss.”
“I need follow?”
Eddard shook his head. “Take a rest.”
Rest was not a word he knew well when an army was marching, but Andrei nodded nevertheless. He made to steer clear of the young knights of the Reach. He had little fondness for their bright banners and polished armor, and their loud songs and cheery japes. Instead, he found a group of familiar, rugged northmen, sharing white horns of ale and quiet tales over a roaring campfire, warm and inviting.
“Andrei,” Jory greeted him. Portly Wendel Manderly moved aside on his log, giving him space. The knight was bald with a walrus mustache, and a face shaped like the moon. Loud and boisterous, somehow he reminded Andrei of some of the Kossars back home. The large knight was chewing on a chunk of roasted ham. The last of the men was Perwyn Frey, quiet and stout. They had formed Lady Catelyn’s guard when she rode south, but lingered to lead the five hundred northmen.
“They take eye,” Andrei responded, taking the horn that Ser Perwyn offered with a gruff nod, “but not skill, ah?”
“Never,” the one-eyed man chuckled lowly.
“Cassel’s Ride, we should call it,” Ser Wendel laughed, chewing and swallowing. “I heard some of the men talking about it on our way south.”
Jory shook his head. “It was Ser Barristan. The man is a true knight. He took me alive when he could have slain me … and he freed me.”
“The Bold indeed,” Perwyn said quietly, raising his horn.
They toasted then, each raising a horn. “The king wants you to take the walls?” Jory glanced at him.
“He does,” said Andrei.
“We will follow,” Jory told him with a grim resolve. “To the walls or the seven hells, aye.”
“Aye,” said Wendel Manderly. “We have all heard about what you did for Lord Stark. First against the Kingslayer, then against the false king. A clansman are you?”
“Aye,” he grunted. That was the story he had agreed with Ned. A war was no time to inform the realm that there was land far to the west, Ned had decided. The other matter was his gun. They had little time to speak of it in Dragonstone, but the king had him present himself before him in Storm’s End.
A weapon of fire and smoke, Melisandre had named it with a red smile.
When the king demanded to know where a northern clansman found such a weapon, the Red Woman answered for him. She pointed to the flames and the king had looked. They all did, him and Lord Stark, and they saw.
Within the fire, he saw himself. His flintlock was on the ground, and he had knelt to recover it. “R’hllor has sent this dragon of wood and steel to this man,” she told the king, “for he has his role to play in the wars to come. The Lord gave him the means to protect the Lord of Stark, to escort him to you.”
The king did not seem to believe her. “Is that so?”
Andrei recognised the vision she had chosen to show. The snow was not that of the North. No gods had given him that gun, nor had they presented the weapon in the snow for him. It was a routine patrol in the Motherland, and his gun had fallen to the ground as his fingers had slipped when he tried to return it to the holster. Still, he could not very well tell the king that the Red Woman spoke falsely. She knew him to be from a different world, while Lord Eddard believed that he was from a land across the sea. The Stark lord was confused at the sight, but he did not speak.
“Yes,” he told the king, and Stannis did not believe it to be a lie.
“How do we make more?” Stannis demanded.
He could not truly answer. “Your … maesters may know.”
“When did you find this?”
“Before … I found Winterfell.” That was not a lie.
After the meeting, he told a half-truth to Eddard Stark, yet it felt like a lie still. “She … see me in Kislev,” Andrei said, “but she think … it is the North.”
“Ah,” Ned nodded. And that was the matter done. Stannis was too preoccupied with the coming battle to truly think heavily on it. After we take King’s Landing, the king declared that night, I will send for the maesters and the alchemists to uncover this … hand dragon. We will speak again.
Andrei did not look forward to it. It was dark and quiet when he took his leave of them, the camp stirring to slumber. Jory was not so grim when with northern company, and Andrei found himself enjoying the boisterous Wendel Manderly and the affable Perwyn Frey. He could not say the same for the woman in his tent.
Melisandre was sitting on his bed, when he entered. She was making a habit of it, he thought. This was the first time she had come to him, since that discussion in Storm’s End. “Yeltska,” she said calmly, in a voice lightened with accent.
He stared at her silently. “What … do you want?”
The Red Woman smiled faintly, as if humoring a child. “Only what my lord desires.”
His frown grew heavier. “You have not … told.”
“I have not,” she agreed.
“Why.”
“Why have I not told King Stannis and your lord that you are not of this world?” Melisandre tilted her head, red eyes flickering like coals. “Why would I? Who would believe it? And if they did, how would that serve the Lord’s chosen? The men of Westeros are stubborn in their unbelief, rigid and unbending and unknowing. Stagnant and rotting, even now there are those who think the history of dragons to be mere myths. Giants and the earthsingers and the other things of legend, the men of today do not believe, nor do they want to. If they thought you were a creature from beyond, they might burn you at the stake... as they have often wished to do with me.”
“They can try.”
“They would,” she said, amused. “Your secret is safe with me, son of snow.” She rose, and leaned close. “Secrets and shadows and smoke.”
In the dark of the tent, the pale red woman was a ghost in scarlet silks. Her long hair shone with the color of deep burnished copper, and her eyes were piercing red. When she spoke again, her voice was deep and melodic, spiced with accent. “Your tent is dark and your fires burn low … you will not see such darkness in mine.”
“I like dark.”
“Do you? Why?”
It was more soothing to be in gloomy dark when his head was pounding softly from drink … but he could not very well say that. “Calm.”
“The flames can be calm or wild, soothing or shrieking, warm or burning, life or death.” She placed a smooth, unblemished hand on his cheek and met his eyes. “There will be many battles ahead, many foes, men and monstrous, to be fought and slain. I am not your enemy, Andrei, you know that. Your heart knows that I am no foe. I am a champion of the light, just as you are … and I can help you.”
“Help me?”
“Come to my tent one night,” she said with a smile. “It is warm and bright. I can give you pleasure such as you have never known. I am a daughter of fire, a lover of the light. You, a son of the snow. With your life-fire, I can make … wonders.”
Andrei did not know how a baby could help them win a war. Still, even he could not deny that Melisandre was beautiful as a flame in the wintry cold, as attractive as warm soup after a long patrol through the dark. Slender and graceful, her pale skin was unblemished and the red silk hugged her narrow waist. “Not now.”
“Not now?” the red priestess’ ruby lips curled pleasantly. Melisandre shook her head. Her red eyes blazed like twin fires, and seemed to stare deep into his soul. “Soon, it will be night … and there will be no time for light and no room for warmth.”
“The cold, I am used to.”
“I shall leave you with the choices, cold or warmth, ice or fire.”
And one of the braziers roared to life.
There were three in the tent, each burning low and almost forgotten. But the northernmost one had flared suddenly, bright and hot and high. He assumed it was her doing, until he saw the flash of confusion cross her heart-shaped face.
And before both of their eyes, the fire turned green. Tongues of emerald flames were flickering and dancing, each a viper of verdant viridescent. Within the fire, he thought he saw a pair of green eyes watching. Melisandre stepped forward, closer to the brazier, too close for comfort. He watched as the Red Woman stood before the green fire transfixed, her wide eyes peering into the flames. He narrowed his eyes and spied what he thought was a sun within, bristling with light. A statue of a bearded man, crowned by the sun, with a sword of fire. Andrei blinked.
When the fire dimmed to orange once more, she stumbled back … into his arms. He steadied uncomfortably, but she did not seem to notice him.
“A fire untamed,” she whispered to herself, hurrying for the door. Andrei stared at her retreating back as she left in a billow of scarlet silk. What?
The next day, she was gone.
He had joined Ned in the king’s command tent early, before the knights and lords ushered in. There, they found no red shadow behind the king. “The Lady Melisandre came to me in the night,” Stannis explained. “A vision in the flames, she said.”
“Of what, Your Grace?” Ned asked.
“Lannister trickery,” Stannis ground out. ““She begged leave to join Lord Velaryon’s ship. I granted it, and sent her down the Wendwater with an escort.”
Andrei wondered just what she had seen in the flames. All of Kislev believed that when the mortal world was first made, it was all in darkness and ice. It was Dazh, god of fire and the sun, who saw and took pity on Men. It was he who took his great horse and bore his fire across the sky, giving light and life to the world. Afterwards, Dazh returned to his golden sky-palace to rest, for the ride was long and tiring. However, he saw the people below were cold and afraid without his fire, yet he could not ride out again until his horse was rested. So Dazh gave the gift of fire to Mankind, so they might have some of his light at all times. It was said that when Dazh wished to communicate, the Arari were sent as messengers, great fire spirits who dwelled in the golden palace in the fiery sun. So many gods, he thought tiredly, gods of flame and sun and light. Still, the light of Dazh could not be denied. Once, he saw a Priest of Dazh, bedecked in sacred gold, call upon a blinding wave of holy fire. That night, a hundred Kossars watched as the old man beseeched his god to illuminate the night, and gaped as the northern sky lit up with the dance of the Arari.
“Soon, we will cross the Wendwater Bridge,” the king continued. “It will be a slow crossing. The bridge may not hold the weight of too many riders. Caron has secured the northern woods. The Imp has sent out mountain men to raid my lines, but the vanguard has dealt with them sufficiently. They have dispersed.”
Ned was peering at the map. “Dispersed but not slain… I have fought against these clansmen in my youth, at the Vale. They will linger and reform, and strike again.”
“And harass my baggage trains,” Stannis understood plainly. “Very well, I will have the guards tripled.”
The king rose, pressing his palms against the table. The flickering lanterns cast deep hollows under his eyes. “We’ll begin moving the infantry by midday,” he said. “The cavalry will wait until the bridge is reinforced. I will not have horses plunging into the river for haste’s sake.”
“Are there other crossings?” Ned asked.
“Some… but I will not divide up the host,” the king responded. It made sense, Andrei thought.
The crossing of the Wendwater was as slow and miserable as promised.
Planks groaned their protests beneath the weight of armored men and barded horses, and every creak felt like a curse. Rain fell steadily like arrows, soaking through wool and mail, turning the road to mud and misery. The river swelled to the banks, brown and cold, the current sluggish but deep. No one spoke much; there was only the splash of hooves, the hiss of rain on steel, and muttered cursing.
The king had crossed first, and waited atop his mount by the side of the bridge even as the rain swelled. Each man met the king’s stern eyes as he passed, walking a little prouder and faster beneath the iron gaze of Stannis Baratheon. When the last of the wagons had crossed, Stannis gave a curt nod and rode on.
That night, he shared the fire with the three men again.
Jory passed the skin of wine with a quiet grunt. “Never liked crossing rivers,” he said.
“You should see the White Knife in winter,” Manderly chuckled, roasting three sausages impaled on a sharp stick. The grease sizzled as it dripped onto the fire like golden tears, and the sound stirred a hunger in his stomach.
“It freezes over?” Perwyn was curious.
“Aye,” said Wendel, “a great sheet of ice.”
“Should that happen at the Twins,” the Frey knight shook his head, “the bridge will be useless.”
Wendel laughed loudly at that. “If only the Blackwater Rush would freeze over.”
“If this crossing was bad,” Jory muttered, “that will be one of the seven hells. Rafts in the river, fire arrows, trebuchets and scorpions…”
They had crossed the Wendwater under a hail of rain. They would have to cross the Blackwater Rush under a rain of arrows and fire.
Andrei leaned back on his elbows, listening more than speaking. It felt an eternity ago that he sat around a fire with soldiers, waiting for the battle to come. He knew many who felt that the waiting was the worst part. He never minded it much. A good fire, meat and ale and tales, Andrei thought. It was the after that was the worst part; the crows, the stench, the dead and the dying.
The next day, nothing happened. There were no horns, no messengers, no skirmishes. The army rode, the army ate, and they waited. The night was starless and black. He was just settling down when the shouting started.
They came with the night wind; howling men with painted faces and axes. They wore mail under thick, stained furs and they fought with the fury of a dozen men. By the time Andrei rushed out of his tent, the sound of steel was ringing from all over the edges of the camp. Horses were shrieking and tents were catching on fire.
He understood at once what had happened. The Norscans adored similar strategies. The clansmen had slipped past the outriders in the dark, pouring into the edge of the camp like hungry rats through a grain sack.
He saw a knight go down with a steel axe buried in his throat. A man on fire stumbled past, arms flailing. Stone arrows were raining down like rain.
