Chapter Text
Alicent’s warm fingers dug into her arm. “Rhaenyra. Look,” she gasped.
He was dancing.
She saw the warrior grey and dusted amidst mirror sheens, glinting filigrees, and feathered helms. Her first thought was that he was a knight. Then she recognized the fluid motions. On her eleventh name-day Father hired two bravos to dance with rapiers, and the display was magnificent, but never in her life had heard it done in plate and mail. Thus her second thought became, How is he winning?
The figure evades swords like they’re heavy steel clubs wielded by heavy steel oafs. He shifts about them like water round stone. His longsword strikes out as if it’s a part of his arm, a vicious steel viper. Alan Tarly’s son falls to him, another in the long list of noblemen’s sons and hedge knights that tally shallow scores into the edge of his blade before eating dust. He kicks out the legs of Vaquin the Lorathi beneath him. Ser Rickard Thorne is struck hard across his helm with the pommel and does not rise.
The stranger has yet to falter.
The twins come closest to felling him. Shining like two pale statues of hewn marble they approach, white swords in hand. That they team up against one at all is unusual – some would say dishonourable. Rhaenyra calls it smart.
He holds his own magnificently. The Cargylls manage four strikes against his armour before the tides turn. A daring pirouette flows into a hook of his crossguard behind one twin’s neck before he spins them into the other. The master stroke is followed up by a dash. His sword lashes out twice, one to each helm, so hard dust clouds are knocked from them. The crowd screams and Rhaenyra with them.
The twins are left limp in the dust and the knight steps back - before giving a deep bow. Mocking, perhaps.
Even Alicent is laughing, clapping – a rare sight indeed, for her stomach never agreed with violence. Yet her delight now is genuine.
Rhaenyra is equally as delighted, and unsurprised, when the dust settles and the mystery knight alone remains to face her uncle.
The crowd takes her aback. Half take up for the stranger, cheering and hollering with excitement. The other half remember their love of their Prince of the City, though theirs take the form of jeers against the interloper.
If Daemon notices the divide, he does naught but grin. He raises his shield and sword, an avalanche of cheers rise with them, as though he is a sorcerer of the masses.
Only then does he face his opponent.
“I thought you would look younger,” a distorted voice taunts.
Daemon lunges.
“Who is he?” Alicent says, enraptured by the ease of his dodges. The minutes of constant dancing and striking has yet to slouch his shoulders. His gait and stance remain elegant. His movements still flow. “A Braavosi?”
Rhaenyra calls for Ser Harrold. “Who is that man?”
The old knight’s eyebrows furrow. “If I’m not mistaken, he is the one the scribes listed as the Knight of the Mountain Rose, but with no shield or tabard carrying his device I can’t be certain.”
“What device would that be?”
“A rose cerulean on grey, simply enough.”
“A knight of the Vale?” Alicent observes.
“If a knight at all. No knight fights like a juggler performs. If his intent is to earn his spurs when he reveals himself, none worthy the title of Ser would give this prancer such an honour. Knighthood is no mummer's troupe, my lady.”
Rhaenyra tries not to laugh at his offended sense of honour. “Thank you, Ser Harrold.” The old knight remembers himself and apologizes before returning to his post. The girls share an amused glance.
Fighting the Rogue Prince wielding Dark Sister was madness, but to do the same without a shield of one’s own was a different species of such, Rhaenyra thinks. She expects to look back and find the mystery knight’s performance abandoned for a more serious bout. She is wrong to.
Some small part of Rhaenyra’s pride is wounded to see Daemon danced about like a green boy, yet she can’t conjure with a more fitting comparison. The mystery knight is laughing! As irreverent of the half of the crowd that chants for his defeat as the half that chants for his victory, he makes sport of Daemon seemingly for his own amusement.
Her frustration grows. As soon as Rhaenyra cries out “Hit him!” her uncle proves that his has too, for readily he flings his shield away, takes Dark Sister in both hands, and swings.
The knight backsteps to save his neck. A nod of approval.
A sudden groan of annoyance echoes from within the visored helm. His chipped sword lowers. Alicent leans on the fence with her as the mystery knight grabs his helm, and wrenches it free. It is thrown back into the crowd. All Rhaenyra sees from behind is the dark mane that falls free in a thick soft drape of waves over his neck.
A curt brawl in the stands is swiftly broken up by guards. The victor, or thief, holds up the helmet in cackling celebration with more fingers than he has teeth in his grinning mouth.
“Don’t let them buy it off you for less than seven-hundred stags!” the stranger yells, before turning to face Daemon.
“Gods," Alicent says, "he’s Dornish!”
Rhaenyra concurs, he could not be anything else.
He is also as young and handsome as she could have dreamed. Even his scars are pleasing. His face bears a grin that, now bared, looks vicious. Oddly, that excites her.
She finds herself cheering the handsome stranger on.
He adopts the Knight’s way of fighting with renewed vigor, and she cannot help but think him well pleased to be rid of the helm. She sees the eerie mirroring of her uncle’s motions. Rhaenyra can’t say if the mimicry is showmanship, respect, or mockery. Regardless it earns him Daemon’s ire. The Rogue Prince charges.
He is either brave or suicidal to taunt – Dark Sister will not spare his pretty face.
Yet the dornishman’s confidence is not misplaced. Dark Sister never cuts him, and not for lack of attempts. Soon even the latter half of the crowd are charmed by his skill as well as his dashing looks, and the jeers that once fought with the cheers in the tourney grounds begin to join them.
The clash of blades is a strident song, but one of the dornishman’s tune: aggressive. He puts Daemon on the backfoot, and every attempt by her uncle to turn the tide are met with ruthless and efficient counters that seem more warning than wounding, striking plate and concussing rather than cutting weak spots. “Dance to my tune or taste the sting of my sword,” he seems to say.
It is a cruel game – cut short. Sparking steel shrieks in agony. Rhaenyra gasps. Dark Sister cuts the mystery knight’s blade in twain–
She and Alicent both yelp in surprise as the now-bladeless hilt is thrown at Daemon’s face, distracting him from the mystery knight, who lowers. Like a bolt of lightning, he spears into Daemon’s waist. Her uncle is wrestled into the dirt.
It is as one-sided as the sword fight. She knows not who is stronger for the stranger makes it a game of finesse and agility. Like a coiling, laughing serpent, he wraps arm and leg about the Rogue Prince, constricts limb and body, and when her uncle’s head is under his armpit his mirth finally leaves his face. He strains, wrenches, stretches the Prince of the City until her uncle is entirely still. For half a heartbeat, she is terrified he has died.
“YIELD!” the Dornishman barks.
A Targaryen-black gauntlet pats his arm. She sighs in relief.
The cheers must cut deeper than the defeat, Rhaenyra knows. This Dornish stranger who throws Daemon aside and rises to his feet, breathing heavy, has stolen the city’s love. Even if only for the evening.
And mine besides, she jested in her mind. Half-jested, she amended, when the melee’s victor came closer. He seemed to grow more handsome with every step.
He greeted Alicent first with a polite bow, before turning to her. “I had thought to reveal my visage in exchange for your favour, Princess, but I tired of that cage.” For a Dornishman, he had only the hint of an accent. His smile drew attention to the dashing scar that ran down his lips’ plush. She wondered how it would feel against hers. “Will the dedication of my victory be enough?”
Oh. Right. He was speaking to her.
Taking the garland from the pedestal, she tossed it to him with a smile. He caught it. His eyes rose. So softly, he thanked her, inclined his head, and finally broke eye contact when he turned from them.
A sudden, unbecoming fear that he would disappear the moment he left her sight made her panic. “I shall expect your dedication at the joust tomorrow!” Her blurt drew Alicent’s scandalized look, but even her friend paid him attention the moment he stared over his shoulder.
“Shall you?” A challenging eyebrow cocked her way.
Rhaenyra straightened, raised an eyebrow back, ignored her pounding heart.
The sudden wink he flitted made her grin.
On the carriage ride back to the Keep, Rhaenyra had not giggled this much with anticipation since she discovered sketches of Lysene bordello techniques hidden in between the pages of Lady Hayford’s Seven-Pointed Star. Alicent was not half so red-faced now as she was then, mind, but she didn’t lack for reproach either. But Rhaenyra knew her friend, the meaning of her half-hearted efforts at moralizing.
“Are you envious, Ali?”
“Wha– I am certainly not! ” Rhaenyra leaned back on the cushioned seat smiling. “T’was not I who smiled and blushed at him like a newly-flowered maiden before half the Court and all the city!”
“I am a maiden, I have the right to blush at whomever I please. Newly-flowered or not. And don’t think I can’t tell how taken you were by his cast. ‘Gods, he’s dornish!'” she mocked, and laughed when Alicent slapped her thigh. “You were ready to swoon!”
“I was not. He merely… surprised me.”
“Surprised you by with how delicious you found him, mayhaps. Will you go to the library and find yourself a dornish romance to read? With luck it’ll have depictions–”
She shrieked as Alicent leapt at her, beginning a tickle fight. “You go too far,” Ali accused, laughing as she did. They acted as little girls all over again, but Rhaenyra could not deny it was the most fun she’d had not astride Syrax in weeks. Though they stopped tickle-fighting once Rhaenyra started kicking the air. That always ended painfully.
Oddly, in the calm when Rhaenyra thought back on the dornish stranger, it was somehow his gratitude that lingered, going through her head over and over, like a tune that would not leave her.
Thank you, Princess.
…Well, that, and the blood on his lip.
The next day, her excitement was at its peak. That made the sting of disappointment burn all the sharper.
She looked for the mystery man. Eagerly, she did. Her heart jolted every time a knight she didn’t recognize lifted their visor, but the faces beneath only disappointed; they were too light, never quite the matching shade, and the only ones who wore scars amongst these summer knights were so old she could barely tell what was a scar and what was a wrinkle.
By the time the trumpets sounded her smile had fallen as low as her heart. When the first jousters took their sides in the lists, her disappointment had turned to anger and she did not wish to even be here anymore.
“Don’t let his absence bother you overmuch, Princess,” Lord Beesbury said. “Dornishmen are notoriously fickle and untrustworthy. Even at sea they turn sail if theirs do not outnumber the foe’s two to one.”
“I can attest to that,” the Sea Snake said. The stand rang with laughter, mocking fingers poking her side.
“On foot he may have been unmatched, but it seems he is much less certain of his skill ahorse and with lance in hand.”
“That seems rather queer, does it not?” her father, the King, said. The only one curious rather than mocking. “I have heard tell of dornish raiders as deadly with spears as ironborn are with longaxes. I should think a lance is not much different from a spear.”
“Dornish raiders are not Dornish knights, and those knights are known to be inferior to pedigrees of the Reach and the Dornish Marches,” Beesbury said, insufferably confident. “Besides, it is said well-off commons and merchants in Dorne prefer to camels to sand steeds. Perhaps he tried to enter with a camel instead and was denied entry to the lists.”
"That would not surprise me." Through the prickling laughter, Ser Harrold added his voice. “He danced in the melee as if he was born in a mummer’s troupe.”
Rhaenyra whirled. “How embarrassing it must be then, Ser Harrold, that our gallant knights were trounced so readily by a mummer, no? Tell me, Lord Lyman, is it less embarrassing or more if it was done by the hand of a craven camel merchant? I should think the latter, but then I am no knight and am a young woman besides. Enlighten me.” The silence ensuing gave her visceral satisfaction.
She turned to the joust, and wondered to herself why she felt defensive when they mocked the Knight of the Mountain Rose.
Because he was my champion, she thought, bitterly. His victory was mine. He swore he'd be here. Not with words, maybe, but with his eyes, when he winked at me. Like a joke only the two of us knew.
Was it not for Alicent she would have stormed off, damn the insults these green knights and wrinkled old greybeards would suffer. Her friend knew her well. Her comfort was subtle; a mere shuffle closer, their shoulders against each other. A quick smile, before turning back.
By the time she could actually focus on the tilts, Lord Lymond Mallister unhorsed the Bastard of the Twins. By the time her uncle prepared to ride against Alicent’s brother, Ser Gwayne, she stopped feeling the stares and began to half-enjoy the spectacle. She loved Alicent for that.
In the midst-to-late portion of the jousting, her father had left at some point. Rhaenyra only realized when she glanced back to an empty seat, but Alicent’s gasps returned her attention before she could linger.
Rhaenyra was glad not to have left, if only because she was there to comfort Alicent. Daemon had cunningly tackled Ser Gwayne’s horse with his lance. It sent the young knight flying to a hard landing in the dust, where he slumped unconscious. The gods were kind; he had only a harsh bruise to show for it after the medics carried him off.