Andrei saw a big brute of a man swinging two black battle-axes with twin crescent blades, howling like a beast. He split a knight near in half, before locking eyes with Andrei. The wild warrior was of a height with him, hairy with dark mail under skins and a heavy wood-axe strapped to his back. With a loud laugh, he pointed one axe at Andrei. “Draw your steel, man of the north. When you go to the gods, tell them it was Shagga, son of Dolf, who killed you and took your axe.”
“Try,” Andrei grunted. His heavy shield was in hand, and he held his axe tightly.
With a howl, Shagga threw himself at him. The first axe crashed against Andrei’s shield violently, the second was parried by his own axe. Immediately, he brought the blade across the clansman’s chest, tearing through the mail he wore and leaving a long, weeping gash across the flesh.
A harsh kick crashed against his gut, and Andrei grunted. Their steel met again, and again, and Andrei smashed the steel of his shield against Shagga’s face. His nose broke with a crunch and a spray of scarlet, but one axe fell on him. It scraped against the steel scales and mail he wore, and Andrei disregarded the pain.
A second later, he brought his axe down on Shagga’s right wrist. Steel bit through flesh and bone without pause, and the man roared in agony. The other axe came soaring for Andrei’s head. He met it with his shield, and opened the clansman’s throat with his own axe. Shagga’s eyes were wide as he fell, but his one good hand still clutched tightly at his axe.
A scream rose behind him. Andrei turned in time to see a smoky blur, terrible and massive, slam into a raider who had slipped through with a torch in hand. The direwolf crushed him down in the snow, ripping out his throat so savagely the man’s cry ended in a bubbling gurgle. Another tried to strike her with a spear, but Winter was faster, jaws clamping on wood and snapping the shaft like a twig before tearing into the man’s belly. Her fangs were dripping red with rubies of blood.
All around, the raid was fast and ugly… and ending. Many of the clansmen were slain after the surprise had died off, and what few remained quickly scattered into the woods, hunted down by vengeful riders and by the direwolf, who vanished into the treeline in pursuit, her hunting howl rolling through the dark like a winter gale.
He glanced down at the corpse and the axe held tightly in Shagga’s hand. Andrei shook his head. Compared to the berserkers of Norsca, the man was slow. And unlike the brutish Orcs, his blows were not so strong that they could not be blocked.
By the time he made it to the king’s tent, the fighting had ended. None of the savages had made it even close to the royal pavilion, ringed with spearmen and crossbowmen. Winter crouched outside, muzzle red and gory, growling low as soldiers dragged away three captured clansmen, their faces pale at the sight of her. He found Lord Stark and the king in a disgruntled silence, listening to Guyard Morrigen as the knight presented the butcher’s bill. “Three-and-thirty slain,” the knight was saying, “four-and-twenty wounded, three wagons of grain burnt.”
“How many of them have we slain and captured?” Ned asked. Winter padded into the tent behind her master, huge and silent as a shadow.
“Over sixty. We have captured three.”
Stannis stood with arms crossed, jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek. Stannis turned to Lord Caron. “You were to guard the northern woods.”
“We slew dozens of them, Your Grace,” Bryce Caron said stiffly. “The undergrowth is thick. They must have dispersed and regrouped… it will not happen again.”
“It will not,” the king snorted. “The bulk of their men are dead, or hunted. We will have no more resistance until the walls of the city.”
The council broke up swiftly after that. Orders were issued and passed down the lines of men, scouts and outriders were dispatched in greater numbers, and the wounded tended to. He followed Ned out of the tent.
“I never imagined that I would face the tribes of the Vale once more,” Eddard said wryly. “Tyrion Lannister has a way of making friends.”
“His friends are dead,” said Andrei bluntly. Wild men, he thought.
“See to it that you do so for the others,” the lord told him with a tired smile, bidding him farewell for the night.
The sun broke through the clouds the next morning, thin and pale. It was the first clear light the army had seen since crossing the Wendwater. By midmorning, the king’s tent was abuzz. Riders had returned; dust-caked, half-starved, but grinning.
“Ser Erren and Ser Parmen are marching down the Rose Road,” one said breathlessly. “Florent foot, Morrigen, Crane, and Caron too, and others. Some nine thousand; spears, swords, bowmen. We arrived slightly after Randyll Tarly did. It was chaos in the camps, Your Grace. Men were fighting and tents were burning. Ser Parmen and Ser Erren led the foot across the Mander, and are nearing.”
Stannis gave no outward sign of emotion. “So they have done their duty,” he said in a voice less severe. The king did not have much hope for the two of them, Andrei thought. “And the Tyrells?”
“Marching for Highgarden, Your Grace, with the rest of their foot. Randyll Tarly was left to hold Bitterbridge with some five thousand men.”
Stannis frowned, but he did not look surprised.
“And we have caught a dispatch from King’s Landing, Your Grace,” the other scout said, smiling eagerly. “We were scouting ahead when we caught them.”
The guards parted, and an old man was ushered into the tent; slight and frail of frame, pale of skin, and wrapped in a thick cloak of sable and gold. He coughed into a lace sleeve, long and wheezy, before giving a thin, terrified bow.
“Lord Gyles Rosby,” Ned said, with some shock in his voice.
“Cersei sent you to negotiate with the Tyrells,” the king said flatly.
“My lords, I mean, Your Grace, I … I-I,”
Stannis did not move. “I know who you are.”
Andrei stood off to the side, arms crossed, studying the man.
“You were meant for Bitterbridge,” Stannis said. “To rally the lords of the Reach.”
“I … kaff … I was, Your Grace.”
“The Imp sent you.”
“The council … saw fit to send-”
“You sit the council,” said Stannis, scorn thick and apparent on his face. The king glared balefully at the old man. “You?”
“I do… as Master of Coin…”
He saw Eddard Stark’s lips twitch slightly at that. “The queen gave you that role to have your swords,” the lord of Stark observed.
“I was … I was most honored…”
“Silence,” the king snapped. “King’s Landing is no more rid of the scum than it was during Robert’s reign, I see. Perhaps, you were fortunate to not have reached Bitterbridge. There was a battle there, I hear.”
“Ah … I…”
“Tell me of the Council and the defenses.”
And Rosby told them everything. The hunger in the city, Tyrion Lannister’s arrival, Janos Slynt sent to the Wall, the demands made by Robb Stark, the numbers of the City Watch, that Hobber Redwyne was riding with him, the reinforcements to the wall and gates… and the queen’s agreement with the Alchemist’s Guild.
“Wildfire … the queen commanded … thousands of barrels…”
Wildfire, Andrei blinked. A fire untamed, the Red Woman had whispered and it was green fire she had glimpsed in the flames.
“What does she plan to do with them?” the king demanded.
“I … I do not know, Your Grace … Lord Tyrion-” and the old lord coughed bloodily.
“Take him away,” said Stannis, frowning. “I will not have him die coughing before me. We will speak again, Lord Rosby, on the morrow.”
The guards dragged the old lord away, not unkindly. Stannis levelled his gaze on Eddard. “Your son is daring,” he said bluntly.
Ned met his king’s stare. “He did what he thought was right, Your Grace.”
Stannis frowned, but shook his head. “His victories on the field do much in weakening the Lannister cause, and none can dispute his loyalty. Very well, he had a right to make those demands, not that Cersei Lannister would agree to them.”
“She would not,” Ned agreed with a tired sigh.
“The city is weak,” Stannis turned his gaze back to the maps. “The Gold Cloaks are not soldiers. I have seen them, weak and green and corrupt.”
“This deal with the wildfire…” Ned trailed off.
The king frowned. “Caution must be taken there. Perhaps they intend to fling the pots into the Rush. I must speak with my lords… How fares your leg?”
“Little trouble now,” Eddard said. “Well enough to ride and walk, good enough that I can start to spar.”
The king nodded. “See to your men, Lord Stark. The battle will be upon us soon.”
The second morning after Rosby’s capture dawned clear and cold. Past churned earth and broken stone, the army arrived at the long slope where the Rose Road met the kingsroad and there, they saw the banners. Like stalks in a field, they rose. The fox of Florent, the golden cranes of Crane, the black of nightingales of Caron, the black crow of Morrigen, all below the crowned stag of Baratheon, fluttering proudly. Behind a hastily-thrown wall of wooden spikes, thousands of men waited.
When the column reached them, Ser Erren Florent stood waiting in a cloak long and heavy, bright as fire. Ser Parmen Crane stood at his side, clad in shining purple armor and a dust-strewn face. Both men looked pleased and proud.
“Your Grace,” they chorused, kneeling.
“I bring to you the strengths of House Florent and her sworn banners,” said Erren Florent. “Brave, loyal men, here to serve their king.”
“And of House Crane,” added Parmen Crane swiftly, “and Morrigen and Caron. Fossoway and Mullendore.”
“Nine thousand spears and swords in full,” Ser Erren continued, “to march for their true king.”
Stannis looked down at him without blinking. “Rise,” the king said sternly. “You have done your duty well. Have your men join the host.”
The army, now twenty-four thousand strong, shook the earth when it moved. Wagon trains snaked between the ranks like veins of iron and wood. The banners flew higher, the knights sat straighter. By sunset, they had left the Kingswood behind.
As the orange and red hues of dusk bled upon the land and river, Andrei laid his eyes upon the city once more. There, mere days ahead, loomed King’s Landing, its walls bristling with steel and men, awaiting the storm that was coming.
Notes:
And Andrei makes a triumphant return to the story! I know it has been awhile since we had anything from Andrei, Ned, and Team Dragonstone as much time was needed to establish the others; Gunther, Lucia, Lorenzo, Robb etc
For the curious, this is Andrei's statline:
STR: 15(+2)
PER: 14(+2)
CON: 15(+2)
CHA: 7(-2)
INT: 9(-1)
WIS: 13(+1)
DEX: 9(-1)
LCK: 8(-1)The characters in this chapter were fun, appearing one after another. I have always been fond of Melisandre and, yes, that scene is interlinked with what Lorenzo was up to in the previous chapter. Shagga was fun as well, but a mountain clansman really stood no chance against Andrei. And our dear lord Gyles Rosby makes his pitiful return. I think I will also make a habit of adding the map to help make visualising travel paths easier for you all.
The Battle of King's Landing looms ever closer with each day (and chapter) but another battle chapter will take place before that, so look forward to that!
Chapter 94: Kevan II: The Battle of Wayfarer’s Rest
Notes:
So, I heard you like battles. Map included for reference, it should come in really useful for this chapter.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
No songs would be sung of Wayfarer’s Rest.
Ahead, lines of spears and pikes bristled like the quills of a porcupine. Sunlight glinted off the sharp, lethal steel, and from polished plate and mail. Grim-faced men held the line, in closed lines and loosely covered with shields of fur, leather, wood, and steel. Behind, rows of bowmen stood at the ready, arrows nocked. Looming beyond them, he counted half a dozen scorpions on the walls of Wayfarer’s Rest.
Eight thousand men, their scouts reported … though Tywin did not place much faith in the words of their outriders, not after Jaime’s capture at the Whispering Wood. Still, that number seemed accurate. Their riders must have dismounted, Kevan thought, swapping lances for pikes. He eyed the woods on either side of the River Road. The trees were too thick and tightly packed for cavalry to ride through.
A blessing and a curse. It prevented Robb Stark from using his horses to flank them … but it meant that they could not bring their greater number of foot to flank the Young Wolf either. A stalemate, he thought, but we need a swift victory.
Ned Stark’s son had chosen his battleground carefully. The riverroad ran from the inn at the crossroads through Riverrun, and Wayfarer’s Rest. Through it, it led to the Golden Tooth and straight to the glittering heart of Casterly Rock.
Determined to prevent their crossing was Robb Stark and eight thousand grim men. Behind deep, lethal lines of trenches and long rows of sharpened stakes, spears and pikes and bows awaited their coming. A frontal assault would be costly, he knew. Lines of sharpened stakes bristled against them, deep trenches welcomed any charges, rows of pikes awaited them as did hundreds of bowmen. Atop the walls of Wayfarer's Rest, scorpions watched balefully, their steel bolts glinting in the light
Their host outnumbered the Starks by half, but their strong position negated that numerical edge. We might win, Kevan thought in dismay, but that will be a victory that should be called a defeat … or we might lose entirely.