In the end, Lord Lymond Mallister came out the victor, unhorsing her uncle and who must’ve been Ser Arryk (who was the better lance of the twins). At that point, she was grateful the aged, yet graceful knight rode past her. He approached where his wife sat, and lowered his lance to give her the garland of the Queen of Love and Beauty’s.
Through the din of cheers and trumpets, Alicent quipped, “At least theirs makes for a warming love tale.”
I would’ve been more pleased if the tale was mine, she thought, perhaps petulantly. I could’ve made him my sworn shield. Dark, handsome, and perhaps as good a lover as he is a fighter. Perhaps he could’ve made you relax too.
Then she saw Alicent, recalled how she’d shielded Rhaenyra from the mocking laughter, then the pitying stares, and smiled. Ali’s fingers were warm between hers when she took her hand.
The carriage ride back was far less exciting than the day before. Despite that, the silence wasn't awkward. Her head pillowed on Ali’s chest, they laid down on the cushioned seats, and Rhaenyra smiled at the fingers carding through her hair. She thought, I could grow old with you. I don’t need a flashy dornish guardsman at my side. Only a trustworthy friend.
When the carriage shook to a halt, she was slow to peel her head from Alicent. “Get off already,” Ali said, “you’ve made my breast sweaty.” They laughed before she opened the door and walked down the steps.
The face of the page that waited for her froze her joy on her face. “Princess. Forgive me, I have an urgent message.”
She knew, somehow. She knew, before the page ever said her mother’s name.
The pain was in her heart when she fastened the earring. The silver chain shimmered like milk glass in the moonlight; its small emerald heart swallowed it. The earring was simple but artisanal work. Pentoshi work.
“Mother’s?” Gwayne said. She nodded at her own reflection. “I was given her hunting bow, you know.”
"Hunting-" Her head spun back. “Mother despised hunts!”
“True. It was a gift from Father’s uncle–”
“Abelard,” they said together. They laughed.
“He had good intentions,” Alicent granted.
“Oh, Abelard had plenty of good intentions. It was his actions that left much to be desired. Though I suppose he did little enough harm.”
“His gravest sins were inappropriate gifts, Seven keep his soul, and how many can claim that? He tried.” Alicent stared at her reflection. “It is all one can do.”
The tremor in her voice betrayed her, and Gwayne’s bruised face softened.
Before he could offer comfort she stood. “I am off.”
“Of course, my la... Sister. Give the princess my regards. I will be praying for her grace’s health.”
The words were stilted, but the intent was genuine. She could not help but smile, despite the awkwardness between them. She hadn’t seen her younger brother in years, since Mother passed, but his chivalry gladdened her. He'd grown into a fine young man. “Thank you, Gwayne.”
After you have changed, you will go to your friend and remain at her side as long as you can, Otto’s voice said, stalking her through the red halls. The Princess will be vulnerable, so make certain she recalls your steadfastness. So wipe your tears, my daughter, and raise your chin. You must be brave for her. The storm will pass, and until it does you must be the mooring keeping her at port.
Alicent would ever be Rhaenyra’s mooring, yet somehow her father’s words, so much like instruction than advice, made her kindness feel duplicitous. She confessed, guilt plagued her. All the way to the garden before Queen Aemma’s apartments.
The silence did not belong here. This courtyard had been a favourite of hers once, vibrant with laughter; her grace had watched over them as children – sometimes with a pregnant belly, sometimes with a flat one – as she and Rhaenyra played or studied. Now it was dark and soundless. Even the singing insects had abandoned the grief-marred place.
She almost started when she saw her sitting on the marble bench. Her silver princess. Rhaenyra's back was to Alicent. Was it not for the hair, unmistakable even unkempt, she wouldn’t have recognized those slouched slim shoulders as hers.
The deathly stillness was broken by Alicent gingerly calling her name.
Rhaenyra’s eyes were wide as she looked over her shoulder, glistening bright and purple. When Rhaenyra saw it was her, she broke down into tears.
Alicent ran to her.
Long did her friend release her grief in sobs against her shoulder. But Alicent held fast, trying to be brave and gently hushing her, rubbing her back like how Mother would rub Alicent's when she was a girl. “I’m here, Nyra. I am here.” It was all she could say. What else could she say?
The end of the evening stretched into a long night, and she held Rhaenyra until she began to sweat and her arm ached from the rubbing, but her friend held on. So she never let go.
Only when a door opened from the direction of the Queen’s apartments did she lift her head from Rhaenyra’s. She glanced a robed figure pass the doorway. An acolyte?
“Are they in there yet?” she asked, perplexed.
“They are,” said a voice. Alicent gasped. Rhaenyra straightened to wipe her eyes, ignoring Maester Orwyle who approached them from behind.
“Forgive me for startling you, my lady. Princess,” he greeted. “I see in our diligence to keep her grace’s condition stable, we have neglected to attend your needs. Forgive me.”
“I don’t want your bloody attendance,” Rhaenyra rasped. “My need is for you to tell me my mother’s dead so I may grieve!”
Alicent gasped. “Rhaenyra–”
“The birth went awry. I heard them say they had to breach her belly. She’s gone. Father has a son at least.”
“Gods be good… Is it true, Maester?”
“That we breached her belly, yes. And the child is a boy. But you should not despair, Princess.”
“Why!?” Rhaenyra snapped, tears spilling anew. “Because you’re prolonging her suffering, I’m to be thankful? Or that the succession is finally stable?!”
“Because your mother is currently being attended with the one person in the world who might save her.” The voice came not from Orwyle, but her father’s – the voice of Ser Otto, that stern instructor. Not the warm mentor of her girlhood. He gracefully joined Orwyle’s side. “In there, working to keep your mother alive, is a doctor of great renown.”
“I don’t need you to extol the virtues of Grand Maester Mellos, Lord Hand,” Rhaenyra sneered.
“Not Mellos,” Orwyle interjected. “This healer is of Myr, and learned his art in that fair city. Their methods as regards healing, and birth especially, are most advanced.”
“Of all the women in your mother’s situation, Princess,” Ser Otto said, “none are nearly so fortunate to have a Myrish master of the healing arts as your mother.”
Alicent tried not to wince. Her heart told her to rebel and castigate her father’s ill timing, but courage faltered swiftly when his eyes flitted to hers. Dare not interfere, they said, even they did not.
“Where did this mystery healer come from?” she demanded.
“It was not thanks to chance,” Orwyle said, as if confessing a secret. One he was ashamed of…
“I tried to urge the Grand Maester to seek out help earlier – I felt… uneasy, considering her grace’s previous pregnancies. But he is proud. When he insisted that he would continue to preside over Queen Aemma's birth, I confess I worked behind his back. You see, word reached us of a ship coming into port a month or so ago from Larys Strong – one of the king’s confessors. I approached him for help. He has a reputation for… information found outside of books. I dared not approach our master of whisperers for such things, for fear the Grand Maester would discover my deception. I digress; Strong revealed there were notables on its list of passengers. One of them, a famed doctor.”
“So it is true?” Rhaenyra’s voice was the meekest Alicent had heard since they were girls. Her eyes glistened now with hope. “Mother might live?”
“I would not give premature hope, but… Lord Otto was not wrong. Your mother’s chances are the best in the world, besides the aristocracy of Myr itself.”
Rhaenyra’s only answer was a sob. Alicent brought her friend into her embrace, ignoring her father’s approving look. When he began to imply in his subtle way the help he lended Orwyle with communicating with this myrman, she shut her eyes and hoped he would for once abandon his scemes and shut up (and promptly felt terrible guilt thinking such thoughts of her own father.)
“On that subject, Lord Hand,” Orwyle stepped forward, “I would ask another thing of you. The myrish doctor’s reward. I believe it should be discussed soon before he makes a public request…” He guided her father away by the shoulder, subtle. When he gave Alicent a quick, apologetic look, she realized his intent and did her best to relay her gratitude with her own.
“She might live,” Rhaenyra echoed when they were alone. That only made her sob harder, but that was alright. Her tears were of hope. Alicent prayed they would not be cruelly dashed.
When the hour of the wolf came and the moon was at its peak, and her eyelids grew heavy, she and her friend sat on the grass as they had done when little. They’d never stayed up so late here as children. A shame, she thought, for the stars were beautiful from here, at this time of night. Looking up, she saw pale diamonds glinting at her.
“Rhaenyra,” she whispered. No answer. When she looked down, she found Nyra’s eyes closed and her breathing slowed. Gently, she removed her hand, and silver hair spilled from between her fingers like silk.
A door opened. A strange man came into the courtyard adjoined by the Grand Maester to one side and her father to the other. He was wiping his bloody hands with a cloth as Alicent looked up. He stared at them.
His thick salt-and-pepper beard hid his mouth, his dark eyes were black in the shadow of the loggia. He wore not the humble robes of a maester, but a rather opulent one, blood-red whorled through with fine gold threads that glimmered in the brazier’s light. In some places it was stained darker, with sweat or blood she couldn’t tell.
She gasped with realization and shook Rhaenyra’s shoulder. “Rhaenyra!” Her friend was slow to wake. The man waited patiently.
“Wha’...” With one eye cracked barely open, Rhaenyra looked around. When she saw the man, she rose frantically to her feet. “Who–?” She breathed, swayed. “Are you…?”
“I am.” He inclined his head. “The news is joyous, your mother’s condition is stable.”
Rhaenyra said nothing, instead marching to the older man and throwing herself at him in an embrace. Her father cleared his throat, but Rhaenyra heeded him little as she wept her gratitude to the doctor. “You shall be rewarded a king’s bounty for this!
If Alicent wasn’t ready to faint, she might’ve laughed at Father’s bemused look.
“That is good to hear…” He patted Rhaenyra’s back stiffly, awkwardly, and was relieved when she let go him.
“W-Will my mother… I…”
The man seemed to know her questions better than her. “I have given your Grand Maester particular instructions on how to keep the swelling down, as well what meals your mother should preferably eat, and what she absolutely must avoid.”
Alicent whispered gratitude to the Seven Above, and prayed for her grace’s recovery to be swift and mild.
“I myself am ready to collapse,” the myrman said in his calm, accented voice, interrupting Mellos’ insistence that he should stay for the Citadel’s reward for sharing his teachings would be enormous. He turned back to Rhaenyra. “Your queen mother has no more need of me. She may take a day, perhaps two at most to wake. If something goes amiss, I will be within close enough reach. The Lord Hand has organized messengers so word should find me swiftly.”
“What is your name?” Alicent asked. Rhaenyra nodded in wordless concurrence; she wished to know as well.
“Brand.”
Not a traditional myrish name, she thought.
“You shall be well-rewarded, Master Brand,” Rhaenyra promised.
“Do not forget Orwyle’s reward for finding me – I will certainly not be sharing with him mine.” The jest was dry and made Rhaenyra laugh exhaustedly.
It felt exquisite to hear her laugh.
When Master Brand turned to leave, he queerly stopped himself and turned about face. “Oh, I nearly forgot myself. I must confess I have lied. I was not here solely on Orwyle’s request, but for a purpose of my own too.” Alicent grew curious. Her father placed himself between her and Master Brand. “I have been instructed by my employer to relay a message: he regrets wholeheartedly that he could not appear in the joust to wear the Princess’s favour and crown her Queen of Love and Beauty. Unfortunate circumstances saw an old friend in dire need. He humbly begs the forgiveness of the Realm’s Delight, and beseeches her to keep patience and faith with him until next they meet, that he might earn back her goodwill.”
With that, Master Brand bowed, and left.
Alicent met Rhaenyra’s astonished expression with her own.
Notes:
Welcome to the fic I came up with when I had the thought "What if Criston Cole had loving parents who taught him self-worth and respect for his fellow man, amongst other things."+"What if the pookies become friends and fall in love? 👉👈 🥺"
This is a lil something I'll be writing on in between writing bigger fics, some feel good stuff and other fun things to put my pookies through for drama's sake, and so that people know I haven't abandoned this fandom. Not to worry, I'm still working on the smut fic! It's coming along nicely, if slowly (not helped by the fact that I had a big exam some weeks ago.) I plan on writing the whole thing before I upload, which has already helped me discover new ways of outlining stories in a much more organizes way.
I sincerely hope you enjoyed! Don't be afraid to comment, because I assure you I will read it! 😊 ❤️
Chapter 2: The Sellsword
Notes:
I realize I forgot to add this in the first chapter so here you are, the timeline and character ages:
Year - 115 AC
Rhaenyra Targaryen - 18 years of age
Alicent Hightower - 18 years of age
Criston of the Red Mountains: 21 years of age
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The feast to celebrate the Queen’s health and the birth of the boy heir is attended by neither, yet Rhaenyra’s the only one who seems to care. When Father tries to smile at her, Rhaenyra turns to watch the ceremony near its end as Ser Otto lowers a great gilded necklace about Master Brand’s neck. It is a fine thing, wrought by the smiths to resemble a maester’s chain in honour of Brand’s skills, and the Crone’s lantern which hung from it honours his wisdom. The polite look on his face tells her he’d sooner be honoured by coin.