They had crossed the Red Fork five days past. Robb Stark and Edmure Tully had made them pay a most bloody price for the river crossing. They marched from Harrenhal with eighteen thousand men. By the time their host had managed to regroup after the hard-fought crossing, they counted twelve thousand. It was far from mere footmen they had lost either. The bulk of their cavalry was dead and done, with the surprise cavalry charge from Galbart Glover trapping and slaying over a thousand of their riders. Lyle Crakehall and Robert Brax were both captured, Lord Leo Lefford drowned in the Red Fork, and Ser Flement Brax was slain.
As it stood, they had a host of some eleven thousand infantry, and fewer than a thousand horsemen. We left Casterly Rock with five-and-thirty thousand.
Though he would never say it to his brother, the West had never been weaker. Jaime was captured, his army shattered. Stafford was dead with the meagre host he was raising. Half the castles in the Westerlands were sacked or occupied, the land was ablaze and pillaged, half of the lords and knights were either dead or captured. And the last host of the west sits trapped, dwindling in numbers, supplies, and faith.
They had three choices after crossing the Red Fork. The first was to march on Riverrun. That was easier said than done. Even with twelve thousand men, Riverrun would not fall so easily. Though he could tell his brother wished to reclaim Jaime, and all of their other prisoners, a direct assault on Riverrun was beyond the question.
The second possibility was to take the long, dreary march south and, then, west. Cross the Mummer’s Ford, bypass or take the Stoney Sept, cross the headways of the Blackwater Rush, and march for the Gold Road. From there, they could march west past Deep Den and reach Casterly Rock. This would take weeks, however, and a bitter march through hostile land, constantly harassed by outlaws and brigands. And it would allow Robb Stark’s cavalry to strike at them freely. And Tywin does not wish to flee from the Young Wolf. That would be bitter insult to grievous injury.
That left their last choice, and the one they took grimly. Confront Robb Stark … and that was the move that the Stark boy wanted them to take, Kevan knew.
The first day of battle was nothing more than an exchange of arrows and skirmishes and blaring horns. Their host took the time to establish their battle lines while their bowmen traded arrows with the Northerners. Sixty-seven men perished that day.
The second day was hours of waiting. At dawn, his brother hoped to use the rising sun to the east to blind the defenders. Hundreds of infantrymen rushed across lines of trenches and spikes, while their own archers covered them. It turned out that having enough bowmen and enemies in only one direction meant that the northerners could loose their arrows in a general direction and still slay many men. Two hundred and forty-nine Westermen were left for the carrion crows to feast on.
On the third day, a hundred men were sent into either side of the woods. It was his brother’s hope that, while the main host distracted the defenders with an array of arrows and trumpets and raids, small pockets of men could sneak through the forest and strike at the Stark supply tents and rear. The men never returned, though he heard distant screaming and howling. Wolves and traps in those woods, thought Kevan somberly. In total, two hundred and thirty-six men were slain.
Today was the fourth day, and it was no less dark.
He had never seen Lord Tywin as he had on that morning. His brother’s control was shaken when the news of Jaime’s capture had come to them then, after the Green Fork, but Tywin had been in control. Like a writhing snake, that was slipping away swiftly from his brother’s firm hand. Kevan thought he saw a flicker of doubt and exhaustion in those cold green eyes that so oft gave men pause and dread.
It was still black outside. The hour of the wolf, he believed. How fitting, Kevan Lannister mused, glancing at the half-drunk goblet by Tywin’s side.
“Take two hundred men to the woods on the left,” his brother was saying to a grim-faced Addam Marbrand, “I will send a few dozen to the right to distract any men they have in there.” Those men will die for a mere distraction.
“We will send in the levies first,” his brother continued. Pale in the gloomy dark, Lord Tywin Lannister looked a ghost, a weary and wan one at that. “The last of our sellswords and conscripts. Let them fill the trenches, soak up the arrows, and cut down the stakes. They will be caught by surprise in the night. Ser Gregor will lead the rest of our riders into their lines. The rest of the host will advance behind.”
The Mountain was silent, with only the barest inclination of a nod. The steel rattled deeply and loudly in the silence. They were all armored for battle, but Gregor Clegane’s mighty plate looked rusted and ringed with blood in the dark.
“We crush Robb Stark this night,” his brother declared, “and press west.”
When Ser Addam and Clegane had left, Kevan lingered. Tywin was gazing at the parchments and maps on his table with a heavy frown. “Kevan,” his brother said curtly, though he could hear the exhaustion, “tell me the affairs of the men.”
He knew his brother wished to speak with him. “Gloomy,” Kevan said bluntly. He would offer no false courtesies and sweet lies to his brother. “Morale is low.” He could not blame them. Gold, glory and triumph was assured when their golden host marched from Casterly Rock. Since then, they had lost battle after battle, and they were trapped in an impossible position. We promised them the sweetest wines, thought Kevan Lannister, and we have been served only the most bitter defeats.
“Low enough for a mutiny?” Tywin said softly. His brother’s eyes might have been carved from ice, for all the sharp coldness in them.
“Not yet,” he shook his head. “The Rains of Castamere still rings in their head … but many and more have lost their lands and keeps, their families captured…”
“We will reclaim those lands,” his brother said with a cold snarl, “and make this Stark boy pay. His mother as well..”
“He is a boy no longer, Tywin,” Kevan pointed out. They had all underestimated Robb Stark. Tywin had considered him a green boy when news came that the Stark host was marching south from Moat Cailin. The lords had laughed in the tents, the knights japed of pups, and the common soldier believed that victory was assured. Then, they lost Jaime. When word came of Oxcross, none of the lords considered Stark to be a boy any longer. Then came the Battle of the Fords, and now this…
“Stark has a mind for war,” Kevan said bluntly, “and he has won battle after battle.”
“War is more than battles,” Tywin glanced at him.
“It is,” he did not deny that, “but he does not seem to be lacking in those as well.”
His brother was silent at that, staring at the map with a blank, tired gaze. “See to your men,” Tywin eventually said, “the battle begins shortly.”
“As you say, my lord,” he dipped his head. He was already armored in plate and mail, with a crimson wool cloak over it. The night wind bore a certain chill, and he pulled the scarlet cloth tighter around him. The Stark words are always true, he thought glumly. Summer has ended, autumn has come, and winter is coming.
It would not do for a gloomy host to see their commanders glum and frowning. He forced himself to wear a false smile as he made the rounds. He spoke to his knights, assuring them that their wives and children would be rescued. He checked in with the other lords, reminding them of the plans for the battle. He shared wine and meat with the soldiers around their cookfires, promising them due rewards for their loyalty and bravery. Kevan had little care to speak with the Mountain’s riders, though.
Blood and battle is gold and glory for that group of butchers, he thought.
The hour had passed swifter than he would have wished. It had always been the waiting that was the worst part of war, but now he found himself wishing that they had more time to whittle. It is done, and the battle is upon us, he reminded himself. There is no good in brooding over time past, that is the vice of old done men.
The defenders had put out most of their torches, drowning the camp in black, and the encampment was quiet when their sellswords and levies charged ahead. With axe and sword and shield, hundreds of men rushed forward in the dark. They were to clear the path for Ser Gregor’s riders to punch a bloody hole through the defending line. Kevan watched them atop his barded steed. The Mountain was waiting as well, with eight hundred riders clad in steel and armed with lances.
The sellswords and the levies were ordered to be silent as they advanced. Kevan squinted to make out the black blurs, fading into the gloom. The night had made visibility poor, but they were hoping to make it advantageous. He hoped.
Then, the world was made brighter when a wave of flaming arrows crashed amidst the men. They were not so silent now. Kevan grimaced at the screaming. He had spoken to some of the men, learned their names and homes, and heard their worries for their wives and children. He offered a silent prayer for the dead and dying.
From behind earthenworks and wooden barriers, men emerged with shields and spears. Behind them, pikemen were forming and the air was thick with the shrill, sharp whisper of arrows. In the woods to their left, he could hear shouting. Their plan had already gone awry, he realised at once. The creaking of steel dragged his gaze away from the battle. The Mountain was looking at him with blood-shot eyes.
Kevan did not know how the warhorse could bear the weight of the man. Ser Gregor wore the heaviest, thickest plate he had ever seen. Once, it was dull grey. Now, stained with blood and flickering with moonlight, it seemed almost red. He is waiting for a command, Kevan thought, unsettled. The man had not spoken a word for days.
Kevan glanced at the hill where his brother was watching from, but Lord Tywin Lannister was not there. Is he in his tent? Kevan tore his gaze back to the battle. Dozens of men were slain by the arrows, and the charge against the pikes and the spears was failing miserably. They will not hold for long, he thought, bleakly. These men were meant to clear the way and distract for the riders…
“Go,” he told the Mountain then. “Ravage their camp, burn their tents, slay any lord you see.”
“And Stark?” Ser Gregor spoke for the first time. His voice was deep and dark and hungry, sending a shiver down his spine. Something is wrong with him.
Kevan paused. “Take his head, if you can. And his wolf too.”
The Mountain responded by drawing his immense, heavy greatsword. It was a six-foot, two-handed beast of steel, and he wielded it with one hand and ease. Steel screamed harshly against leather, and Ser Gregor was charging. Eight hundred riders roared their assent, and eight hundred lances were racing down the dark road.
Occupied by the sellswords and the levies, the archers could not rain their arrows on their riders. Kevan watched with grim satisfaction as Ser Gregor’s hateful horsemen charged with hoarse, hungry cries. That satisfaction turned to utter horror when the Mountain and his men trampled over Westermen to reach the defenders.
What is he doing? Kevan clenched his fist. The man has gone mad.
Warhorns were blaring behind him, and he turned, surprised. Far away, he saw the golden figure of Lord Tywin atop the hill. Trumpets were sounding brazenly in the night, and the foot was marching forward. There was no time to think, then.
“Prepare for a charge,” he told the knights surrounding him. Eighty of his own household knights, loyal and skilled beyond measure. As they belayed his order, Kevan rested his golden helm on his head, his eyes fixed on the battlefield.
The Mountain’s Men had reached the line of pikes. Many of the horsemen were impaled on steel, but just as many had punched bloody holes in the defense. The biggest and bloodiest was the one left by the Mountain. Kevan watched as his greatsword hacked apart two pikes, then the mailed men holding them. A spear took his horse, but the giant was hardly fazed. Ser Gregor slew a man with his steel as he landed, and a quick swipe of the blade took the heads of two more pikemen.
More riders of theirs were pouring through the opening that Gregor Clegane had made. “There,” Kevan told his knights, as they raised their trot to a loud canter. “Follow Ser Gregor’s path,” he shouted over the great din of the ride and battle, though the words tasted bitter and filthy on his tongue.
Ahead, Clegane was carving a bloody road for them. Close to a dozen bodies marked his advance, hacked to pieces and ruined in red. The man was roaring with near inhuman rage, and each swipe of his immense blade claimed a life.
“Casterly Rock!” His knights were shouting as their canter grew into a deafening charge whose thunder filled his world. “Lannister!”
Then the wolves fell upon them.
From the woods to their right and left, grey blurs of fur and fang emerged from the wispy dark. The horses were screaming, the knights were shouting, and the wolves were howling. There must have been dozens of the beasts, and led by two of the largest wolves he had ever seen. No, Kevan thought dully as one of them leapt at an armored knight, crashing the man to the ground violently, these are direwolves.
The first beast was monstrous and swift, tearing open the throat of the knight in mere seconds. Its fur was smoky grey and golden eyes met Kevan’s. The other one wore a lighter shade of grey, and led the wolves in ravaging the terrified mounts of his knights. The first was Robb Stark’s beast, he knew, but where did the other one come from? The girl, the daughter’s. Then, he had no time to think.
Kevan ripped his sword from its golden scabbard as the direwolf came for him, but one of his knights came hacking at it with a battleaxe. The great beast leapt out of the way, snarling, and Kevan soon lost sight of it in the chaos of battle.
His sword swiped at the side of a passing wolf, and he was rewarded with blood and a pained howl. “Rally, rally!” Kevan was shouting, faintly aware of arrows falling around him. He allowed himself the distraction of glancing at the main battle.
The sight gave him pause. Most of the riders were clashing their swords against rows of pikes and spears. More men had rushed in to fill the gaps, and the might of the charge had been dulled. Fewer than a hundred men had punched through, and they kept close to Ser Gregor, who was still fighting fiercely despite the broken spear jutting in crimson from his side. It was then that Kevan saw his opponent.