We’d both rather be elsewhere. She shouldn’t be here at all, she should be with Mother. But the Queen has enough difficulties in her recovery. It has been a week since she woke up, and when she pleaded with Rhaenyra to finally leave her side, it was hard to refuse. Now she is here. I should’ve stayed.
She forgets to dwell on that, however, when Father gives the command: two servants bring out an oaken chest and open it, and Brand’s eyes brighten at the gleaming gold dragons. The crowd claps but she senses envy even from here. Good.
Master Brand bows, gives thanks to the King’s generous reward, and suddenly gestures. Two men in so much foreign armour they resemble metal turtles approach and carry off the chest, and are given a wide berth as they do. Rhaenyra's eyes follows them in case they lead her to her object of interest, but she loses them in the throng.
Finally the ceremony ends. From the wooden throne, her father rises and proclaims a beginning to the festivities. The hall erupts in cheers, and the musicians warm the hall with song and string.
It is not a grand occasion, not yet – her father intends such festivities for when Mother can actually join in them – but the food and sweets the servants stream in bearing are impressive regardless. For all his lacks, Viserys Targaryen’s munificence is not one of them.
Nobility and courtiers gather in pockets around each of the half a hundred tables spread through the hall. Seats have been placed for the elderly, the fat, and children who cannot stand still, but most sample and converse standing.
Standing or seated, not a one she sees is who she’s looking for.
Rhaenyra does her best to ignore her father, and thankfully His Grace takes the hint and turns converse with his Hand instead. She forks the suckling pig on her plate, eats some figs to please onlookers. But she doesn’t feign a smile. That’s too much effort for her to bear right now.
When she feels she’s pretended enough to satisfy decorum, she meets Alicent’s eyes and gestures her head.
“Forgive me, Father,” Alicent says, “I thought I caught a glimpse of Cassana Tarly. It’s been some time. May I be excused?”
After a moment of confusion following the interruption, Otto nods. “Do not stray. And give young Lady Tarly my greetings.”
Rhaenyra tries her hardest not to glare – do not stray, like she’s a sheep to be shepherded – but Alicent merely complies before standing.
“I’ll come with you. I’ve heard too much of this Huntswoman of yours to pass on this chance,” Rhaenyra says and walks with her.
“Take care, Rhaenyra,” her father calls after a moment. Silence follows as they step down the dais.
“Are you still not talking?”
“What do you think?”
“How is she?”
Despite herself, Rhaenyra can’t help but smile. “Improving. She forgets to be in pain as soon as she holds Baelon in her arms.” Sometimes she has to remember it was not that ugly, silver-haired babe that almost killed Mother, but Father and all these lickspittles who’d clamoured for a male heir for years.
The only thing my dear brother is guilty of is stealing my inheritance.
“Every mother has a right to dote on her first son. I’m certain she doted on you when you were born.”
“I’m certain.” She sighs. “It makes no matter, so long as she isn’t dead. In fact, I should like to thank Master Brand in person again. Did you happen to see where he disappeared off to?”
“Home where he will hoard his gold as soon as possible and lie atop it like the dragons in the books? Who knows? You have more important things to tend to, like welcoming your guests.”
“Help me look?”
She knows her request gave something away, going by the frown that replaced Alicent’s smile. “Rhaenyra, what are you up to?”
“Nothing you wouldn’t shame me for, I swear.”
“Rhaenyra…” she warns.
“You know you want to meet him as well."
“I knew it! You’re after the Knight of the Mountain Rose.”
“Of course I am!” She tries not to shuffle her feet. “He owes me an apology yet.”
“Master Brand relayed his apology already.”
“It is only proper he should give it in person. If I have my way, he will be begging for my forgiveness!”
Alicent scoffs, wholly unconvinced. “I’ve never known a lady less concerned with propriety.”
“Please?” She sets up the pleading eyes and turns them on her friend. “I already don’t want to be away from Mother’s side. This is the only thing I have to look forward to this function. Even Uncle was spared.”
“Speaking of, where is Prince Daemon?”
“Off sulking somewhere in the city, who cares? I’m asking you, Ali. Please?”
She sighs, and glares at her for daring to wield the eyes. “Fine… I confess some curiosity myself.”
Rhaenyra grins in triumph.
She feels some gratitude for Baelon, for few feast goers care to notice the second in line as she stalks with her good friend from table to table, watchful eyes on the horizon of heads. They cover good ground quickly. She makes certain to sample some dishes and cake, for the sake of inconspicuousness of course. It wouldn't do to be noticed.
They do not find the dark waves she’s looking for or the salt-and-pepper beard of Master Brand quite yet, but they do get to witness Ser Clarent Crakehall’s attempts at impressing Lord Stokeworth’s daughter with tales of his mettle, utterly unaware Lady Falia had witnessed him fall first in the melee due to clumsy footing and an unscrupulous opponent willing to strike someone while they're down.
Rhaenyra tries not to laugh, but one look at Alicent’s wince of sympathy for both sides of the conversation and she’s possessed of a giggling madness and Alicent has to pull her away.
“Gods, it’s the night of your seventeenth name day haunting me again.”
“I’m not drunk!” she protests, offended. “Will you ever let that go?”
“Will you stop acting in a manner that brings it to mind again?” Rhaenyra shrugs.
That is the end of the amusement they find, unfortunately. Only idle gossip remains, so dry it she grabs for the nearest goblet of wine to wet her throat. Lord and Lady Rosby stop them to compliment her on the birth of her brother – like these lackwitted sheep believe he came out of her womb – but the words were so transparently rehearsed a fog of boredom falls over her mind. The moment a bungling servant crashes to the floor and draws away their attention, she steals away.
Rhaenyra is displeased to find Master Brand down the hall, with the lesser lords and lowborn knights. Her mother’s saviour deserves better.
Suddenly, a tap on her shoulder. “Rhaenyra,” says Alicent, “Look.” Past Brand and the two metal turtles carrying the chest, she sees him.
He’s not dancing, but he manages to surprise her once more. He is sampling food with his back to them, and his broad-shouldered figure is adorned by a rich, ornate robe of vivid red silk that flows down to below his knees. A boot taps to the rhythm of the music. A sash and belt hugs the robe to his waist, and the silk is highlighted with golden myrish lace that glints in the sunlight, not unlike Syrax’s scales she thinks. Loose sleeves are pulled up to his elbow and wrapped taut about his arms. His bared forearms are scarred, and corded with deceptively strong muscles.
As he turns his head, a sapphire earring dangles from his right ear and she spies for a heartbeat some tattoo she missed last time on the same side of his neck. Intricate rings bedeck the fingers that languidly bring a slice of honey-glazed quail to his lips.
Abruptly, she freezes. She has no idea what to say for all her anticipation. Seven Hells, a week and no clue what to say?
Okay. Does she approach him as she would anyone else? No, he isn’t anyone. Politeness, simply? But what if it’s mistaken for aloofness? He’d think himself fallen out of her favour, which is the last impression she wants to give!
But then, perhaps that’s what he deserves. No, no. It would be wrong to punish him. His friend was in need. What if I was he and it had been Alicent in need–
“Go on,” Alicent says. She can hear her smile. “Take your apology in person.”
“Of course.” Rhaenyra takes a deep breath, and walks over.
She approaches from his left, behind his line of vision as he regards three different wine decanters. A contemplative finger trails along the myrish glass whilst he absently sucks honey off his thumb.
(she tries not to stare at his lips)
“I recom–” She clears her throat. “I recommend the Dornish red.”
“Do you?” he says. “Why is that?” His voice is silken calm.
“The sourness complements the honey.”
He chuckles. “Is that advice true or euphemistic?”
“Pray, for what would it be a euphemism?”
“Something terribly unclever, such as… oh, the sour Dornishman with walls erected about his heart, softened by sweetness? Perhaps the fault is mine and I’ve been imagining these noblemen avoiding me like I carry the plague. The countless looks and whispers they think I can’t hear. I have been reading too many romances of late, so they may simply be admiring my exotic sense of fashion.” Eventually, his fingers wrap about the neck of the Dornish red.
Her heart is racing. He has no idea who is stood beside him and she is almost faint with anticipation. What will his reaction be? Shocked or confident?
“Fashionable you are indeed, Ser, yet sour is the last word I would use to describe you. Your dedication was quite sweet, in fact.”
Four things happen at once. His boot stills its tapping, he tugs, the decanter uncorks with a pop, and he turns his head.
The look on his face is as priceless as she hoped.
“Princess…”
His wide eyes are brown, she sees, the scar on his open lips thin, cracking like lightning across their plush – a most handsome scar – and on his left eyebrow she finds she had missed a slit where undoubtedly some thin blade had long ago cut him.
He is, in short, devilishly gorgeous.
His astonishment passes, her moment of admiration passes with it - and where she supplants it with composure he supplants his faded surprise with that handsome smile.
She wonders if this is the beginning of something great and adventurous.
The knight steps back and flourishes a graceful bow. A necklace somehow more resplendent and expensive than the one the Crown just awarded Master Brand hangs from his neck. Its numerous golden links are heavy interlocked stars, and each of them is set with blood-red rubies as large as stones.
“A personal apology is long overdue, Your Grace,” he says and straightens. “I wished to crown you Queen of Love and Beauty, but I failed to appear at all. I beg your forgiveness.”
If I have my way, he will be begging for my forgiveness, she recalls. Then she sees earnestness in his big brown eyes.
“Consider it forgotten.”
Something inside screams that Alicent will never let her live it down, but that’s for later to worry about.
“The princess is generous.” He bows with a muted shyness that makes him seem guarded. The contrast to a week past surprises her. “And you must be the Princess’s famed companion, the Lady Alicent.” Alicent, who stands several feet away, is startled like a stoat and forced to approach. “Forgive me, I did not know your name when first we met. I made it a point since then to educate myself.”
“No apology is necessary, Ser.” Alicent clears her throat before curtsying. “Y-Your assiduousness does you credit. Well met.”
“The pleasure is mine, I assure you. And how is your mother, Princess? Births are hard enough without something going wrong, even with Brand at the ready.”
“She’s on the road to recovery,” she says. “In no small part thanks to you.”
“Thanks to Brand. I am only the employer. And let us not forget it was on the initiative of your maester he was ever there. Orwell?”
“Orwyle.”
“Orwyle. The most I did for your mother and brother was pray. I’m nothing but a warrior who has been on the road for too long. On that subject, I beg your forgiveness in advance for my tongue, should it act out of order, my ladies. My manners are as a disused muscle.”
Rhaenyra tries her best not to think of some cleverness with tongues and helping him train that particular muscle. Alicent would die of the scandal.
“You are a knight of the hedge, Ser? You do not look it,” Alicent says. “R-Richly dressed as you are, I mean.”
“Thank you, but I’m no knight at all. Two months past, my profession was that of a mercenary.”
“You’re a sellsword?” Rhaenyra says.
He nods.
“Where have you fought?”
“Rhaenyra!”
“That's quite alright, my lady. All over, Princess. I traveled the world since I was four-and-ten and found a need for a sword everywhere I went. As for knighthood, I truly cannot say. I was knighted on the field of battle at seven-and-ten, but by an exile. He bore a shield painted with a horse’s head and called himself Ser, but the shield may well have been stolen, and no one else called him Ser but the Captain and I, out of respect. As I understand it, knighthood requires witnesses.”
That is true, but not for mystery knights. Knighthood wasn’t needed at all. That was the whole point. Anyone could be under the helm, from beggar to king.
“The horse head, was it black with a red mane?” Alicent asks, to which he affirms. “Then he must have been a Ryswell, of the Rills.”
“A northman,” Rhaenyra supplies. “Knights are rare amongst the followers of the Old Gods, but the Manderlys follow the Seven. And any knight can make a knight.”
The Dornishman shrugs. “I grant he was pale enough to be a northman. Still, I feel uncomfortable claiming the title of Ser without certainty.”
“How honest of you, sellsword,” Rhaenyra teases. Time to pay him back for making her act like a lovestruck little girl. “I’ve heard tales your kind is likely to put a blade to your employer’s back as soon as they turn it.” She ignores Alicent’s scandalized glare.
“Only after we are hired. Once the contract is written, signed, and stamped, there is no getting rid of us, and then we turn into true rogues.”
She thanks the Seven for sending her someone with humour. “What’s your name, sellsword?”
His soft dark eyes sharpen to an edge, only for a moment. He smiles, bows his head. “Criston, at your service, Your Grace.”
“I like you, Criston.”
He doesn’t blush but smiles barely, with a species of confidence she’s never seen. One too calm by half. Damn him, where did that shyness run off to?