A lean man in grey plate and mail, with a cloak made of wolfskin. The head of the wolf covered his head, but Kevan knew at once who the figure was. Robb Stark…
Stark ducked under a swing from Ser Gregor, sidestepped a heavy punch that would have killed a man, and swiped his axe against the Mountain’s chest. The axe left a long, ugly line along the steel, but it did no more than that. The reports were true, then. Robb Stark had taken to wielding an axe and not wearing a helm.
Before he could watch for long, the warhorns were blaring. Many of their riders had turned away from the wall of pikes and spears, unable to break through and unwilling to die in vain. What remained of the sellswords and levies were desperately rejoining the advancing foot. The wolves had vanished into the woods, gore-strewn and full.
A third of his eighty knights were slain. He turned again to his brother on the hill but once again, Lord Tywin was too far for sight. When he laid his eyes upon the Mountain again, a circle of spearmen had surrounded him, thrusting their steel cautiously. Stark was nowhere to be seen. Kevan knew he was not dead, for his host would have shuddered at that. He met Ser Gregor in single combat, and lived.
“Ser Ke-” one of his knights came, but an arrow took him through the throat. A hail of arrows was falling around them. One bounced off his golden pauldron, another flicked off his breastplate. Some of his knights were not so fortunate. Another six men were slain by the wicked rain. “Rejoin the foot,” he shouted, “rejoin the foot!”
His shouting was not needed, it seemed. The moment after, a horn blared. It came again, and for a third time. Three horns for retreat, they had agreed.
Half of his household knights were dead, Kevan lamented morosely as he wheeled his mount around. He glanced back at the line of pikes, and saw the Mountain carving his way out of the men. Around him, he had a dozen riders, though he had near a hundred mere minutes ago. They had paid a bloody price for nothing.
The Mountain bellowed a roar of rage as he broke through the line of pike once more, his armor and sword stained a deep red.
“STARK!” Gregor Clegane roared with the voice of a giant, turning to search for Robb Stark. Kevan kept his eyes on him. From afar, a warrior in steel with a wolfskin cloak mounted atop a shaggy horse watched the Mountain. Ser Gregor raised his bloodstained blade and pointed the tip at him, before wheeling his horse around.
Kevan turned away, focusing on his mount and ride.
Their own foot had halted in their march to form a line of steel, deterring the Stark host from advancing. Robb Stark had little desire to attack, it seemed, and Kevan led his riders to rejoin the host. The Mountain was the last to return, having claimed a mount from one of his men. To the west, the defenders had formed a long line of pikes and spears again. To the east, dawnlight was starting to spill on them.
Gods, Kevan thought, exhausted and weary beyond measure. He wondered if he would ever see Casterly Rock again in his lifetime. Dorna…
Three horns blared behind them again, and their host began a slow, solemn retreat back to their camp. The march was silent. Kevan allowed himself a last glance at the River Road, where they had spent days fighting over. Hundreds of corpses were left on the road, impaled on stakes, filled with arrows. Some were still groaning softly, reaching out with bloodied, broken hands for the gods. Others were weeping, calling for their mothers, and begging for any who could hear them for help or mercy.
Kevan Lannister tore his gaze away.
By the time they were within their camp once more, a bitter sight sprawled out for Kevan to see. They had left many of their wounded in the mud, or to the wintry mercy of the northmen. Even still, many bore wounds; arrows in their shoulders, a broken spear in their thigh, weeping slashes across their chests. They were running out of medical supplies … and all else.
There were no more smiles in the camp, nor songs. Laden with the moaning of the wounded and the stench of the dying, the men were grim and gloomy. They are close to breaking, Kevan realised. Their homes are burning, their families dead or in danger, and they have seen their friends slain and slaughtered.
He could not even muster the energy to make the rounds this night. The rising sun of morning found him alone in his tent, eating a meagre meal of fish and roasted carrots. The fish was fresh. Caught at the Tumblestone, he wagered. The carrots and onions must have been taken from the farms and fields of the Riverlands. There was not a part of his meal that had not come from the blood of the riverlands.
His exhaustion was greater than his appetite, but he forced himself to eat nonetheless. Food was never assured in a war, only death and misery.
It was dark when he woke. A young squire had come to his tent, telling him that Lord Tywin was calling for council. Never before has a council been smaller, Kevan was thinking as he made the walk to his brother’s pavilion. Lord Lefford drowned, the Strongboar and Robert Brax captured, Ser Harys Swyft sent away…
He found his brother in conversation with Ser Addam Marbrand when he entered. The knight nodded affably as Kevan stepped in. “Apologies, brother,” he made to apologise, but Tywin only waved a hand.
“Sit,” Lord Tywin gestured to the empty seat to his right. “I was speaking to Ser Addam about our numbers,” his brother said grimly.
Kevan glanced at the knight of Marbrand. With his father slain, he was the Lord of Ashemark now … but Ashemark had been captured, by Theon Greyjoy of all people. His father had not deigned to respond to Tywin’s letter as well. A burning Lannisport flickered in his mind. Damn those Greyjoys, thought Kevan, damn them.
“What are the numbers?” Kevan asked.
They had crossed the Red Fork with some eleven thousand foot and over nine hundred riders. More than five hundred men had been slain during the skirmishing of the past three days. Kevan dreaded the butcher’s bill for the night.
“A third of our cavalry lost,” Ser Addam said grimly. The knight’s helm was on the table, and his face was slick with sweat. “That leaves some six hundred. Well over a thousand of our footmen are dead. In total, we have some nine thousand foot.”
Nine thousand infantrymen and six hundred riders. All that was left of the mighty host that had emerged under the golden shadow of the Rock. Kevan wanted to weep.
“The men are … wavering,” Ser Addam continued. “Half a dozen sellswords were caught trying to turn their cloaks. They are ripening under trees now. But thrice as many fled into the forest. We have not sent riders to chase them.”
That would not be necessary, Kevan agreed with a heavy heart. With wolves in the woods, their lives were as good as lost. “Robb Stark will not budge,” he told Tywin. “It may be that we have to march another way.”
His brother kept his silence, but he gazed at him. Kevan could see the lines on his face clearer than ever. “You mean to march south to the Gold Road,” Tywin said.
Kevan clenched his fingers around the golden goblet. “It is better than throwing our men like wheat against the mill. Too many are dead, and we have had too many defeats.”
“Supplies are dwindling, my lord,” Ser Addam added. “Any more assaults and the men might break.”
“A march will eat through supplies even quicker,” Tywin said.
“Not if we take more,” Marbrand offered, darkly. The knight had been grim since word came of his father’s death and the fall of Ashemark to Theon Greyjoy. Ser Addam placed a calloused finger on the map, where their position was. From Wayfarer’s Rest, he dragged his finger to the Mummer’s Ford … and to the town of Stoney Sept.
Tywin watched the knight, as did Kevan.
“Stoney Sept was where Jon Connington failed to kill Robert,” Ser Addam was saying. “A wealthy enough town. They have the supplies we need, and some bloodletting will improve the spirits of our men. Seven know they need that. There has been talk of beasts and demons of late, my lord, beasts conjured from the minds of smallfolk. Doubtless, the thought of Stark’s direwolves has frightened the men fiercely, and each tongue adds a horn or a tail or eyes of fire to the tale. We need a victory, truth be told. The men are wavering, it is a shameful display… Thereafter, there are shallow fords where we can cross the headwaters of the Blackwater Rush … and the Gold Road is a march away. From there, we can march to Deep Den.”
It was not a bad plan, Kevan allowed. They could rest their weary troops and resupply at Deep Den, and make to defend their bloodied lands from there. “Stark still has thousands of riders,” Kevan pointed out. “Those can chase after us.”
“Send the rest of our riders to harass his forces,” Ser Addam said at once. “Garrison Stoney Sept with five hundred men. They will have to deal with those before they can follow us. It will take them too much time.”
There was sense in his words. Kevan turned to his brother. Lord Tywin’s eyes were on the map, flickering this way and that as if puzzling out some secret solution. The sound of hurried footsteps broke the silence, however.
A red-faced sentry came, gasping for breath and drowning in his own sweat. “Banners … banners to the east, my lords.”
Tywin rose at once. “Whose?” he demanded.
Had Robb Stark found a way to flank them? Had Roose Bolton marched from the east? East is the Red Fork. This host has not come from Riverrun.
“Black wings on black and grey, golden antlers on blue and white, a wavy green line on yellow, and two black warhammers crossed. And the blue rooster of Swyft.”
Kevan met his brother’s gaze. “House Staunton, Buckwell, Hayford, and Rykker,” Tywin said at once. “The lords and levies of the crownlands.”
His goodfather had brought them the men from the Crownlands, it seemed. A shadow of a smile tugged at Kevan’s lips. “How many men? How far away?”
“Some two thousand, I think, my lord,” the scout said, trembling. “Two hours away.”
Two thousand? His joy withered to dust. The Crownlands could still raise more than twice or thrice that. Tywin gave the scout a curt nod, dismissing him.
Ser Addam looked between his brother and him. “My lords?” the knight said slowly.
“See to your men, Addam,” Kevan told him, not unkindly. He recognised well his brother’s fury. “Take a rest. We will convene again.”
The knight rose, bowed, and turned to leave. Kevan looked at his brother. Tywin was clutching at his goblet tightly, his fingers pale and tight. “The Crownlands,” he said softly, “can still muster at least five thousand. Fresh fighters.”
“They can,” Kevan said softly.
A vein bulged slightly against Tywin’s temple, green with fury. His brother took a deep breath, closing his eyes. When he met Kevan’s eyes again, Lord Tywin had regained his cold composure. “We will have words with him when he arrives,” the Lord of Casterly Rock said quietly, and dangerously.
“We will,” Kevan agreed. “What do you intend to do? Two thousand men … is still an addition.” He prayed that his brother would not march against Wayfarer’s Rest once more. One more assault, one more defeat, and this host will collapse.
“Balon Greyjoy has not deigned to respond,” Tywin said, coldly. There was a dark look in his eyes. “We still do not know what the Baratheon brothers are doing. No ravens have come, nor riders from the south. The Vale will not stir, nor Dorne and its spears. It may be that we will need more sellswords from the east.”
“That will take time,” Kevan pointed out. Time to find them, time to contact them, time to negotiate a price, and time for them to travel. Time that they might not have.
“So be it,” Tywin grunted. “It may be worth sending a message to Frey.”
“Frey?”
“He is ambitious,” Tywin said.
“You want to convince Walder Frey to turn his cloak,” Kevan realised. “Why would he? Stark is winning.” That was clear, even to Kevan.
Tywin frowned, and made no reply. They sat in silence then, sipping at sour wine.
When Ser Harys Swyft entered the tent, he came with a smile. The Knight of Cornfield wore a yellow doublet, decorated with the bantam rooster in lapis beads, with a cloak and breeches of yellow silk. The bald man bowed deeply and made to speak with a proud smile blooming across his face. “Lord Tywin, I have broug-”
“Two thousand,” Tywin said coldly. “I sent you to bring me the might of the Crownlands, and Crackclaw Point. You bring me two thousand.”
Ser Harys paled at once. When he spoke once more, the jowls of his chin quivered. “My lord, I-I … the savages … they would not … not…”
“Which lords have accompanied you, my lord?” Kevan interrupted.
Plainly, the knight was confused. “None, my lord.”
“None?” Kevan said. Seven Hells.
“They … they sent their men. I thought … I thought that sufficient.”
They sent their men, but not themselves so that if we lose, they can claim that their loyalties were only forced, Kevan knew. “How many?”
“I … I went to Antler first, my lord. Lord Buckwell offered four hundred men. All the might of Antlers, he told me. Rook’s Rest was next, Lord Staunton could only offer me three hundred. Sow’s Horn and Stokeworth were more barren. Many men had gone to defend King’s Landing, so they only provided two hundred each. Lord Renfred Rykker … pledged the most swords. Seven hundred in full, with mail too. And there were other levies and sellswords, close to three hundred in total. I-”
“Defend King’s Landing?” Tywin narrowed his eyes. “From what?”
“From Stannis, my lord?” Ser Harys Swyft was perplexed. “Stannis Baratheon … He is marching on the city.”
“Stannis?” Kevan was aghast. “Has Renly joined him?”
“Renly?” Swyft blinked. “Renly is dead, my lords. Slain by his own guards, if the talk is true. Women, wicked women. A foreigner and a freak. The Tyrells have retreated to Highgarden, but the Stormlords have gone over to Stannis.”
“Who is marching on King’s Landing,” Tywin said flatly. Kevan could hear the fury in his voice. Gods, thought Kevan Lannister, gods.
“He is,” Harys Swyft nodded in agreement.
“And instead of reinforcing the capital where my grandson, the King, and my daughter prepare to deal with an army led by Stannis Baratheon,” Tywin rose, his face twisted in anger, “you march this meagre host of two thousand men across the Riverlands!” His brother was shouting by the end.
“My lord, I … I … you commanded…”
“I commanded you to bring me reinforcements. We all thought we had time to deal with Robb Stark before we had to deal with Stannis.” His brother halted, turning to look at him gravely. “The Blackfish. This Brotherhood.”
“That is why we have not received any riders or ravens,” Kevan realised at once. A cold hand was seizing his heart, gripping it and squeezing. Lancel, he thought. His eldest son was at King’s Landing. Two of my sons are prisoners, Kevan despaired. He prayed the third would be unharmed. “How far away is Stannis?”
“He has left Storm’s End … ah, my lords, I…”
“Silence,” Tywin commanded. His eyes glared furiously at Ser Harys, who was trembling. “I am of a mind to send you alone, sword in hand, to confront Robb Stark and his wolf. You utter imbecile. Leave, before I change my mind.”
The knight of Cornfield bowed, muttering his apologies frantically and fearfully, and turned to leave as swiftly as he could.
“Tywin,” he said at once.
“I know,” his brother clenched his fist. “Stark … he has held us here for this long. He knew. He wanted us to cross the Red Fork. That is why they retreated and yielded the crossing. They held the line here, not to defeat us but to make us waste days and lives throwing our men against pikes and trenches.”
Gods, Kevan lamented. Robb Stark had played them for utter fools. King’s Landing could be under attack at the very moment. He glanced at the map.
It was a long march from Wayfarer’s Rest to King’s Landing… and they could not take the River Road either, not with Riverrun sitting stubbornly on the way. They would have to cross the Red Fork once more, march for days across hostile and scorched land, and ford the river south of the God’s Eye. Their host was mainly foot, tired footmen with wavering spirits, and their supplies were already dwindling.
“What do we do?” Kevan turned to his brother.
“Ser Gregor will lead half of our remaining riders to harass Stark,” Tywin said at once. “From Riverrun to the Stoney Sept, all that can be burnt will be burnt.”
Kevan fought to suppress the grimace growing on his face.
“Ser Addam will lead the other half.” Tywin had not noticed the look on his face. “He will secure the crossing at the Red Fork and remain a day ahead of the foot. His riders will screen our advance and scout all along our march. I will not be led into another trap. We will cross at the Mummer’s Ford,” Tywin placed a finger on the map and dragged it east. “Ser Addam’s men will sack Tumbler’s Fall for supplies.”
“We will need rafts to cross this river,” Kevan pointed out, placing his finger on the river south of the God’s Eye. “With so many infantrymen and wagons …”
“I will have Ser Addam press the smallfolk into service,” Tywin said coldly.
“Roose Bolton must be at Harrenhal,” Kevan observed.
“He is a cautious man,” his brother shook his head. “He will not march to confront us, not when we have more men than him.”
Barely, Kevan thought, but he held his tongue.
“We will march with all haste. We set camp at dark, and rise at dawn. Every third night, we will march through the night.”
“Tywin,” Kevan said, cautiously, “the men…”
“Will do as commanded,” Tywin said tersely. “Promise them gold, knighthoods, and lands after the war. Remind them of the Reynes and Tarbecks.”
“As you say,” Kevan bowed his head. “Stark’s cavalry?”
“Swyft,” Tywin said, disgusted. “I will give him three hundred men to take the Stoney Sept. That is more than enough to seize the town, and hold it … long enough to distract Robb Stark.”
Throwing him to the wolves, Kevan thought. Harys Swyft was his own goodfather, father to his wife. Still, Kevan said nothing. He rose, bowed, and muttered, “by your command, I will speak to Ser Addam.”
After that, he would seek his bed once more. His bones were weary, as was every part of him, from his head to his feet. Still, there was a war to fight, and a gruelling march to start. Lord Tywin Lannister had commanded, and Kevan would obey. On the morrow, they would march for King’s Landing.
The War of Four Kings, by Maester Yandel
In the wake of the terrible cost at the Red Fork, when Lord Tywin’s host had been bled of horse and man, the two hosts met again at Wayfarer’s Rest.
Lord Robb Stark chose his ground with care: the River Road itself, a narrow lane between dense woods, a shallow stream and a ridge, with trenches, sharpened stakes, and rows of pikes dug and planted before the town. Against this prepared ground, the Lannisters, diminished in numbers and cavalry, arrayed themselves and counsel turned to whether to force a passage or to wheel about by longer roads.
Contemporary reports place the Stark host at roughly eight thousand men at Wayfarer’s Rest, dismounted riders and pikemen in plenty, while the Westerlanders, though they had marched from Harrenhal with eighteen thousand, had been reduced in the fighting at the Red Fork and in the days’ skirmishing thereafter. Ser Kevan Lannister recorded that, after the river fighting, they numbered some eleven thousand foot and fewer than a thousand riders. The contest at Wayfarer’s Rest was not a single clash but a grinding affair of days.
The first day was nothing more than an exchange of scouts and archers. On the second day, a daylight assault was ordered with the sun held to their backs; the foot of the West rushed trenches and spikes beneath covering archery. The defenders’ bows, loosed in concentration, made the assault costly. Lannister returns count two hundred and forty‑nine more dead. The third day saw a further attempt to reach the defenders’ rear by small parties sent into the woods, one hundred to each flank, failed. Those parties did not return; the woods harried them with traps and wolves, and the Lannister toll for that day was another two hundred or so men.
These daily losses exhausted the patience and stores of the host. Morale grew thin; sellswords and levies quailed; a number fled into the woods and were not followed nor ever found again. On the fourth night, a desperate stratagem was undertaken. Lord Tywin would use levies and sellswords to fill the trenches and cut the stakes in darkness; Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides, with eight hundred riders, would follow to smash the line. The plan rode upon surprise and fury.
The levies were at once met with flaming arrows and a hail of bolts from the defenders’ scorpions; their silence was broken with great loss. Where the levies failed, Ser Gregor and his riders plunged through in a tide of steel. For a time, it seemed the plan had worked: pikes were cleft, great gaps were made, and knights of Lannister pressed through the opening.
It was then that the wolves came. From the woods poured the grey beasts, led by two direwolves. These beasts unmade the coherence of the knights’ charge; horses reared, knights were thrown, and blood fed the earth. In the press, Robb Stark rode without helm, cloaked in wolf‑skin and wielding a long battle‑axe. He met Ser Gregor in personal combat, a meeting witnessed by many and attested in the lists taken afterwards. Stark’s axe scored upon the Mountain’s breastplate but did not fell him; Ser Gregor fought on with savage force. Still, well-guarded by pikemen and his guards, the Young Wolf emerged unharmed. The lion’s riding began to break at the sound of horns: three blasts for retreat were given; the cry was taken up. A rout was avoided only by the great weight of the Mountain, who cleaved his way back through spears and pikes to rejoin what remained of his riders.
When the host returned to its camp, the scene was of woe: hundreds of corpses along the River Road, many impaled upon stakes; wounded left in mud; scant medical stores; and a general silence where once had been the clamour of camp. In the small hours, Lord Tywin convened a narrow council.
From that council came several measures of consequence. Two thousand men from the Crownlands would soon arrive to reinforce the Lannister host, led by Ser Harys Swyft. Their arrival, while welcome, was insufficient to mend the host’s wound. More grievous still was the news that Stannis Baratheon was marching on King’s Landing and that Lord Renly had been slain, tidings that struck Lord Tywin with a rare and visible anger and altered all design. The Western host could not be spared to linger until it had recovered full strength, for the capital itself faced peril.
Thus, a new course was laid. Rather than press upon Riverrun, a costly siege and one unlikely to succeed, Tywin resolved to march for the Gold Road and the south, to cross at the Mummer’s Ford and thence to take a long march to the south and east by the Blackwater headways, bringing the army to King’s Landing.
Strategically, the affair was of note; Lord Tywin’s army, already weakened by the Red Fork, could not be trusted to march unchecked toward the south without first scaring off Stark from the River Road. Yet, the time and blood spent at Wayfarer’s Rest aided Stark’s greater purpose, for it fixed and bled the West’s last great host at distance from King’s Landing at the very moment other hands were moving upon the capital…
Notes:
By now, if you have read to this point, you should be familiar with my preference to keep things realistic, to slow down and try to capture some of the minute details and through various POVs (and bonus POVs) Evidently, my battle chapters tend to be much more focused on the strategy and tactics, as well as a college student can plan pitched battles, particularly as we are watching through the POV of commanders. I am a big fan of Roman history, particularly the Augustan age. In particular, I am a big fan of Agrippa. If the Battle of Actium and the war against Antony showed anything, it's that if you can maneuver your army in a strategically advantageous position and secure your supply lines, while ensuring the enemy can't, the battles and the war are all but won. There will be battles in the future that will be more action-based, with POVs on the ground of the battle more. Well, you will see :)
Had a lot of fun planning, visualising, and writing this chapter. Kevan is a POV that has grown on me, so expect him to pop up again in the future. I did want to convey that dreary sense of war in the Riverlands, with battles dragging on for days and days, with hours of waiting before a sudden surge of violence and death and misery ... then it's back to waiting and marching again. Personally, I am a big fan of tracking army numbers in stories. I cannot be the only one.
The Lannister host marched from Casterly Rock with 35000 men. Jaime took 15000 to siege Riverrun, Tywin marched the other 20000 to the crossroads. Jaime lost two out of three of his camps when Robb attacked, with only the third camp being untouched. We know that Forley Prester marched that host, minus the sellswords, to the Golden Tooth, where they are now. I estimate 3-4 thousand. Meanwhile, Tywin's host of 20000 dwindled gradually during his time at Harrenhal through skirmishes, minor battles, the Brotherhood, diseases etc. He had 18000 men during the Battle of the Fords, and lost 6000 there. After all the fighting in this chapter, Tywin was done to 9000 infantry and 600 cavalry. Harys Swyft's arrival brought some 2000 infantry. In total, the Lannister host has slightly less than 12000 men.
Speaking of, let me leave you with a quote by one of my favorite minor characters. "She would have done better to leave the tower and burn her Hand. Harys Swyft? If ever a man deserved his arms, it is Ser Harys." - Genna Lannister.
Well! Enough rambling. Next chapter will be a brief interlude with Myrcella before none other than Daenerys' first proper chapter.
Chapter 95: The Lion's Daughter
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The wind caught her hair again.
Myrcella Baratheon held the golden strands back with one gloved hand as she leaned over the rail at the prow of King Robert’s Hammer. Braavos rose ahead like a beast from the tales; veiled in morning mist, its rooftops jagged like stone teeth, and a towering shadow guarded its mouth. Ahead, a purple-painted galley led their way.
It made her feel very small, just a child standing beneath a giant.
They had left King’s Landing behind more than a sennight ago, with Lionstar, Bold Wind, and Lady Lyanna riding the waves in escort. The sea had been merciful, the skies mostly clear, and the sailors affable … but something unsettled her more than any storms could. Captain Torrek barked orders but never spoke to her unless she spoke to him. The sailors called her ‘princess’, bowed when she looked, and kept their distance. Augus Telares was the only one she held conversation with.
He stood beside her now. She had thought that his clothes were too fine for a banker, all black and silver, and his skin looked like parchment that had never seen the sun. The banker smelled faintly of ink, and she had never seen him smile.
“You have never seen Braavos before, Princess Myrcella?”
The way he said that made it sound less like a question and more of a statement. “No,” she said politely. The banker had made it known that he was no lord, nor ser.
“You must have heard many tales, yes?”
“I have,” she told him, “at times. When the Grand Maester taught us about the east.”
His piercing dark eyes were not so severe and cold when Braavos was the focus of the conversation. “A hundred islands,” he said softly, with some slight fondness, “all connected by stone bridges which span across canals. The waterways are the veins of Braavos, just as the Sealord’s Palace is its face, just as the Bank is its heart.”