“F-For what it’s worth, um,” Alicent stammers, red-faced, “you are a better sword than any knight I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing, mercenary or otherwise. You fought valiantly.”
He finally breaks eye contact. “Valiant is one way I’ve yet to hear someone describe my fighting as. I thank you for saying so.”
She looks down to hide her smile. Some missiles for Rhaenyra to loose back if she tries to bring anything up, after.
“My ladies, would you honour me with a toast?”
“O-Oh, I…”
“We would,” Rhaenyra says. He takes three empty goblets and pours them each Dornish red. “To what shall we toast? Your victory in the tourney?”
“The victory was yours, Princess. I was merely your vessel.” He hands them their goblets before pondering a moment. Then, raising his, “To the Queen’s health and her child’s!”
The music’s volume seems to lower.
“To the kind Lady Alicent!”
The lady in question smiles blushing.
Then Criston turns to Rhaenyra, and she fights to somehow stop the flush spreading up her neck when he smiles. “And to the honoured Crown Princess! To the Realm’s Delight and the Realm’s Heir!” His voice echoes through the hall.
He raises his goblet a final time, and drinks.
Rhaenyra stares in shock, frozen. Alicent is equally speechless beside her as Criston, ignorant of the silence, closes his eyes. “Mmm… Your advice proves true, Princess, an excellent suggestion...” When he opens his eyes, he finds himself at the other end of their astonished looks and, looking about, the scandalized glares of the nearby nobility. “Have I… something on my face?”
“The Princess is not heir, mercenary.” Ser Otto appears as if from nowhere, placing himself between them as though to protect. He is joined by Ser Harrold, who is looking only a little less displeased than he. “The new-born Prince Baelon is. Here, the son comes before the daughter.”
“I see,” he says, though he frowns with utter confusion. He turns to her. “Forgive me, Princess, in Dorne inheritance… differs. Am I to understand the Heir’s Tournament was not in your honour.”
“It was not,” Otto says. Rhaenyra is at a loss for words.
He thought I was heir to the Seven Kingdoms…
The respect of it was novel. Intoxicating, even. She begins to feel the rude glares herself and turns to challenge them. “Have we no manners in King’s Landing? Return eyes to the companion beside you!” Most recall their courtesies and obey. “And I welcome you to relax, Ser Otto. I’m certain our friend did not mean sedition. Or are you to glare so at every foreign guest whose culture happens to differ with ours?”
“It was a harmless mistake, Father, surely.”
Otto calms down. Rhaenyra wonders at his outburst – not often does the Lord Hand lose his composure.
“Peace, Sers.” The sellsword pours two more goblets. “Your adherence to your duties is admirable. The Lord Hand must be cautious of any unseemly comments spoken in his presence of course, and is it not the chief vocation of the Kingsguard to protect? Come, let us prove there are no hard feelings.” Rhaenyra stares as he offers one to Ser Harrold. “No? Were you perhaps among the white swords I felled in the melee? I find that nothing mends a wounded pride as well as shared wine and camaraderie between soldiers.”
“The Kingsguard do not drink on duty.”
The sellsword sorrowfully shakes his head. “Sworn off drink as well as women – truly, you are a man above men, Ser. You have my utmost respect. No hard feelings, I pray, for the melee? Your brotherhood made for an excellent warmup.” Rhaenyra tries her utmost not to burst out into giggles at Ser Harrold’s scowl. She’s never seen him look like that before; an angry grey bear. “What of the Lord Hand himself, would you honour me?”
“You are kind to offer,” Otto says, like he is measuring every word, “but no.”
Criston shrugs, “More for me,” and downs the goblet in one swig.
Otto’s face looks like he tasted something he didn’t expect and it almost makes her howl with laughter. When Alicent shoots her a look of pleading, her shoulders start shaking. Gods, I haven’t been so amused in months!
“You know,” Rhaenyra begins, voice tremoring a little, “the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard passed away some days before the Tourney. Ser Ryam Redwyne’s loss is sorely felt, and his vacancy in the Kingsguard has left a hole in our hearts.” She pauses for effect. “And I’m in need of a sworn protector.”
Four heads turn her way, one of them mildly surprised and the other three horrified.
“Princess, surely you cannot be serious?” Otto smiles like he’s speaking to a child.
“Can’t I?”
“A sellsword fresh off a ship from Essos cannot be Kingsguard.”
“And I’m certainly not swearing an oath of chastity,” Criston interjects, frowning.
“Very well, I shall hire him on as a bodyguard.”
“Rhaenyra–” Alicent begins.
“It is the duty of the Kingsguard to protect the royal family,” Otto says.
“And they will. Only I shall have an additional layer of protection. Do you not wear mail and gambeson under your plate, Ser Harrold? I don’t see why this should warrant outrage.”
“He is a sellsword, Princess,” Otto stresses.
“And?”
“With all due respect,” Ser Harrold interjects, “sellswords cannot be trusted to point their blades at the enemy half the time, nevermind to guard the life of a Princess.”
“That was most certainly disrespectful, but fair play,” Criston mutters.
“I trust his loyalty to our coin, of which we have plenty.”
“Rhaenyra–” Alicent tries yet again.
“At the first sign of true danger, he will sooner run than sacrifice his life for yours.” Otto frowned. “Do you even know his name, Princess?”
“Criston. Are you finished?”
He takes a calming breath. “I am only concerned with your safety, Princess, all else is secondary.”
“And we appreciate your tirelessness, Ser–” Criston surprises everyone by placing a hand on his shoulder, “–but now is neither the time nor place for this discussion.”
“Criston speaks true, Father!” Alicent adds her voice, shaky as it is to defy her father. “Now all three of you, comport yourselves with dignity. I expect public displays from Rhaenyra, but you are both of you knights. There are ways to guard your pride, Lord Commander, but this is not one of them. Father, Goodman Criston is our guest and has drank our wine and eaten our food, the guest right is his. He should not suffer such behaviour during a celebration, certainly not from the King’s own Hand. Else what will they say of the King’s hospitality? We all owe him an apology.”
Ser Harrold looks appropriately apologetic at that, and even Otto seems to regret his outburst (as much as Otto Hightower is capable of such emotion).
My, my, Alicent.
“Well spoken, my lady, and thank you. It was growing rather awkward. As much as your offer intrigues and honours me, Princess, we both know it cannot happen until your King-father and Queen-mother give permission.”
Criston’s supplication to another who is not her angers her. “You need not concern yourself with my father and mother. Nor, in fact, anything but what I command you to concern yourself with.”
He smiles. “Not until you pay me. And I shall be glad to take coin and command from one such as you, but I have known greater freedoms than you ever will and even I answered to a Captain. Convince your mother and father. Show me something.”
“Show you something?” Rhaenyra is so taken aback she can’t even consider his impudence.
“They call you the Realm’s Delight, do they not? If and when I join your side as your protector… make the story of how you convinced them delightful.” Over his third goblet, he winks. He ignores Ser Harrold's gesture - a hand gripping the hilt of his sword.
Was that… a challenge? It’s been long since anyone other than Alicent dared. Suddenly her shock turns not into anger but anticipation, then excitement. Still, her pride must have its due. “Fine. In return, when you’re permitted into the Red Keep, I will choose opponents for you to fight in the training yard. There you will prove yourself to me.”
“I believe I already showcased my skill, if only to greenhorns and old men.” To Ser Harrold, “No offense.” Ser Harrold glares.
“Against two at most. This time you will face three. Assassins rarely approach one by one with honour. Delight me with another victory, and enjoy the honour of being my shield, as well as the salary that comes with it.”
“And if I lose?”
“Then I shall wish you luck in your continued search for an employer. What say you, Sellsword Criston?”
She couldn't tell what he was thinking as he stared, but the grin told her enough. “I say it is only fair.”
“Excellent.” She turns to Otto. “Then he will prove his valour against greater numbers and have both the King and Queen’s blessings. I trust that will be up to your standards, Ser?”
He bows his head. “I obey as ever, Princess. My only concern is your safety.”
“The gods are good!” Criston drinks his goblet dry, slams it on the table, and flourishes in another bow. “Princess Rhaenyra, Lady Alicent. Lord Otto. Ser Harrold. With luck, we will meet again in prosperous circumstances.”
That’s the first time he’s said her name... She finds she likes how it rolls off his faintly accented tongue, like a delightful honey…
But, wait– “You are leaving?”
“It’s hard for someone like you to notice, Princess, but the tension in here is as thick as a noose about my neck, and I am not waiting for it to close. The rumours that we sellswords are ready to place a blade against one’s back brings a disadvantage: many are ready to stick their own in ours. I have no wish to overstay my welcome on my first day in this keep.”
“The guards shall protect you as well as anyone,” Alicent protests.
“No insult meant to your guardsmen, but experience tells me that in a crowd, guards are little help once daggers are drawn in close quarters, and quite frankly they can do nothing at all against poison. And that is no comment on the court’s readiness for violence, so please, don’t take it the wrong way. I would simply sooner return to my estate outside of the city.” She opens her mouth to protest, but he stops her. “I am, however, deeply grateful for your company.” He looks at Alicent. “Both of you. You have done me a kindness few in this grand capital have made the effort to. You've made me feel welcome. Truly, thank you.”
“As you wish.” Her disappointment is blunted by his gratitude, but she glares at Otto and Ser Harrold all the same.
“The pleasure was ours, Criston,” Alicent says.
Without preamble, he gestures to Brand and the two chest carriers and turns from the hall.
“How well you treat the man who had a hand in saving my mother’s life, Ser,” she sneers at Otto, once Criston and his men have left the hall.
“Young women should be more cautious around sellswords, Princess,” Ser Harrold says. “Dornish ones especially.”
“And it was his man who saved your mother’s life,” Otto points out, “not he.”
“Don’t play coy with me, Otto,” she snaps, “and quite frankly, Ser Harrold, I tire of your nuggets of wisdom as regards Dornishmen.”
“Rhaenyra–” Alicent tries.
“Enough. I’ve lost my appetite for this feast.” A glance at Alicent’s guilt makes her chest pang, just a little. “I’m returning to the Queen’s side. Perhaps there I will actually be wanted.” She storms off, as gracefully as she can manage in her ill temper.
Notes:
Omahgaaa 🥰🥰🥰 the pookies are flirting! Omahgaaa 🥰🥰🥰
I was surprised by the enthusiasm in the comments, and very much honored! Thank you all so much! I hope you have as much fun reading this as I do writing! This fic will be semi-slice-of-life except things will actually happen. Mainly my babies falling in love! but also other fun stuff like Rhaenyra and Alicent learning the historical materialist works of Qarl of Myr and becoming radical Myrxists and learning of the proletariat struggle /hj.
My favorite thing to plan and develop other than the throuple's relationship is definitely Criston's background, both before and after he became a sellsword. Excited to show you guys!
I sincerely hope you enjoyed! Don't be afraid to comment, because I assure you I will read it! 😊 ❤️
Chapter Text
Criston dismounts and finds that his stomach still aches when the page approaches, stiff soles on clacking on the stones. Clad in fine red-and-black fabric, the servant walks with a noble’s grace, while Criston wonders when the lords of Westeros began dressing in the fashion of the Summer Isles.
Trystane has a similar thought. “What's this? The dragons employ peacocks in their service?”
“My lord,” crows said peacock, pointedly ignoring Criston’s guard.
“You have the wrong man,” he says. Criston hands the reins to a young flaxen-haired boy. His steed whickers nervously. "Hush now," he mutters gently.
“My apologies, but are you not the sellsword?” The peacock glances obviously at his armored guards.
“You were looking for a lord,” he says. Pebble calms somewhat.
“Merely a courtesy, my lord.”
“Think you’ll bleed blue now, Lieutenant?” calls Trystane from atop his destrier.
I certainly bruise it. “I am a lieutenant as much as I am a lord now, Trystane,” he reminds.
When the royal envoy and his mounted escort came riding into the training yard this morning bearing the King’s summons, Criston was fiercely fending off four opponents. So surprised was he to see the Targaryen banner fluttering in the yard of his manse that he let his guard down – and promptly paid for it when an ebony quarterstaff punched him in the stomach.
It was (as it often is) Trystane who had his fun with the messenger. Being Dornish and more physically imposing than Criston, more muscled and sporting a beard, he strode ahead before Criston could so much as recover from the blow, and announced himself thusly: “Hail! Know me as Captain Criston, Sellsword, Owner of This Fine Estate, and Employer of the Various And Varied Warriors You See About You! What business have you here?”
Criston watched on as Trystane put the stammering boy through the gauntlet; interrupting the lad’s announcement and making him dismount, snatching the scroll from his hand and reading the King’s summons himself only moments after he'd demanded the envoy do it. Criston gave pity to the poor boy and ended the farce by way of a hearty clap on the shoulders, to laughter and boisterous ribbing from his veterans, and promptly introduced himself as the real Criston. Not captain, but merely the leader and employer of this company.