“There are three harbors?” She had read that once. Her mother never bore any love for the Free Cities, beyond the silks and laces and mirrors that came from them.
“Three,” the pale man agreed. “The Chequy Port, often for merchants and traders. The Ragman’s Harbor, a poorer and messier sort, where all ships are allowed to dock. The Purple Harbor is where we are headed. It is for Braavosi ships only, but the harbor is beneath the Sealord’s Palace, and he will want to receive you with full honors. It is not every day that a princess comes to Braavos.”
She could not recall the last princess who had stepped foot in Braavos. Surely, it had to be one of the Targaryens. “I shall be honored,” Myrcella said sweetly.
Augus gave a small bow at her answer, coldly courteous as ever. “The Iron Bank has accepted Lord Tyrion’s request. It will be done. Contractors will be hired to ensure you arrive at Dorne unharmed, princess. A few days may be necessary to make the preparations. Please, enjoy the beauty of Braavos until then.”
“What would you recommend?”
“Many places,” the banker said slowly, musing. “The Long Canal is the broadest of the major waterways. A gondola ride is a must, princess. The First Law of Braavos has been engraved in stone on an arch spanning this canal.”
“The First Law?” she tilted her head.
“No man, woman, or child in Braavos will ever be a slave, thrall, or bondsman,” he recited. “The very first decree of the fathers of Braavos, when they fled the wroth of the dragonlords.” A shadow fell on his flat face. “Many in Braavos admired your kingly father for his righteous war. We sang songs and told tales of the brave warrior, who slew the mad dragon, the last beasts of Valyria’s madness.”
That shadow stretched across the deck, casting them in dark. The Titan’s head emerged from the fog, grim and immense. It made her breath catch in her throat. The horn of the Titan sounded then, a deep and mournful cry that rolled across the waves. It made the hair on her arms rise, and for a moment, she thought she felt the ship shudder beneath her feet. The princess had never felt so small.
When the sound finally ended, she glanced at the man. “Do they blow the horn for every ship?”
“Not every,” he shook his head. “Every dawn, every sunset, every hour … and the ships whose cargo are important.”
She misliked being called cargo. “Such as a banker?” Myrcella gave him what she thought was a stern stare, as stern as a girl of eight could be. A princess of eight.
“Such as a princess,” he bowed his head, as if in apology. “There,” he raised his long arm, “the Arsenal.”
When she saw it, she knew at once why Braavos controlled the seas in the east.
The Arsenal sat upon a grey knob of rock, fortified with stone battlements and bristling with scorpions, trebuchets, and spitfires. She saw scores of war galleys in harbor and an innumerable quantity of quays, docks, and wooden sheds holding galleys. Shipbuilders and carpenters were hard at work, sawing planks and lending their hands to the great labor that made the grand fleet of Braavos.
“A galley a day,” Augus Telares said quietly. “Lomas Longstrider marveled at the Titan in his writing, but the true wonder is the Arsenal.”
“You have read Wonders Made By Man?” Myrcella gave him an excited look. She had tried to read it in the Grand Maester’s library, but she had never finished it … the words were too long and complicated and small.
“And many others,” he murmured.
“Why would a banker need to know that?”
“A man reads to learn,” he shrugged, “or for his own enjoyment.”
It was hard to imagine such a severe, cold man to enjoy anything. In truth, he reminded her of her grandfather, Lord Tywin Lannister, just younger and foreign and paler. As the ships moved past the Titan and into the wide mouth of the lagoon, the city unfurled ahead of them; an endless tangle of canals and towers, domes of colored glass and stone, the faint shimmer of a thousand lanterns still lit in the early morning mist. “You had not told me all the places I must see in Braavos.”
“I have not,” the banker bowed. “There is a Sept here, the Sept-Beyond-the-Sea, where those of the Sunset Kingdoms come to pray … it might be best that you avoid that for now. Still, the Isle of the Gods is a sight to see, princess. All gods are honored here in Braavos. On the Isle, you can find the shrine of the Weeping Lady of Lys, the Gardens of Gelenei, and the wooden hall of the Lord of Harmony. There is the house of the Great Shepherd, the three-turreted tower of the Trios, the Stones of the Silent God, and the Patternmaker’s Maze. To the northwest, you will find the Temple of the Moonsingers. It is the largest; a mighty mass of white marble with a silvered dome whose milk glass windows show all faces of the moon.”
“It sounds beautiful,” Myrcella said. She would have to see it.
“Take guards should you go,” he warned, “and avoid the streets at night.”
“Is Braavos not safe?” Myrcella furrowed her brows.
“It is best for you to avoid the Sept-Beyond-the-Sea … and the Temple of the Lord of Light,” he admitted, “and none dare to tread close to the House of Black and White.”
She knew what that was. Unlike Joffrey, she read and listened. “Why?”
“The dueling water dancers are the least of the concerns for the night-time traveler,” the banker said softly. “There is trouble with the House of Black and White, I am told. I do not know the details, for I am just a humble banker, but for the first time in our city’s history … the Faceless Men are contending with rivals.”
Myrcella could grasp his meaning. She did not press further. “I will be careful then,” she was polite as ever. “I thank you for your words of caution, Augus.”
“Let it not sour your time in Braavos,” he urged. “This is the greatest of the Nine, and the only one free. The Iron Bank and the Sealord will see to it that your time here, no matter the duration, will be pleasant. Ah, there it is.” His gaze flickered away.
She saw what had torn his gaze away. It was a majestic palace of white domes and tall towers, and a golden thunderbolt was turning on a spire atop the palace. Augus Telares’ eyes lingered on the palace. They were silent for a long moment.
“It is the Sealord’s Palace,” Augus said at last, though he need not have named it. No other building shone with such towering command over the city. “White marble from Norvos, black steel from Qohor. The domes were shaped by the same masons who built the Moonsingers’ temple. That golden thunderbolt has stood for three hundred years. They say it turns with the will of the Sealord.”
“Does it?” She was truly curious.
A ghost of a smile grew on his lips. “It turns with the wind. But there is power in belief. You Westerosi adore your beasts. Lions and wolves and stags. There is a menagerie in the Sealord’s palace, whose creatures will be foreign and queer to you. Striped horses, great spotted things with necks as long as stilts, manticores … We Braavosi understand the power of symbols as well, but subtlety holds weight here.”
“Does the Sealord wear a banner?”
“Westeros adores its banners, I am told, and I have seen.” He looked at her with eyes of coal. “When Aegon the Dragon unfurled his baleful banner of black and red, he was considered … Westerosi. As an establishment, the Iron Bank favors a symbol of its own. Two golden triangles crossed in the manner of an hourglass, with two hands extending left and right where the points meet, our palms held upwards. Sooner or later, the Iron Bank gets its due, it means to say … but Braavos lacks a banner, yes, but we fly purple flags. Do you know why purple is important to us?”
She shook her head, eager to learn.
“When Braavos was yet undiscovered, sailors found a sea snail similar to those in Tyrosh, whose dyes made their name. The snails we found in our own waters yielded dyes of dark purple, which the first fathers used to color the sails of the ships they stole from the Valyrians. They painted the hulls purple too, and the flags. Their defiance lives on. Today, Braavos is the wealthiest of the Free Cities. Our ships rule the Shivering Sea. And still, we paint our flags and hulls purple. There is a stretch of land to the south that Braavos has claimed. The western coast of Lorath Bay is also under our control. Proud purple flags fly over these lands, princess.”
“I see,” she met his gaze.
“Still,” the banker mused, “a banner … holds certain uses.”
“If you were to make a banner for Braavos,” she was curious, “what would you make it look like?”
His lips twitched, and he held her stare. “The Titan on a field of purple.”
“I would like to see that someday,” she told him honestly. She looked at the thunderbolt again, spinning slowly in the morning air. It caught the sunlight, flashing like a fallen star. This is a beautiful city, thought Myrcella, unlike King’s Landing.
The other ships were slowing now, oars lifting from the water as they made ready to dock. Their Braavosi escort galley glided ahead, flags raised in signal. The Purple Harbor was wider than she expected, its piers lined with vessels from every corner of the world; sleek pleasure yachts, fat merchant cogs, lean warships with sails like dragon wings. And all of them were flying the purple pennant of the Sealord.
As the ship began to turn, she saw it: a small group awaiting them at the harbor’s edge, beneath a canopy of bright purple silk. Soldiers in black helms and long spears, a tall man in flowing sea-green robes, and several figures cloaked in the silver and black of the Iron Bank. Augus Telares followed her gaze.
“Here to welcome you,” he whispered with the wind, “and to weigh you.”
“I am a princess,” she reminded him, and herself.
“You are,” the banker said softly.
As the ship slid into the harbor and ropes were cast and caught, she pressed her hand to her chest, where beneath the folds of her cloak she wore a small golden brooch shaped like a roaring lion. A sailor brought the gangplank. Drums began to beat, soft and steady, a Braavosi rhythm to announce a guest of rank, she was told. Myrcella Baratheon stepped forward, her chin held high. Her departed father was a king, so was her brother, and she was a princess of the realm … for now.
Notes:
It is so hard to write a child's POV. Anyways, Myrcella is a great character, sweet and kind but smart and sharp. I think she would be great friends with Shireen in another life. But, well, incest and war and all!
Fun fact, in ACOK, there was an unnamed envoy from the Iron Bank who arrives at the Red Keep. Tyrion sends him to Littlefinger and that's that, we never see that envoy, don't even know his name. In this fic, Baelish is, well, dead. Therefore, Tyrion had to deal with the banker himself (as seen in one of his earlier chapters before sending him away from King's Landing on the same ship as Myrcella since that ship is headed for Braavos anyways before Dorne). Augus Telares is, therefore, an OC.
Chapter 96: Daenerys I: The House of the Undying
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
She found herself in a stone anteroom with four doors, one on each wall. She remembered the warlock’s words. Always up, always the door to your right.
With never a hesitation, Daenerys Targaryen went to the door on her right and stepped through. The second room was a twin to the first. Again, she turned to the right-hand door. When she pushed it open, she faced yet another small antechamber with four dark doors. She was in the presence of sorcery, thought Daenerys.
The fourth room was oval rather than square, and its walls were made of worm-eaten wood instead of stone. Six passages led out from it in place of four. Dany chose the rightmost, and entered a long, dim, high-ceilinged hall. Along the right hand was a row of torches, each burning with a different smoky light, but the only doors were to her left. Drogon unfolded wide black wings and beat the stale air. He flew twenty feet before thudding to an undignified crash. Dany strode after him.
The mold-eaten carpet under her feet had once been gorgeously colored, and whorls of gold could still be seen in the fabric, glinting broken amidst the faded grey and mottled green. What remained served to muffle her footfalls, but that was not all to the good. Dany could hear sounds within the walls, a faint scurrying and scrabbling that made her think of rats. Rats and other beasts; hounds and snakes and strange birds. Drogon heard them too. His head moved as he followed the sounds, and when they stopped, he gave an angry scream. Other sounds, even more disturbing, came through some of the closed doors. One shook and thumped, as if someone were trying to break through. From another came a dissonant piping that made the dragon lash his black tail wildly from side to side. One room rang with a deep, cackling sound that never ended, and another haunted her with the screams of children.
Dany hurried quickly past.
Not all the doors were closed, however. I will not look, Dany told herself, but the temptation was too strong, nudging and clutching at her head.
In one room, a beautiful maiden sprawled naked on the floor while four monstrous beasts crawled over her. The first was a blood-stained hound, snarling and feasting upon her open belly. The second was a rotting crow, pecking blissfully at the maiden’s maggot-eaten eyes. The third was a pulsing pink serpent, sipping white venom between the woman’s thighs. The fourth was a bright blue raven with too many eyes, drinking a deep blue milk from the lady’s swollen breasts.
Farther on, she came upon a broken castle in the snow. A sea of blood pooled around the grey and white, seeping in like snakes. There was a feast of corpses within, each devoured by slithering serpents with eyes that gleamed with pleasure. Savagely slaughtered, she saw old women and brave knights alike, flayed and impaled and screaming without mouths. One old knight met her eyes and followed her silently with mute agony. Far away, she heard the haunted howling of wolves.
Dany fled, but only as far as the next open door. I know this room, she thought. She remembered those great wooden beams and the carved animal faces that adorned them. And there outside the window, the lemon tree. The sight of it made her heart ache with longing. It is the house with the red door, the house in Braavos. No sooner had she thought it than old Ser Willem came into the room, leaning heavily on his stick. “Little princess, there you are,” he said in his gruff kind voice. “Come,” he said, “come to me, my lady, you’re home now, you’re safe now.”