He repaid Loras the envoy's enduring of Trystane's gauntlet by hosting him for a fine breakfast on a marble balcony overlooking the yard, while his escort enjoyed the company of Criston’s mercenaries, rough as it was. There they had fresh-baked bread with a ripe blue cheese from the Reach, boiled eggs drizzled with a rich cream, a plate of sausages from the best butcher in King’s Landing, a bowl replete with the most succulent fruit from Westeros and Essos alike, and Tyroshi brandy the colour of peridot to wash it all down. The Dornish grapes in particular struck Criston with a deep nostalgia, and he was well pleased when Loras took a liking to them as well.
By noon, Criston saw off Loras and the riders happier than when they arrived, and after a bath to wash off the morning spar, he put on the robe gifted to him by the Sealord of Braavos. It was the very same he had worn at the feast a month ago, for the sake of familiarity. Familiarity was trust, and trust meant more coin.
From then on, a short ride to the city, and through it onto the Red Keep.
“You’re to take me to the King, I presume,” he says now.
“Just so,” the peacock says. “Follow me, if you please.”
“A moment.” He gives the passing stablehand a few coppers. “Take good care of Pebble. She loves her apples, give them to her in slices.” A final pat to her neck for calm, then he gestures to the peacock.
As he is led into the Red Keep proper, shadows fall in at his flanks.
Thank the Seven the stink of the city hasn't reached this place. Though he was here only a month past, he takes in the bannered walls of pale red like he’s seeing them for the first time. As then, the halls are overlooked by rows of guards, and between them sentinel red banners of three-headed dragons that billow like they wish to take flight on cloth wings
Wonder if I’ll see a dragon finally, he thought glancing out the windows.
They say Syrax, the yellow one, often soars across the city’s skies, and that it is the Princess'. From his manse outside the capital, the most he ever saw or heard of a dragon was a distant, flanging roar that raised the hair on his neck one night during the hour of the bat. His man in the city named that one Caraxes, Prince Daemon’s dragon.
I’m certain I’ll not perish if I fail to see that one in person.
It’s not long before they stop in a room and Peacock tells him, “Wait here, my lord,” before disappearing into a small side door adjacent to the large, oaken double door entrance. He and his men are left with two Kingsguard, each on either side of the double doors.
Tapestries hang from opposite walls of the room. Criston approaches the left-hand and sees that the three-part tale woven in it is a familiar one. The first frame is the Conqueror and his sisters landing on a sunny and verdant shore, in the distance the hill upon which he built the Aegonfort; the Field of Fire is depicted on the second one, a grim tableau of a burning army crested above by the Conquerors’ three dragons, beams of fire spewing from their maws; on the third, the High Septon with his crystal crown lowers one of valyrian steel about Aegon the Dragon’s brow.
“Funny how they never seem to want to show the Hellholt,” Trystane quips, loudly. One Kingsguard stiffens.
“Behave,” Criston warns in the Dornish tongue. The last thing he needs is Trystane's excuse for a humor to inflame old hatreds betwixt their people and these northerners. A fool thing to lose an opportunity such as this one over.
Stoic Valeo, tall and plated, rests a gauntleted hand on that razor longaxe of his, which measures as tall as himself. Placed between Criston and the Kingsguard, he was in the prime position to intercept them if anything should happen.
“Perhaps you might learn from your colleague. There are advantages to a guarded tongue,” Criston says.
“Then you will have two dullards following you; properly will you fall asleep then!”
“Dullard? Perhaps I should tell Valeo how you speak of him,” he says, trying not to smile at Trystane's sudden apprehension.
“You wouldn’t…”
“Contemplate it. There are many ways to teach you to mind your tongue.” Criston joins Valeo’s side and joins him in observing the white swords. “Anything of note?”
“Nothing you do not already know,” he rumbles under his breath. His Norvoshi accent is thick, but he speaks the Westerosi language well. “Green, but deadly. Skilled.”
“Talent or training?”
“Both. No experience, but your Westerosi war games have honed them. They are far from dull.”
“Tournaments. They’re called tournaments.”
“Are they not games of war?”
“You are a killer with a big axe. Are you not Valeo Wyvernbane?” To lesser eyes Valeo reacts not, but Criston sees the corners of his steel-grey eyes wrinkle, ever so faintly.
Suddenly, Criston realizes something. “...Which one?”
The fire-haired moustache on the right glares him in the eye, but it’s the other Kingsguard that catches his suspicion. A brown fine beard sticking out of the open helmet, attached to a young face, young like the two who had fought him at once at the tourney. One of twins? Every guard thus far had stared at Criston and his men. Except this one.
“How’s the head?”
The glare that finally swivels his way lets him know his instincts were correct. He grins.
The doors open with a sudden and loud groan, and the Peacock strides out, turns ceremonially, and bows to him like he’s blue-blooded indeed. “The King awaits, my lord.”
He bows back dramatically, “As you say, my lord.” He walks past a bemused Peacock. His shadows stay behind.
When Criston enters the King’s solar, he finds it is… not small, but smaller than his fantasies depicted for the King of the supposedly Seven Kingdoms. Perhaps he spent too long in Yi-Ti’s courts where even smaller lords held vast chambers for their own. Mayhaps this is one of many more solars, but the only one fit for a mere sellsword. The sunlight brightens the room where the Targaryen black-and-red of the carpets, drapes, and banners darken it. The King’s desk is ornate and carved of goldenheart, a work of true artisanship wide enough to seat two. Worth a fortune. Behind it sits King Viserys Targaryen, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and beside him the flagged but recovering Queen Aemma – an Arryn of the Vale originally, if memory serves – and they are looking at each other the way only lovers who almost lost one another could. He’s pleased to see that her wide ebon chair is stuffed and fluffy with blankets and furs for comfort. The bundle in her arms brings his heart warmth, and the King a bright smile.
They have yet to notice him.
The Lord Hand, however, has been staring since he entered. So has Princess Rhaenyra and Lady Alicent, but he much prefers their beauty to Otto Hightower’s (he’s certain the man’s beautiful to someone on this mortal plane). The ladies parted from their whispering to straighten the moment they saw him, and the way the Princess suppresses a smile makes him think she’s been looking forward to this a lot more than he.
The perfect employer: a charmed one.
Her companion, meanwhile, is much more the picture he always had in his mind’s eye of the Iron Throne’s noblewomen. Prim, proper. Perhaps boring, but there are worse things to be. Though she’s noble, he can’t help but appreciate her attempts at making him feel welcome during the feast a month past.
The King and Queen finally notice him. Interest lights the King’s eyes like purple candles.
“Kneel before His Grace,” Ser Otto says, “King Viserys Targaryen, 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.”
Criston kneels. Criston waits.
“Rise.” The King’s voice is the sort a friendly fellow at the tavern might have while offering to share a tankard after an evening of favored dice. Has the face for it too.
Criston rises, eyes trained on the King’s, cautious not to wander.
“Well?” King Viserys smiles. “Are you not going to introduce yourself?”
“Criston.” He inclines his head. His laconicism seems to amuse the monarch.
“A good name.”
“Thank you.”
“How odd,” the Queen says a bit quietly. “To hear my daughter speak of you, you are a most magnetic character. On account of your garb, she is right.”
He allows himself to smile, and a glance at the Princess. She flits him a wink.
He has to stifle a grin. “Forgive me, Your Grace. My mother taught me to always behave as if I am the greatest fool in the room and keep silent. Stay your tongue, she would say, listen to learn.”
Queen Aemma smiled. “She sounds like a wise woman.”
“The wisest woman, my queen. Wiser than all the men, too.”
“Even your father?”
“Especially my father. He is the first to confess it, too.” That earns him the ladies’ smiles and laughter from the King.
“Well,” his grace says, “I confess I’m not too learned of the court customs of Essos or the Free Cities where you’ve spent so many years, but here you need not fret. Speak freely, but with dignity, and you’ll do well.”
“As you wish, Your Grace. I am Criston, of the Red Mountains.” He sweeps another bow, flamboyant. “Sellsword of seven years and five months. Veteran of a hundred battles and a thousand skirmishes.”
“Be welcomed, Criston of the Red Mountains,” the King greets. “Do not allow our history with your land to sully aught. In this room you will be judged on your merits alone.”
“That is most gracious of you, King.” And a blatant lie; if this gawking Reachman looking down his nose at him wasn’t the Hand of the King, he would’ve broken his fucking nose already. “I confess ignorance of the court’s ways. My father told me stories of his homeland, but I imagine there is a great chasm between the traditions of Blackhaven and the traditions of King’s Landing.” Their surprise is not wholly unexpected. “My father was born in the Marches and served there as Steward for fifteen years. Ser Logen Cole. He left with my mother to raise a family in her home in the Mountains.”
“Ser Logen Cole, you say…” The King looks to his Hand, who was himself not unsurprised. Ser Otto nods.
“Then your name would be Criston Cole,” the Princess speaks up, finally.
He shakes his head. “I never took on the name of my father’s house. He did not wish that for me.”
“Then what shall you be known as?” the King asks, glaring at his daughter. It seems he’d instructed her not to speak out of turn.
I like her already, he thinks. For a princess.
“Just Criston, Your Grace. Criston of the Red Mountains, if you want to flatter me,” he quipped, to good effect.
“You are the son of a Marcher and a Dornishwoman,” the Queen interjects (He doesn’t correct her.) “And in your fourteenth year, you began to sell your sword across Essos for the coming seven years?”
“And five months.”
“You’ve lived an adventurous life.” She bobs the babe at her breast.
“I have, Your Grace. I count my blessings I yet retain it.”
“Adventurous enough to presume you would be more fit to protect the Princess than the White Swords.” Ser Otto Hightower breaks his silence, and what surprise, it is to accuse him of some supposed sin. Gods spare him these scheming Hands and Viziers and eunuchs and advisors… Why is it they always have an air of jealous wives about them?
The sudden thought that Ser Otto’s hostility came from having to witness the King’s loving stare directed at the Queen for the past hour rather than him forced Criston to suppress a laugh. Focus.
“Presumption has nothing to do with it, my Lord Hand. All of King’s Landing saw what I can do to the White Swords.”
Wiping that smug Reachman’s smirk off his face was more pleasing than the King’s laughter. “He has you there, Otto! Though I am certain he means no disrespect to my Kingsguard.”
“Of course. They gave an excellent account of themselves. If they had as much experience as I do, I’m certain they would’ve triumphed.” He stares a moment in Otto’s eyes. “But they don’t. And they didn’t.”
That pleases the King and satisfies the Queen, almost as much as his confidence does the Princess, but Lady Alicent looks far from comfortable with his boasting. A humbler heart, he muses. Chivalry will win her over, then.
King Viserys says his witnessing Criston’s skill is enough to earn his approval, but that the Queen holds some reservations about… seemliness. Criston’s way of carrying himself is a controversial one that might ill reflect on a Princess, he meanders.
The queen interrupts her husband’s clumsy attempt at tact. “What the King means, Criston, is that in our court, it is the unfortunate truth that many see sellswords as opportunistic, and more so…”
“And more so a Dornish one, who is wont to ravage their women?” He smiles politely at their surprise. “Directness is far from a sin, your grace, and I am neither deaf nor blind. I know what the people of the Seven Kingdoms think of their neighbours in the south. At least your Hand was not afraid to speak his mind.”
“Such is the mind of some, but not ours,” interjects Princess Rhaenyra, glaring at Otto. “All are welcome here at my father’s court.”
“Enough, Rhaenyra!” Queen Aemma admonishes. ”Ser Otto harbors nothing of the sort,Criston, I’m certain. Despite what my brash daughter implies.”
“But of course,” Otto says, silken-voiced as a eunuch.
Criston almost trusts the Reachman… which means either the seven hells are freezing over or he’ll have to keep an eye on this one.
“Fret not,” he says with a smile, “we shook hands at the feast, Ser Otto and I. So to speak. But you’re asking why you should allow a Dornish sellsword to be your daughter’s hired shield, and to that I say: because this particular dornishman knows best how to kill her.”
The silence is old and true, and he loves this reaction. The tension, the exchange of nervous looks… even these two monarchs are like lambs who suddenly realized they’ve invited a wolf into their home. A pleasure, dark perhaps, blooms in his chest.
Then he recalls how disappointed Mother would be in his pleasure and it turns to a brief shame in a heartbeat.
“I beg your pardon?” Queen Aemma says.
Business takes over; the shame’s gone. “Excuse my bluntness, your graces, it is a sellsword’s tongue I’m cursed with. I mean only that I have an instinct for murder. I am, in fact, one of the best murderers in this whole land. Therefore I know how a murderer thinks, how they would commit their murders if they don’t wish to be known, if they wish to be, if they wish to make an example. Who would be the likeliest catspaw. I watch and listen. I see what others don’t.”