“You’re dead,” she said, her heart pounding.
His smile twisted, and his flesh was rotting. “Come,” he said again, but his voice was legion. She backed away and ran as fast as she could.
The long hall went on and on and on, with endless doors to her left and only dying torches to her right. She ran past more doors than she could count, closed doors and open ones, doors of wood and doors of iron, carved doors and plain ones, doors with pulls and doors with locks and doors with knockers. Drogon lashed against her back with a black whip, urging her on, and Dany ran until she could run no more.
She placed a hand against the red wall, gasping for breath. A door of old, rotting wood opened across her hall, and Dany turned her head in shock. A song was playing from within, sorrowful and soft, though she saw a battle in its place.
“High in the halls of the kings who are gone,” a woman was singing sadly, “Jenny would dance with her ghosts.”
But the mournful song was drowned out by the roar of clashing steel. She saw the biggest man she had ever seen, clad all in red steel with a skull weeping blood. He towers over even Drogo. Dany was in horror. In his hand was a sword larger than her, and red tears sipped from the rusted steel. A young man in a wolfskin cloak met him with an axe of frost, but the greatsword pierced through his heart. Far and faintly, a horde of dying men marched with rotten flesh, groaning and laughing. Then, the world went bright and she heard a sound like the roar of her dragons.
Stumbling away from the door, she saw a familiar face in the next room. From the inky black of the quiet room, a dark red lacquer mask watched her in the silence. Wet and shiny eyes were glimmering at her like so many stars, and Dany was frozen. Quaithe of the Shadow sat in the dark, beckoning for her to step into the shadow. “To go forward, you must go back,” Quaithe said once more, “and to touch the light, you must pass beneath the shadow.”
“Why are you here?” Daenerys demanded. “Who are you?”
Quaithe did not respond. Starlight pooled from her eyes, and some of the shade dissipated. In the brief light, Dany saw the night sky in Quaithe’s black cloak. She saw herself stabbing a slender blade of smoky steel into a pool of darkness. A single tear trickled down her face, bright as a crystal. Then, all the world was aflame with shadow, bright and dark all at the same time.
And then she was gone, disappearing into the black. In her place, a beast with a thousand violet eyes, swollen from all over its blackened skin, watched her. Some of the eyes were mad, others were proud, and a few were sad. Garbled nonsense came from its maw, and she saw how its burnt black flesh was smoking. Fire and blood, one voice cackled. Burn them all, another told her.
Dany fled once more.
Finally, a great pair of bronze doors appeared to her left, grander than the rest. They swung open as she neared, and she had to stop and look. Beyond loomed a cavernous stone hall, the largest she had ever seen. The skulls of dead dragons looked down from its walls, each a silent sentinel. Upon a towering barbed throne of iron sat an old man in rich robes, a withered man with dark eyes and long silver-grey hair. “Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat,” he said to a figure below him. “Let him be the king of ashes.” Drogon shrieked, his claws digging through silk and skin, but the king on his throne never heard, and Dany moved on.
There was another throne room in the next, past a pair of great gold doors. This time, a young king in red robes sat atop a golden throne. Red banners strewn the long, crowded hall, with an orange flaming bird emblazoned proudly upon them. The king’s violet eyes watched her dispassionately as she entered, the sea of courtiers parting before her. He wore a crown of beaten gold, shaped like a bird of fire. She did not know why, but she felt sad beyond her years. She turned, and left once more.
Viserys, was her first thought the next time she paused, but a second glance told her otherwise. The man had her brother’s hair, but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac. “Aegon,” he said to a beautiful woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. “What better name for a king?”
“Will you make a song for him?” the woman asked.
“He has a song,” the man replied. “He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.” He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany’s, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. “There must be one more,” he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. “The dragon has three heads.” He went to the window seat, picked up a harp, and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.
But it was not so long later that she heard another song. This time, it was a sweet summer sound that made her think of the house with the red door, and she saw a green-eyed singer strumming a lute atop a stump, bright blonde hair falling around his fair face. Around a campfire sat three others, though she could not see them in full. A part of her longed to linger, to sit and listen and join their company… but the green eyes fell upon her and shook his head with a melancholic mystery.
It seemed as though she walked for another hour before the long hall finally ended in a steep stone stair, descending into darkness. Every door, open or closed, had been to her left. Dany looked back behind her. The torches were going out, she realized with a start of fear. Perhaps twenty still burned. Thirty at most. One more guttered out even as she watched, and the darkness came a little farther down the hall, creeping toward her. And as she listened, it seemed as if she heard something else coming, shuffling and dragging itself slowly along the faded carpet. Terror filled her. She could not go back and she was afraid to stay here, but how could she go on? There was no door on her right, and the steps went down, not up.
Yet another torch went out as she stood pondering, and the sounds grew faintly louder. Now, she heard the gurgling cloak of ravens and the laughter of mad men. Drogon’s long neck snaked out, and he opened his mouth to scream, steam rising from between his teeth. He hears it too. Dany turned to the blank wall once more, but there was nothing. Could there be a secret door, a door I cannot see? Another torch went out. Another. The first door on the right, he said, always the first door on the right. The first door on the right…
It came to her suddenly… is the last door on the left!
She flung herself through. Beyond was another small room with four doors. To the right she went, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, until she was dizzy and out of breath once more.
When she stopped, she found herself in yet another dank stone chamber ... but this time the door opposite was round, shaped like an open mouth, and Pyat Pree stood outside in the grass beneath the trees. “Can it be that the Undying are done with you so soon?” he asked in disbelief when he saw her.
“So soon?” she said, confused. “I’ve walked for hours, and still not found them.”
“You have taken a wrong turning. Come, I will lead you.” Pyat Pree held out his hand.
Dany hesitated. There was a door to her right, still closed ...
“That’s not the way,” Pyat Pree said firmly, his blue lips prim with disapproval. “The Undying Ones will not wait forever.”
“Our little lives are no more than a flicker of a moth’s wing to them,” Dany said, remembering.
“Stubborn child. You will be lost, and never found.”
She walked away from him, to the door on the right.
“No,” Pyat screeched. “No, to me, come to me, to meeeeeee.” His face crumbled inward, changing to something pale and wormlike.
Dany left him behind, entering a stairwell. She began to climb. Before long, her legs were aching. She recalled that the House of the Undying Ones had seemed to have no towers.
Finally, the stairs opened. To her right, a set of wide wooden doors had been thrown open. They were fashioned of ebony and weirwood, the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. They were very beautiful, yet somehow frightening. The blood of the dragon must not be afraid. Dany said a quick prayer, begging the Warrior for courage and the Dothraki horse god for strength. She made herself walk forward. If I look back, I am lost.
Beyond the doors was a great old hall and a splendor of wizards. Some wore sumptuous robes of ermine, ruby velvet, and cloth of gold. Others fancied elaborate armor studded with gemstones, or tall pointed hats speckled with stars. There were women among them, dressed in gowns of surpassing loveliness. Shafts of sunlight slanted through windows of stained glass, and the air was alive with the most beautiful music she had ever heard.
A kingly man in rich red robes rose when he saw her, and smiled. “Daenerys of House Targaryen, be welcome. Come and share the food of forever. We are the Undying of Qarth.”
“Long have we awaited you,” said a woman beside him, clad in rose and silver. The breast she had left bare in the Qartheen fashion was as perfect as a breast could be.
“We knew you were to come to us,” the wizard king said. “A thousand years ago, we knew, and have been waiting all this time. We sent the comet to show you the way.” The smile on his face was sweet, and false.
“We have knowledge to share with you,” said a warrior in shining emerald armor and a blade of pale green hung by his hip, “and magic weapons to arm you with. You have passed every trial, daughter of fire, mother of flame. Now come and sit with us, and all your questions shall be answered.”
She took a step forward. But then Drogon leapt from her shoulder. He flew to the top of the ebony-and-weirwood door, perched there, and began to bite angrily at the carved wood.
“A willful beast,” laughed a handsome young man. “Shall we teach you the secret speech of dragonkind? Come, come,” he urged. “We were here for ancient times, and we alone still remember the secrets of old Valyria.”
“Yes,” took up the call from a beautiful young woman. “You are the last of the dragon, are you not? Yet, you do not need to be. We know the way.”
Doubt seized her. The great door was so heavy it took all of Dany’s strength to budge it, but finally it began to move. Behind was another door, hidden. It was old grey wood, splintery and plain ... but it stood to the right of the door through which she’d entered. The wizards were beckoning her with voices sweeter than song. She ran from them, Drogon flying back down to her. Through the narrow door she passed, into a chamber awash in gloom.
A long stone table filled this room. Above it floated a human heart, swollen and blue with corruption, yet still alive. It beat, a deep ponderous throb of sound, and each pulse sent out a wash of indigo light. The figures around the table were no more than blue shadows. As Dany walked to the empty chair at the foot of the table, they did not stir, nor speak, nor turn to face her. There was no sound but the slow, deep beat of the rotting heart.
… mother of dragons… came a voice, part whisper and part moan.
… dragons … dragons … dragons … other voices echoed in the cold, dark gloom. Some were male; young men and old warriors. Some were female; young maidens and old crones. One spoke with the soft timbre of a child, and another had the deep voice of a beast. The floating heart pulsed from dimness to darkness, from dusklight to dawnshine. It was hard to summon the will to speak, to recall the words she had practiced so assiduously. “I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.” Do they hear me? Why don’t they move? She sat, folding her hands in her lap. “Grant me your counsel, and speak to me with the wisdom of those who have conquered death.”
Through the violet haze, she could see the wizened features of the Undying One to her right; an ancient man, wrinkled and hairless. His flesh was a ripe violet-blue, his lips and nails bluer still, so dark they were almost black. Even the whites of his eyes were blue. They stared unseeing at the ancient woman on the opposite side of the table, whose gown of pale silk had rotted on her body. One withered breast was left bare in the Qartheen manner, to show a pointed blue nipple hard as leather.
They are not breathing. Dany listened to the silence. They do not move, and those eyes see nothing. Are the Undying Ones dead?
Her answer was a deathly whisper. We live … live … live… It sounded. Myriad other voices echoed… And know… know… know… know
“I have come for the gift of truth,” Dany said. “In the long hall, the things I saw ... were they true visions, or lies? Past things, or things to come? What did they mean?”
… the shape of shadows … morrows not yet made … a wizened voice croaked to her. Drink from the cup of ice … A crone told her. Drink from the cup of fire…
… mother of dragons … child of three … mother of none…
“Three? None?” She did not understand.
… three heads has the dragon… the ghostly chorus hammered inside her skull with never a pale lip moving, never a cold breath stirring the still blue air.
Mother of dragons … child of storm … The whispers swirled into a song. Three fires must you light … one for life and one for death and one to love…
Her own heart was beating in unison with the fell one that floated before her, blue and corrupt and wicked. Three mounts must you ride … one to bed and one to dread and one to love …
The voices were growing louder, she realised, and it seemed her heart had slowed, and her breath too. Three treasons will you know … once for blood and once for gold and once for love …
“I don’t ...” Her voice was no more than a whisper, almost as faint as theirs. What was happening to her? “I don’t understand,” she said, more loudly. Why was it so hard to talk here? “Help me. Show me.”
Help her … the whispers mocked dreadfully … show her…
And they did. The phantoms shivered through the murk, images in indigo.
Viserys was screaming, as they held him down and the molten gold ran down his cheeks and filled his gold. There, he was crowned. There, he was dead. A face, crusted in gold, watched her with undying eyes. “Sister,” Viserys’ voice rang, hollow in gold. “Sister, sweet sister, sister.”
A tall lord with copper skin and silver-gold hair stood beneath the banner of a fiery stallion, a city burning behind him. Violet eyes met hers, and the mounted man smiled. “Mother,” he said sweetly, proud and softly. “Mother, mother, mother.”
Rubies flew like little drops of frozen blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and, with his last breath, murmured a woman’s name. She saw his eyes as the light left them, and a deep sorrow was all that was left.