“How?” It’s the Princess who breaks the silence, and unlike the rest she seems almost energized by the previous tension. “Tell me how you’d murder me.” Lady Alicent stares at her royal companion with horror.
His liking for Rhaenyra Targaryen grows in spite of himself. “For one, I wouldn’t have entered the same room as a man or woman I wish dead without concealing at least two blades on my person. The blades must be thin as can be. One for the kill, the other a spare if guards insist I hand over any weapons. If I wished to doom you to die long after I leave, Tears of Lys would see that the Realm’s Delight would pass from a tragic illness.”
“You would not use the blade?” she asks with a playfulness in her quirked eyebrow.
“Not if I wished to leave this room alive.” He glanced back at Lord Commander Westerling, that angry grey bear. “I’m still unarmored.”
“How would you do it, though? If you had to use a blade, here and now, in this very room.”
Criston has to grin. He doesn’t need to look to know her parents are glaring holes in her. “An artist can’t very well reveal all their secrets, Princess.”
“Art?” the queen scoffed. “You call murder art?”
“Of course, your grace. Ask your white swords if they need not master and refine this art to murder for the safety of the royal family?”
"To protect us, not–”
“And if you should hire me, then I will employ violence to protect you as well, and I dare say more effectively. Death is death, your grace, and I've seen enough to know what to keep watch for.”
The looks the King and Queen give one another are inscrutable to him - these two have known each other long. But he knows he has a silver tongue, and he knows the Queen’s recent close touch with the Stranger will make his words strike all the truer with her. Her doubts are moot.
“With what company?”
Ser Otto draws his attention with his question. The question Criston hoped, perhaps foolishly, wouldn’t be asked, at least not until far later during his stay.
“You speak with a convincing measure of crassness, I do not deny – in fact I am ready to believe you the veteran sellsword you say you are. Yet, you haven’t given us a crumb of details. Why is that?”
“What is it you wish to know, Lord Hand?” He’s keenly aware of the curiosity of the Princess Rhaenyra and Lady Alicent.
“Your rank, for one. For aught we know, you were a common footsoldier.”
“I’ve proven myself anything but common at the melee, I’m certain you’ll agree, my lord.” He considered a moment, then decided honesty was easiest. “When the company disbanded, I was Lieutenant and second-in-command.”
“Is that so?” He nods ponderously. “Impressive, especially for one so young. It is good you have a captain who can vouch for their right hand man… or did they happen to perish?” That Reachman smugness is back, like he’s caught Criston out in a lie.
Criston stops smiling. “He lives.”
“Then you’ll deign to give us the name of your once-illustrious company, and the captain who led it?”
He stares, for a long while. “The Black Suns.”
The air in the room shifts noticeably, for it’s not long at all before the others in the room notice the Hand’s shocked silence.
“My captain,” he continues, “was Prince Nymor Martell. He has chosen to return to his home in Sunspear, where I elected to travel Westeros beyond Dorne’s borders. The men and women who follow me are veterans and retainers who chose to follow me for prospects of coin and travel of the Seven Kingdoms.” The silence stretches further.
“Otto?” The King looks at his Hand uncertainly.
When the Hand of the King turns to his liege, he does so bowing his head. “Your Grace, I must apologize; I wish to retract my doubts and recommend we hire this mercenary immediately.”
“You what?” The Princess looks as if she just saw a chicken hatch from a dragon’s egg, and Lady Alicent not too differently.
“Are you certain, Otto? I must say, I’m taken aback.” He looks at Criston. “Your reputation must certainly precede you, Criston of the Red Mountains.”
He merely bows his head.
“Very well. Uh… Shall we draft a contract?” He gestured for Princess Rhaenyra and Lady Alicent to leave, but Criston held up his hand.
“Forgive me, your grace, but the captains or lieutenants of free companies do not negotiate directly with their employers, only the company negotiator. It’s policy. Your Hand will be informed of their visit accordingly.” Giving the King no time to process, he bows, “Your graces, Lord Hand. My ladies.”
Just before his foot landed past the threshold, he turns quickly. “Forgive me, your graces, but I had meant to ask… How did Princess Rhaenyra convince you to allow me the generosity of a meeting?”
Whatever astonishment remained on the King’s face faded to show instead a long, tired tale. “For the sake of propriety and the honour of the Targaryen name, I will not shame any of us by relaying that tale with you,” he says with a sudden and renewed glare to his daughter, who for once seems discomfited, if not ashamed. “You are dismissed, Sellsword Criston.”
Criston knows when to bow out. As he does, he fights for a second time to suppress his amusement.
As he makes his way back to the stable, his shadows falling in behind, he takes in the halls that are to become his new place of employment and likely residence. It is the first time he will be selling his sword as a bodyguard.
With that realization, a fear.
Gods, he prays, let it not be a boring arrangement, or I may have need of poison after all.
Notes:
Back to writing this hot mess of a fic, considering I've been daydreaming about it since I posted it almost a year ago. Also, I love accidentally posting instead of saving draft! Heart attacks are great! Thankfully I only had a little editing left to do so I just frantically finished that up before anyone could read the fucking thing lmaoooo
Less interaction between the pookies than I intended but more on the way once these three hot messes are gonna be meeting as guard and charge finally omahgaaa 🥰🥰🥰
Chapter Text
When the door to the Small Council opened, Otto was not surprised to see Ser Harwin Strong enter in his superior’s stead. He had an apologetic cast to his eyes, and glanced unsubtly to his father before he spoke.
“Let me guess,” the King interrupted, “my dear brother is unable to attend his duties once more.”
Ser Harwin bowed his head. “I beg your forgiveness, your grace–”
“I know Daemon’s temperament. I’m certain you did your best, Ser Harwin.” Viserys gave a wave of his hand. “Very well, I suppose we will have to proceed without him. Again.” The King’s good moods were fortunate, for he no longer insisted Daemon attend the meetings. A blessing for the Realm, Otto felt. “You may go, Ser.”
Ser Harwin bowed and turned, the doors shutting behind him.
Lord Beesbury puffed out a long breath. “Forgive me for saying so, your grace, but Prince Daemon is taking his new lot harshly.”
“By ‘lot’ you mean the birth of my son?” Viserys’s eyes narrowed. “Surely I know you better, Lord Lyman, than to believe you are unburying the matter of mine own brother’s supposed ambitions for my throne?”
“I meant nothing of the sort, my king! Only–”
“Good,” he said, with a finality that looking about the council table and the faces of his advisors was not shared by the rest of them. He frowned.. “Understand, my lords, my brother is not a traitor.”
“No one is making that claim,” Otto interjected, quickly but calmly.
“And yet I see on your faces suspicion. Of what, precisely, if not treason? Tax avoidance? Daemon is my family. Before I married Aemma it was but my brother and I. He may have had fancies of inheriting after me, aye, and he may long for the days when it was us two young men against the world, frolicking and feasting in the taverns of Eel Alley, but my lords have my word that he will come around. And until then I will suffer no more of this absurd sedition. Am I understood?!”
Otto was first to bow his head in acquiescence, for what else could be done? The King could be stubborn to the point of blindness as regards his family; a family from which, unfortunately, he never excluded Daemon. It mattered not how far the Rogue Prince’s disrespect went. In fact, Otto’s begun to reach the point of keeping silent the whispers that reached his ears regarding Daemon’s conduct of late.
The Rogue Prince had not gone too far quite yet, as he inevitably would. But Otto is a patient man. What is a few months more of his presence when Otto had suffered it for years?
For his grace’s part, Viserys was pleased with the wordless acquiescence of his council, and began the meeting with a gesture of his hand.
Otto’s report gave the latest on the harvests and foodstuff preservation, and the state of the city’s grain vaults and food stores, corroborated by Beesbury’s count of sacks. Beesbury then proceeded to give an updated list of expenditures. Most of it was the result of Prince Baelon’s Tourney and the initial feast held in celebration of Queen Aemma’s health, including the ridiculously expensive amulet gifted to Master Brand (which the impetuous Princess could be thanked for promising the man in person), and future, expected expenditures to come with the upcoming celebration, a grander feast more fitting for the Queen and the Realm’s new heir.
Otto was usually not fond of Viserys’ penchant for feasting, but the commons would be inspired by an auspice for the Realm’s prosperity.
In short, the meeting began as any other: mundane, and procedural. Would that it remained so.
“And how is the mood in the city, Lord Strong?” the King asked.
“At best my report will have to suffice as a rough estimation, as it must go without corroboration by the Commander of the City Watch’s reports.” When the King gestured for him to proceed, he cleared his throat. “The city seems to be in high spirits on most counts, your grace, and it is a sentiment shared by the lords and ladies of the Realm. The succession is secure, and the recent stream of travellers for the tourney and feasts bring much business and revelry. Common travellers, merchants, lords, knights. Then there is the… enthusiastic clamoring for the Princess’ hand amongst the lattermost–”
“On what counts are the people less enthusiastic, precisely?” his grace asked, visibly piqued of his curiosity. “You said most counts .”
Despite first impressions one might have of the brutishly-statured Lord Lyonel, the man was far too clever to glance in Otto’s direction. “Prince Daemon’s carrying out of summary justice prior to Prince Baelon’s tournament has permeated in the poorer sections a sense of fear.”
Viserys smiled, good-naturedly. “No law-abiding man or woman need fear the City Watch,” he insisted. The smile faded when Lord Lyonel kept his silence.
“If there is something to be said, Master of Laws,” Otto said, finally, “I suggest you say it.”
Strong looked at him, then again to the king. “There are some reports that indicate not all those who were subject to the Prince’s… justice, were as guilty as the cold cloaks claimed.”
“No criminal admits he is one,” Viserys said impatiently. His mood had shifted, souring.
“Your grace… some came forth supposedly with evidence.”
Silence.
“Evidence? And pray, where are these supposed goodmen who were wronged? Or their evidence? Speak.”
“A few have been found dead,” Strong confessed eventually. The silence in the room loudened. “In brawls gone awry, or seemingly died during robberies. Those who remain swiftly retracted their complaints. This was not a week past.”
The silent fury on the King’s face only deepened. Each councilman waited for another to speak first.
“Th-That can be for any number of reasons–”
“Lord Lyman, please,” Otto interrupted. “The day the Small Council derelicts by holding their tongues and plugging their ears is the day the Seven Kingdoms plunge into ruin.”
Lord Lyonel cleared his throat. “It must be said that some of these witnesses were also beaten severely by gold cloaks.”
“How severely?” Viserys asked, dangerously quiet.
“...Some succumbed.”
Whatever good mood the King was in went flying with his goblet. “Damn it, Daemon!” It tolled against the wall a measly and annoying bell, then landed and bounced across the red bricks of the floor before rolling noisily to a halt.
“Others simply retracted their complaints following these incidents,” Lord Strong finished. He refused to break gazes with the King.
As Viserys breathed deep, Lord Beesbury grumbled half-intelligibly about Prince Daemon’s “unfitting behaviour”. The Sea Snake finally broke his silence to ask how many of these supposed innocents were petitioning for justice, and Lord Strong’s answer pleased him not, that Lord Corlys felt the need to warn his grace against the dangers that would brew should this discontent not be addressed.
I had nearly forgotten how easy it is when the truth is on one’s side, Otto thought to himself, not without some pride but the gods were certain to forgive him that small sin.
His grace would have to see his brother for what he was.
“There is some measure of respite from the matter,” Lord Lyonel said, unexpectedly.
“Respite?” Viserys asked. “What possible respite, pray?”
Grand Maester Mellos broke his silence. “Word reaches me that the injuries left in the wake of Prince Daemon’s,” he cleared his throat, “purge placed great strain on local physicians and itinerant healers. Until recently. It’s been found that a sudden flood of coin and expertise came to the city’s hostels, and it scarce took a brief investigation to reveal that the man responsible for both is none other than Master Brand, and by proxy his employer, of course. The sellsword your daughter has hired to be her bodyguard.”
“Is that so?” His grace lifted his head from his hand, frown turned to wide-eyed interest.
“It seems the sellsword is working to ingratiate himself with the commons,” Otto muttered. “Hardly a surprise, considering the company in which he fought.”
Otto can recall on both hands how many times Viserys was excited to attend council meetings, yet it did not surprise him one whit that his king straightened in his seat for this. “What have you found out about him, Otto, his company?”
“What company?” Lord Corlys asked.
“The Black Suns,” Otto said.
“That band of gallivanting heroes?” Lord Corlys’ laugh was as rich as honey. “The one headed by the princeling of Dorne?! The man is the black sheep of the Martells and fourth-born besides. I thought he would die in Essos when first he sailed off - I can scarce recall how long ago.”
“Seven years and five months, roughly,” Viserys said. The sellsword had left an impression on him.
“This 'black sheep' has now been lionized, I must amend, and welcomed back a hero by his entire people,” Otto interjected. “And conciliatory, whispers claim, to the very family that once shunned him. His return has bolstered not only the stability of Martell rule and destroyed any chance of infighting but Dorne’s wealth with a mountain of plundered riches - not unlike what filled your ships on your famed voyages, Lord Corlys, and brought your own family to the heights it now soars at. All this, of course, is not to mention the retinue of Sunspear that is now filled with thousands of hardened veterans who have fought from the western coasts of Essos to the depths of Yi Ti.”
Some rumors even claimed they ventured into Asshai-by-the-Shadow and the coasts of Sothoryos, but Otto gave such foolishness far less credibility.
“Indeed, I would not underestimate them, Lord Corlys.” Everyone quieted and strained their ears to hear Larys the Clubfoot speak (it disquieted Otto how easily he forgot the man was there until he chose to speak.) “I would be remiss not to remind my lords that this Lieutenant managed to hide his presence from the Crown’s eyes and ears until the heir’s tournament. The deed to the land he purchased outside of the city has his signature, land purchased directly from the Crown only six months before the tourney, and yet we had no hint as to his identity. Now he houses seventy veterans there and half again that number in servants. If nothing else, he has excellent security… which bolsters my belief that the rumours regarding Prince Nymor Martell’s cunning are not exaggerated. This Criston serves a powerful man… or served, if you are inclined to take him at his word.”
“Do you mean to imply what I think you are, Young Larys?” The King leaned forward with a look that grew grimmer by the word. “Have I hired a Martell spy to guard my daughter’s body?”
“I sincerely doubt so, your grace,” Otto answered, before the Clubfoot could. “No spy would be so foolish as to purchase land outside of the city he means to spy in, build upon it a lavish manse, and then show his face before half the City and the entire court he means to infiltrate!”
“And yet all this he did without ever revealing his identity,” Viserys retorted. “The right hand of a Martell Prince.”
“I believe this sellsword never entered King’s Landing proper until the tourney. He is cautious, yes, but far from invisible.” Though he had revealed himself to be irritatingly close to it… “No, everything points to this lieutenant truly parting ways from his captain. And the Martells would be fools to escalate beyond border raids, least of all Prince Nymor.”
“Why,” Viserys asked, frowning, “what do you know of him?”
“Never trust the perfidious nature of Dornishmen, Lord Hand,” Lord Beesbury commented unhelpfully before he could answer. Otto resisted the childish urge to roll his eyes. “It’s the heat in their blood. It drives them to lengths most would consider foolish.”
“Prince Nymor may be daring but he is not foolish,” he said impatiently. “And his politics have never hinted at any ambitions of hostility against the Seven Kingdoms, unlike his sister, who I will remind my lords is the Princess of Dorne.”
Beesbury took a polite sip of his wine to hide his lack of response.
“Forgive me, Otto, but I must interject,” said his grace. “I thought this Nymor was a mercenary captain. Now you say he has been welcomed back a hero and speak of ‘politics’?”
“He may have taken coin to fight the battles of others in appearance, but Prince Nymor is far from a simple sellsword. He is as ardent in his opposition to slavery as a man of Rhoynish descent can be. From what I have been able to gather, since he founded the Black Suns he has fought a zealous war against the Wise Masters of Slaver’s Bay and those Free Cities that engage in the slave trade.”
Lord Corlys put his hand up in a ceasing gesture. “Forgive me, but I have a hard time swallowing this fairy tale. A man does not found a mercenary company to wage a war of justice against slavers, he does so because he wishes to make coin. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“The Black Suns are no fairy tale,” Otto interjected in firm warning. “However cynical Prince Nymor’s reasons may be in truth, his people believe he is a chainbreaker, and that has won him overwhelming support from the commons and nobles alike. And no one may disregard what he has accomplished. He did go to war against Slaver’s Bay and the Free Cities, my lord, and he did win. You might have asked House Rogare of Lys to allay your doubts, had the Prince left any of their number alive, but as it is the blood of even their children flowed down the stones of their burning palace.”
For once, the Sea Snake had no immediate retort.
“If he was winning so splendidly, then why did he run?” he asked eventually. “As I hear it, he tucked tail and raised sail for home after an attempt on his life.”
Otto heard it differently: that Nymor had been wounded by the attempt, grievously, and since then wore a mask to hide his disfigurement, but reports of a black-masked horseman leading a band of Black Sun veterans cast doubt upon any claims of his cripplehood. “Because,” he said, “with the fall of the House of Rogare, the slavers began to forgive old feuds between them long enough to band together against the interloper. Nymor Martell knew that if he did not leave, it would not matter how fiercely and cunningly he fought, or how resilient and vicious his veterans were. It would be a fight until the setting of the Black Suns forever. So he stopped whilst he remained ahead.” He held the Sea Snake’s gaze. “There are few men as dangerous as the one who knows his limits.”
“Unless he brings his war to home,” the King pointed out. “Is such a miscalculation possible?”
Otto looked at his king, his dear friend and fool, who never failed to try to understand, and who never failed to fail at the task. “Aegon the Conqueror could not bring Dorne to heel with three dragons and all the armies of the Westeros, your grace. Dorne loves their wayward Prince. The Wise Masters have no chance at anything but a disastrous invasion, and with Prince Nymor excellent relations with Braavos there will be little chance of a Faceless Man doing the deed for them…”
Viserys leaned back, digesting everything he’s been told. “Suffice it to say, we have little to be concerned with.”
“Indeed. As far as this Lieutenant is concerned, I would not have recommended him if I believed we would have cause to worry. He will make a fine protector so long as he is paid. The Black Suns were reliable, for their ilk.”
“Their ilk?” Viserys smirked. “Is this the Reachman in you, Otto? Do you speak of mercenaries or Dornishmen?”
“Surely you know me better than that, your grace.”
“I am teasing you!” Viserys chuckled, and patted his arm with a hand that was always warm.
(Otto often wondered if it was thanks to his Valyrian blood.)
Finally, the meeting turned to duller yet far more important matters. When those matters were dealt with for the day, Otto breathed a silent sigh of relief as an end to the meeting was called. When the King called him to stay as he was to follow his fellow councilors out, he was unusually surprised.
“Why did you retract your doubts regarding this sellsword?” he said with a bluntness that has become more common of late, since Aemma nearly lost her life. “The truth of it, Otto. You were far too eager to recommend him and I will know why.”
“Truthfully, your grace?”
The king gave him the look. “Would I have it any other way?”
“Do you wish me to answer that truthfully?” he could not help but quip, then bowed apologetically before his old friend’s glare. “He will make an excellent protector, your grace… and excellent leverage.”
Viserys’ brow rose in surprise.
“Dorne raids our borders, while the Free Cities have traded with us freely since before the days of Aegon the Dragon. If ever we desire closer relations with our partners in Essos…”
“We would hand them Criston?” His grace’s shock might’ve made Otto laugh, but he didn’t wish for it to be taken the wrong way and refrained.
Viserys never understood all the things that was done for the Realm. If only he had an inkling as to the rivers of blood that has been spilled for his “peaceful” reign. But no reign was bloodless.
“Nymor might be hailed a hero,” Otto said, “but Dorne will not go to war for his lieutenant, no matter how well-loved he is. On the other hand, the slavers would be especially inclined to gratitude if we were to hand them the right hand with which Prince Nymor waged his war. The Houses of Lys especially, if only to appear that they desire vengeance for their fellow magisters.”
“Rhaenyra has been looking forward to Criston’s arrival today for over a month,” Viserys said as if her banal concerns mattered, “and she has become insufferable in her eagerness since we consented to hiring him. She won’t stand for it.”
Insufferable is one word, Otto thought. Obscene is more apt. “We must all make sacrifices for the realm,” he said. “The Princess will do her part if needed, I’m certain.” He smiled sagely. “But let us not speak of such grim things, your grace, for I spoke merely of possibilities. For aught we know, nothing dramatic will come of this at all, and your daughter may entertain herself with this sellsword until she grows bored of him.”
“With any luck, it will be as swiftly as she does every other adventurer that comes to court.” Whatever misgivings showed on the King’s visage, a faint smile played on his lips now. “She refuses to even acknowledge Ser Rymun in favor of this sellsword’s coming arrival. When she does not ignore the poor man she calls him Ser Seagull.”
What a fate that’s befallen the son of Lord Lymond Mallister… to be newly inducted into Kingsguard, have the white cloak draped about your shoulders by the Realm’s Delight herself… only to find she is an ungrateful brat. Princess Rhaenyra would have to be married off before her unseemly obsession with the sellsword became wholly obscene like every other facet of her public life… but that’s a matter for another day.
And when that day came, if something scandalous were to occur between the sellsword and the Princess… why, that would be the perfect excuse to expedite Otto’s plans for them both.
Perhaps they would be caught with witnesses (Alicent is an excellent candidate; he cultivated her honour well, and none at court may doubt her word or character), and his grace would outright shower him with honors for exposing the sellsword and protecting the Princess’s fragile honour. No one of import would remain to raise a complaint as the Dornishman is handed off to his fate at the hands of his enemies. An undoubtedly grisly fate, but needs must.
And then, perhaps, Viserys would finally realize who his truest ally and friend is whilst Daemon sulked in his winesinks as he has been since Baelon’s birth.
“If that is all, your grace…”
“Yes, yes. You’re dismissed.”
Otto bowed and took his leave for the dungeons, where the Clubfoot waited for him, keeping their friend the Yunkai’i spy company. It was nothing short of providence that their spiders caught him in their web the very night before.
The time had come to see how many tales of the Black Suns were true, and how many were fiction.
Shouting echoed indecently from the Queen’s chambers.
It was too hot today for this, Alicent thought, already anxious for having been forced to forgo her noon prayers. Any other day and she’d be kneeling in the sept alone, but Rhaenyra insisted they meet the sellsword upon his arrival…
From the raised voices inside, it seemed she would wait a while longer. Which meant she’d miss greeting Criston upon his arrival. Which rendered the whole argument that was ongoing behind the closed doors moot in any regard – that it was inappropriate for a Princess to sit and wait at the gates to greet her coming bodyguard (whose Dornishness could apparently not be understated amongst the court, except in Rhaenyra’s presence lest they risk a scathing tirade similar to the one Nyra gave Lady Massey three nights ago) which meant that Alicent had been sitting in front of the sun for far too long for no reason at all!
How she wished to go in there, grab Rhaenyra by the head and scream, “Why can’t you just learn to pick your battles?!”
As if she did not know the answer that never changed no matter how many times she asked it of herself.
Because she is Rhaenyra .
Alicent sighed. Would it be the Rhaenyra who’d saved her from a betrothal to Lord Tyrell’s feckless heir if her noon hadn’t turned out this way, with Rhaenyra clawing and screaming at the mildest request (command, in truth) from her parents?
Frankly, however, after the mad scheme Rhaenyra had cooked up to convince the King to give the sellsword a chance to prove himself came to its chaotic fruition, Rhaenyra was lucky her parents still allowed her to remain unmarried at all, nevermind to take on the melee victor as her bodyguard. Three gold cloaks had nearly died. And one of them lost two fingers!
What were you thinking, Nyra?! she asked, now exasperated all over again.
Yet, as ever, it was impossible for Alicent to stay angry at her. She hasn’t seen Nyra buzz with so much excitement in… gods, years? She was as a girl getting her first pony on her tenth nameday – well, any other girl that didn’t already have a dragon hatch in her cradle – and in the privacy of the royal family’s solar they gossiped of the tales and sundry entertainment with which they’d be regaled when the mercenary arrived.
“A lieutenant! Can you believe it, Ali? And did you hear the name? The Black Suns. A strong name like that… gods only know how many adventures he has to share.”
Alicent had to confess: she felt invigorated by the prospect. So what if their graces didn’t wish Rhaenyra to greet him at the gates? Alicent gave not one whit! They would have the rest of their days to hear the man’s tales and exploits, straight from the dragon’s mouth!
And yet, the volume from the queen’s chambers rose once more.
It is as if she senses this sellsword is the last bit of freedom she will be given, and she’s trying to squeeze it for all its joy.
Sadness swelled in her chest, abrupt and massive. Suddenly feeling as if a mare had sat on her chest, Alicent stood up from the stone bench and left, ignoring Ser Harrold’s questions.
“Sister! Where are you going?” Gwayne called after her.
“To greet the sellsword myself,” she called back, hoping her tremor didn’t get through.
His pace quickened until he was beside her. “I’m not certain that’s–”
“He’s assuredly in the castle already,” she said, to appease his concerns. “We shall merely meet him halfway. And regardless, I have you with me. It shan’t be improper.”
“True enough.”