Mother of dragons, the voices echoed, daughter of death…
Glowing like sunrise, a blue-eyed king raised a flaming sword beneath the cold shadow of a great wall of ice. An army was behind him, and death was beyond. A woman in red sang before a great fire, in the burnt carcass of a summer castle. The green-eyed bard sang a sweet song to an old ghost atop a high hill, as the eyes of gods watched in the gloomy dawn. A greatsword was shining like a star, pale bright light held in the hands of a young man as he slew the dark.
Mother of dragons, the voices rang, slayer of lies…
Her silver was trotting through the grass to a darkling stream beneath a sea of silent stars. A man embraced a boy’s burnt body, weeping silent tears beneath the shadow of dragons and a sky of fire. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, lightened by a gold glow from the sky, and filled the air with sorrow and sweetness. Three dragons danced in the sky above a battlefield, with fires black and blue and pink painting the heavens in baleful colors.
A white tower jutted from a black stone, with a great flame burning at its top. Thousands of men were dying in battle, and horrors were stepping through from gaping maws in the sky. Multicolored fires were burning, and a one-eyed man watched her from a ship with black sails. He removed his eyepatch, and she saw a malevolent black sea beneath. He opened his mouth to speak, but the sky rained fire. A dark rage grew on his face, and all she heard was the croak of ravens.
Mother of dragons, the voices came, bride of fire…
Faster and faster, the visions came, one after the other, like the very air had come alive. A shadow danced inside a tent, boneless and terrible … until a light came from within like the glow of the sun. A little girl ran barefoot toward a big house with a red door. Mirri Maz Duur shrieked in the flames, a dragon bursting from her brow.
Six marble statues marched down a long road. An old knight and a preacher in brown robes with a dog by his side, a young girl with dark hair and a young man with even darker hair. A tall, thin woman with brown hair and eyes, and a taller man in a black cloak with a sword. The preacher met her eyes and smiled at her. “Well met,” he told her, with kindly eyes and a gentle voice. “We seek a wise woman.”
Before she could speak, they were gone. Behind a silver horse, the bloody corpse of a naked man bounced and dragged. A white lion ran through grass taller than a man. Beneath the Mother of Mountains, a line of naked crones crept from a great lake and knelt shivering before her, their grey heads bowed and bleeding. Ten thousand slaves lifted bloodstained hands as she raced by on her silver, riding like the wind.
“Mother!” they cried. “Mother, mother!”
They were reaching for her, touching her and tugging at her cloak, the hem of her skirt, her foot, her leg, her breast. They wanted her, needed her, the fire, the life, and Dany gasped and opened her arms to give herself and all she could to them … then, they were screaming, and burning. No, Dany wept, watching from a ship as dragonflame consumed wood and flesh and men.
Black wings buffeted her round the head, and a scream of fury cut the indigo air. The visions were ripped away, and her gasp turned to horror. The Undying were all around her, blue and cold, whispering as they reached for her, pulling, stroking, tugging at her clothes, touching her with their dry cold hands, twining their fingers through her hair. All the strength had left her limbs. She could not move. Even her heart had ceased to beat. She felt a hand on her bare breast, twisting her nipple. Teeth found the soft skin of her throat. A mouth descended on one eye, licking, sucking, biting … then, she heard the voice.
"Soul of ancient earth! Wake from sleep! Let your spirit rise, let your heart beat, let your eyes open… You know my voice, You sensed my presence in your long slumber. Come now, answer the call. I have been calling you since you first stirred. Listen. Awaken. Stir. My will is before you. Bind your will to mine. Our minds shall be joined, our powers merged. We shall become one mind, one power. Our minds shall be joined. Our powers merged. One mind, one power."
Then indigo turned to orange, and whispers turned to screams. Her heart was pounding, racing, the hands and mouths were gone, heat washed over her skin, and Dany blinked at a sudden glare. Perched above her, the dragon spread his wings and tore at the terrible dark heart, ripping the rotten flesh to ribbons, and when his head snapped forward, fire flew from his open jaws, bright and hot. She could hear the shrieks of the Undying as they burned, their high thin papery voices crying out in tongues long dead. Their flesh was crumbling parchment, their bones dry wood soaked in tallow. They danced as the flames consumed them; they staggered and writhed and spun and raised blazing hands on high, their fingers bright as torches.
And in the flames, she saw the twin-tailed comet once more, blazing with a vengeful light. They did not send the comet, Dany knew. It was not them. The comet was a dot in the flame now, far and faint… and at the heart of the fire was a pit of black.
Dany pulled herself to her feet, pushing through the burning bodies. They were light as air, no more than husks, and they fell at a touch. The whole room was ablaze by the time she reached the door. “Drogon,” she called, and he flew to her through the fire.
Outside a long dim passageway stretched serpentine before her, lit by the flickering orange glare from behind. Dany ran, searching for a door, a door to her right, a door to her left, any door, but there was nothing, only twisty stone walls, and a floor that seemed to move slowly under her feet, writhing as if to trip her. She kept her feet and ran faster, and suddenly the door was there ahead of her, a door like an open mouth.
When she spilled out into the sun, the bright light made her stumble. Pyat Pree was gibbering in some unknown tongue and hopping from one foot to the other. Then, Drogon roared and drowned the warlock in black flames. When Dany looked behind her, she saw thin tendrils of smoke forcing their way through cracks in the ancient stone walls of the Palace of Dust and rising from between the black tiles of the roof. The House of the Undying, thought Daenerys Targaryen, defeated in the flames of the dragon.
Omake: Bear Fight
The trestle table collapsed under the weight of the bear knight.
His longsword flew and tumbled through the air, spinning with sharp, bright light before falling into a sea of splinters and shards. The blade was joined by a plate of greasy sausages, a bowl of brown mutton stew, and a wooden mug of foamy beer. Andrei crossed the distance with three swift steps, and smashed a mailed fist against the ugly face of Jorah Mormont as he tried to rise.
The sound of a cracked nose echoed through the tavern, as Mormont stumbled back, clutching at his bleeding, broken nose. A harsh kick to the guts sent him tumbling back. Lucia watched idly as the old Kossar kicked his sword away before advancing on the knight. When the man came to his feet, he roared like a wounded beast and charged. Bearded and balding, the two men almost looked similar. Burly and hairy, with heavy black brows and dark deep-set eyes … but the exiled knight of Bear Island was half the man Andrei was, and a tenth of the fighter.
“A bear there was, a bear, a bear! All black and brown, and covered with hair!” sang the singer sweetly beside her, strumming his lute vigorously. Lorenzo’s eyes were closed, the bright emeralds behind them denied to the world, but a small smile bloomed upon his lips. Gunther was cheering on the old soldier, a meat pie in one hand and a cup of ale in the other. Lucia tapped her fingers upon the handle of her mace impatiently. “I want a few hits in,” she declared.
“The bear will be skinned by the time you enter the ring,” the thief sniggered. To which, Lorenzo smiled and said, “To call the man a bear is a grievous insult to those great beasts. Our fierce friend will say so.”
“He might as well be a boar the way he’s charging,” she told them, watching as Mormont’s charge was broken with a harsh backhand by Andrei.
The singer shrugged and returned to his song. “Oh come they said, oh come to the fair! The fair? Said he, but I'm a bear! All black and brown, and covered with hair!”
“And down the road from here to there. From here! To there! Three boys, a goat and a dancing bear! They danced and spun, all the way to the fair! The fair! The fair!”
As the summer song rang through the timbers of the empty inn, Andrei’s fists descended upon the bear knight. Roaring with an ursine annoyance, the Kossar fell upon the man like a storm; smashing his fist against Jorah Mormont’s face, seizing his head and slamming him down onto a table, grabbing a greasy plate and crashing it against the knight’s face. When Mormont’s fingers clutched around the hilt of his dirk, Andrei took three of the fingers in his fist and broke them.
A howl snapped through the common room, sharp and sweet with agony. “Oh, sweet she was, and pure and fair! The maid with honey in her hair! Her hair! Her hair! The maid with honey in her hair!”
“Do you think the dragon queen has honey in her hair?” asked the thief.
“If she has,” Lucia replied, “he won’t be tasting it.” Not with three of his teeth over there, and another two over there. He will be eating soup and gruel and porridge for the rest of his life, if there is one. Across the hall, Andrei grunted as his steel-tipped boots crashed violently against Mormont’s face. The world was silent as the knight wheezed and cringed in pain on the ground, clutching at wood splinters, as well as he could with three broken fingers that were facing the wrong way.
“Get up.”
Jorah Mormont spat a glob of blood, grunted, and stumbled to his feet. The man is no coward, she would give as much. Again, many men were fearless monsters. A hairy clenched fist came soaring through the air for the old Kossar … who only caught it, twisted it, before smashing an empty mug into the knight’s face. Mormont stumbled back, bleeding from his mouth and nose, before clutching at a meat knife from a half-broken table and charged once more, roaring all the while.
“The bear smelled the scent on the summer air. The bear! The bear! All black and brown and covered with hair! He smelled the scent on the summer air! He sniffed and roared and smelled it there! Honey on the summer air!”
In the chaos, Gunther had slipped away to the table where Jorah Mormont had occupied. The thief returned with a half-empty pouch and a sour face. “Three silvers and a handful of pennies,” he complained, “I might as well have stolen from a child.”
“Oh, I'm a maid, and I'm pure and fair! I'll never dance with a hairy bear! A bear! A bear! I'll never dance with a hairy bear!”
“This fight is gold enough for me,” Lucia snorted.
Gunther rolled his eyes. “Fight? An eagle fights a hawk, a wolf skirmishes with a jackal, and a lion fights a tiger … but a bear doesn’t fight a fish.”
“The bear, the bear! Lifted her high into the air! The bear! The bear!” To the sound of that line, Andrei lifted the man into the air. Bone and guts, plate and mail, thought Lucia. The old man is strong. The broken knight struggled in the air for a second, before he went soaring through the air for another second and came crashing down onto the floorboards to the sound of “I called for a knight, but you're a bear! A bear, a bear! All black and brown and covered with hair!”
He knows what he’s doing, she thought, amused. A quick glance at the singer showed a wider smile on his fair face, curved like the crescent moon. Emerald eyes watched the pair of fighters, amusement shining brightly in them. “Come on!” shouted Gunther, bored. “How much longer are you going to take?”
To which, Andrei seized the man’s head and smashed it against the edge of a table. No man nor maid would ever accuse Jorah Mormont of being fair of face, but the bear knight looked grotesque now. His face was a tapestry of red and purple, blood leaking in rivulets from his broken nose and mouth. Half of his teeth were ruined beyond measure, cracked little islands in a sea of scarlet. His eyes were swollen things, round and red. A string of garbled curses and sounds emerged from torn lips but the Kossar paid it no mind. “Get up,” he demanded.
When the knight closed his eyes, Andrei shook his head. “You are … disgrace.”
“Then she sighed and squealed and kicked the air! My bear! She sang. My bear so fair! And off they went, from here to there, the bear, the bear, and the maiden fair.”
As the song ended, the singer strummed a few soft notes on his lute to end the sweet sounds that had permeated the air, humming all the while. Lucia glanced at the broken man. He won’t be going anywhere, she thought. Far from a summer fair, they would need to carry him to the privy and hold his cock so that he could piss blood. Three minutes ago, she was rearing to join in the brutality, but there was no point in it now. She might as well beat a pig’s carcass for all that it would avail her.
“Three boys, a goat, and a dancing bear,” mused Gunther, breaking the silence. “We have a bear,” he pointed at Andrei. “Three boys too … will we need to find a goat?”
“Goat milk is good,” grumbled the old soldier. “We can sell you for a goat.”
“We can sell you for a dancing bear,” the thief threw back. “He won’t drink or reek as much, and it’ll take up less space on the bench.”
The Kossar seized a scarlet sausage from a platter, bit off half of it, and threw the other half at the laughing thief, who ducked under the juicy red arrow. When the sniggering stopped, she spoke. “He’s still alive.”
“Let him,” grunted Andrei. “Death … too good.”
“As you say,” the singer declared. “We have a long ride to go, my friends. Shall I sing us The Dornishman’s Wife?” Lorenzo strummed a note, smiling at her.
“Sing whatever you like,” she told him, “but sing it on the road. Now that this mess is done, can we go?”
Notes:
Chapter Reference: Daenerys IV, ACOK
And the dragon queen arrives into the narrative! Obviously, this is a chapter deep with prophecy and visions, and such, foreshadowing many things to come ... Have fun theorising them!
As for the omake, I just wanted to write Andrei thrashing Jorah Mormont. Sue me.
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