She smiled. It gladdened her that Gwayne was more pliable than their father, it made him easier to be with.
Not that she did not love father, of course! But to be constantly overwatched could be exhausting, gods forgive her for saying so, and she was tired enough by… everything else.
Except this.
The tightness in her chest loosened with every step and Alicent was glad of having left. Breathing came easier.
“I pray I don’t overstep, sister,” Gwayne said, “but does the princess always conflict so with her sire?”
“More and more often, these days.” She saw the uncertainty on his face. “Give her grace, Gwayne. She’d been waiting years for the Queen to deliver her a brother who would relieve her of the burden of succession, only to find that it’s given way to a veritable flood of suitors.”
“Is that not an improvement?” Gwayne saw her expression and looked as if she had said something ludicrous. “She does not wish to marry?”
“She despises the thought,” Alicent confessed. It was ludicrous to not wish to marry, a woman of Rhaenyra’s station. And yet, that only made the fact that Alicent shared her anxiety even harder to contend with.
It was not always so. Once, she had been bright-eyed at the prospect, but life changes more and more as time passes, and people with it. Alicent was no exception.
“I would have thought that with a dutiful companion such as yourself would change her mind.”
She laughed. “Rhaenyra?”
“Well, you will forgive my naivety. I assure you the thought perished when I met her,” he said, smiling. Then, a pause. “...To be true, if anyone might have managed to influence the Princess, I believe you would have. You’ve known her longer than you have me after all.”
“I…”
“I say that with no resentment, dear sister. I mean only to express that, well, I suppose I see how she respects you. In a way that, to be frank, I have yet to see her respect anyone else in my entire time here, including the king and queen. She loves you dearly.”
The floor caught her interest of a sudden. She cleared her throat. “And I her. She’s my dearest friend.”
“That gladdens me to hear. Who knows, perhaps when you marry a fine lord, she will see it’s not so frightening.” She tried to will away the cold pooling in her stomach. “And if it doesn't, well, I have heard tell she has a dragon.”
Alicent’s anxiety disappeared as suddenly as her laughter bubbled in her chest. “She’s made the same jape since we were girls, that she’ll scare away any suitors with Syrax.”
“All is well, then!” He chuckled.
She looked at Gwayne and felt a terrible fondness. How she wished duty wouldn’t keep him from staying a month or two longer at the Red Keep, for she was certain this place would grow colder in his absence.
Had she instead looked ahead, she would’ve seen the man she’d been meaning to meet in front of her.
“Lady Alicent.”
She gasped, startled. When she saw who had joined her and her brother in the bright garden, she blushed over how badly she’d jumped. “S-Ser Criston.”
Even clad in more practical attire he did not fail to stand out, in a loose cotton shirt under a vest and a handsome pair of trousers. He moved with an easy grace that hid the danger she’d witnessed at the tourney. That frightened her a little. Despite living with Father all her life, she never learned how to handle a man who knew how to hide his darker nature.
A nature which Ser Otto, as ironically as profusely, warned her of.
“Never let down your guard around the Black Suns’ Lieutenant,” is all he said simply. It was his eyes that spoke volumes.
Why would you hire such a man to protect my friend, Father? she asked, not for the first time.
Behind Criston at one side loomed a tall, clean-shaven man with eyes as grey as iron and brown straight hair down to his neck, clad in plate and mail under a woolen coat and a helm wrapped in a turban to stave off the day’s heat. Grasped in his right hand was the long haft of an axe that stood near as tall as he. At Criston’s other flank, a fiercely visaged woman stood, as lithe and firm as a glaive, with skin as black as onyx and a head completely free of hair. Dark lines marked this woman’s face – scars, Alicent realized – and her expression was a constant, leonine frown: deep-furrowed and stoic, but with an undercurrent of anger humming beneath, like a tiger lying in ambush in shrubbery. She wore a scale chest piece, and engraved slim metal vambraces encased her forearms, with a set of greaves to match. A nimble and protective attire.
Somehow, she frightened Alicent more than the giant man.
“It is a pleasure to meet you again,” Criston said. “Forgive me for startling you.”
She snapped her out of her stare and blushed. “Uh, l– Likewise.” Alicent curtsied, averting her gaze nowhere in particular. “This– um– This is my brother, Gwayne— Ser Gwayne. A knight.”
He smiled. “I gathered. Greetings, Ser Gwayne.”
“And to you,” Gwayne said with a haughtiness that wasn’t there before. “You must be the Sellsword for whom the court’s been abuzz. I must confess, I’m confused as to why my sister calls you Ser.”
“A kindness I’m not owed, I assure you,” Criston said with a dismissive wave. “I told her once during a feast that I was knighted by an exile from Westeros who himself claimed knighthood, though I have no impartial witness. Yet Lady Alicent insists on calling me Ser. I feel it would be rude to argue.”
“A kindness indeed…”
Alicent winced; it seemed not all of Father’s influence failed to take hold in Gwayne.
“A-And who are your companions,” she said, eager to change the subject. For a brief moment she was certain she had made a mistake when Criston stepped aside and allowed the armored man’s height to fully sink in. Gods be good, had he brought the Titan of Braavos himself?
“Allow me to introduce Valeo, of Great Norvos. Formerly a slave-soldier of the Bearded Priests of that Great City, now a freedman, and until recently one of the Black Suns’ serjeants. Now he is merely under my humble employ.”
Hardly so humble , she thought, recalling his boastfulness before their graces as Criston gestured to the armored woman glaring at Alicent’s brother, stoically and openly.
“And this is Kojja, the Warmaiden herself. Merely mention her name around my retinue and you will find a deluge of tales spilling forth of her exploits. Most of them are even true. Once a champion of the Pits of Mereen, now a freedwoman, and among of my most trusted advisors and bodyguards. You will not find a fiercer weaponmaster on this continent. The Princess Rhaenyra will come to enjoy both their protection, and that of my other veterans as well.”
Alicent didn’t miss the curt, inscrutable glance Kojja sent towards Criston before she resumed staring daggers at Gwayne.
“What fortune,” she said, a mite nervous, but she meant it. So long as these killers were on their side, she could hardly complain…
“I can’t say allowing a woman to bodyguard a man is something that is considered common here in the rest of Westeros,” Gwayne said, “but it is hardly new that the Dornish treat their women differently.”
Gods help me .
“Your sister may call him ‘Ser’.” Kojja broke her silence, accent thick.
“I beg your pardon?” Gwayne blinked in surprise.
“Your sister. May call him. Ser.” she said, as if she were speaking to a dullard.
“Kojja,” Criston warned. “Ser Gwayne was only expressing how unusual he found us, but he meant no insult, I’m sure.”
“Of course,” Alicent answered before her brother could; it would not do to glare at her brother openly, so she must make her displeasure known this way. “Will you walk with me, Ser– Ah, Criston?”
“It would be my honor, my lady,” he said with such earnestness that she almost believed him. Foolish, she was certain, but if the fantasy made her braver then what harm was there, she thought.
Criston surprised her pleasantly.
The stiff stroll she began through the garden courtyards turned, against all odds, quite leisurely. She and Criston walked side-by-side, but at a respectful distance that settled her nerves whilst Gwayne trailed not too far behind with Criston’s mercenaries, and he made up her lack of loquaciousness.
His humility also took her aback. A week ago, selling his service to the King and Queen, he’d been the same boisterous, if charismatic mercenary who’d danced around and beaten every opponent that met him at the melee at Prince Baelon’s Tournament – handsome in a roguish way at a distance and fighting, arrogant and intimidating closer – but now he reverted to the same surprisingly understated man who’d been sampling wines and quail at the feast where Master Brand was honoured and rewarded for saving Queen Aemma and Prince Baelon’s lives.
His diplomacy in handling Gwayne’s unfortunate comments, much like the tact he’d displayed when confronted by her father and Ser Harrold at the feast, was yet more relief for her frayed nerves.
She found this side of him rather enamoring, truth be told. He seemed almost chivalrous.
“Never let down your guard around the Black Suns’ Lieutenant.” Father’s warning echoed. Easier said than done, she found.
His handsome attire was not displeasing either. A fine pair of dark trousers, leather boots cobbled in a fashion that was foreign to her but she enjoyed, and a handsome cotton shirt crowned with a vest atop it in the fashion of bravos and made of supple leather fit for a nobleman… with a glint of chainmail beneath.
It was, in short, as pleasing as his company was turning out to be. Queer, in a way, but not indecent at all, nor as unpleasant or irrationally dangerous as Father would have her believe.
Are you lying to me, Father? came the abrupt thought. Just as suddenly a terrible shame burned her. What kind of daughter thinks of a protective sire so, she berated herself.
“Is something bothering you, my lady?”
Her eyes wandered over his eyebrow that had been slit near its corner. “Not at all. If I may, Criston...”
“Have I offended you?”
“What?” His sudden concern took her aback.
“You discarded my honorific of ‘ser’,” he said, somber. “I beg forgiveness for any offense I caused–”
“No, no, I…” The worry on his face melted away into a smile. She gasped. “You… Gods, you mustn’t be so cruel!” They laughed, she mayhaps too readily and loudly, but he shared in it genuinely. Her mind felt at ease.
“Forgive me, my lady, I couldn’t resist. You may simply call me Criston if you wish, it makes no matter. What was it you wished to ask?”
For some reason, it felt different to be called his lady. Distracting. And how his words had none of the weight of courtly protocol behind them when he spoke to her made her feel, fittingly, lighter.
She was staring– Alicent’s eyes flew ahead. Behave yourself . She trained her gaze at each passing pillar of the loggia they walked under.
“Well… I wished to know– No, that wasn’t it. Forgive me. I’m everywhere today,” she said, smiling awkwardly.
He gave her a comforting look like he was used to handling noble disasters like her. “Is it a personal question?”
“Not a question, but rather… I think it best we speak before you meet the Princess.” She cleared her throat. “Perhaps you will come to hear rumours, in your days to come in the capital.”
“Regarding?”
“Yourself.”
“Myself… and the Princess?”
“It is unfortunate. And inevitable. Would that it were not so, but… I know not how it is done in Dorne–” She saw the faintest slouch of his eyes and her heart raced that she might’ve made him think of her as being that sort “–b-but here, a woman is expected to marry when she is young and fertile. The higher her station, the sooner.”
“The Princess is…?”
“Eight-and-ten, and unmarried. Like myself. I know, it is most unusual–”
“Even amongst Dornish nobility,” he quipped.
Alicent suspected he was testing to see if that would offend her. She resolved to be as undisturbed as a pond’s surface on a late summer evening. “Then you understand why such rumours are even likelier, under the circumstances?”
“I do. What is it you wish to tell me, Lady Alicent? That I must do my utmost not to seem inappropriate or close to the Princess?”
“Not at all, I– It is not my wish to lecture. I’m certain you know how to behave. I only…” What? She only…? Oh, curse it all, she’d forgotten! “I don’t know. I’m only concerned for my friend.”
“Am I cause for concern?”
“Not at all! You are not the issue, it’s… I…” She sighed, aloud this time. “Forgive me, Criston. It seems my mind has decided this will be the day I make a bungle of everything, down to the simplest of conversations.”
And now she sounds self-pitying. An excellent display you’re making of yourself, Alicent, she thought, miserable.
But when she looked at Criston after a long pause… she found in his eyes sympathy, of all things. “I am gathering it’s not easy to be a woman this far north. Even a noble one.”
As if she had been struck right across her cheek, she could only blink in the aftershock of his words. That did not…
She swallowed, her throat oddly dry.
“Gods know your knights have no problem striding into the brothels,” he continued casually, as if to pretend for her sake that he hadn’t noticed her loss for words.
Soon, they found themselves at a bench in the shade of a maple tree with leaves so dark and red they were purple, like Rhaenyra’s eyes, and the yellow rosebushes made the sensation of Syrax’ warm scales ghost under her palm with how they glowed golden under the sunlight. Alicent realized she recognized this place.
This was the old courtyard where they’d played as girls. She sat where the queen often had… and where she’d held Rhaenyra as she wept for her mother, when they thought the Stranger would come for Aemma.
Without thinking, her feet had brought her here, where memories of her girlhood haunted every rosebush and fruit-tree. Where Criston’s man had told them he saved the Queen’s life and her child.
“Perhaps,” she said when she found her voice. “I have no wish to complain, Criston. Life is surely hard everywhere, and many a women have a far harder lot than mine, to be certain. I have never known hunger, for one. If I must learn to be cautious about my honour and that of my friend, it is no great sacrifice… Do you not agree?”
He did not answer.
For the first time since she met Criston the sellsword, she sees a glimmer of… something on his face, something unknown to her. Gentle, perhaps. More importantly, honest.
Their eyes met.
With a sudden and violent shyness she looked away. “Rhaenyra– The Princess has been unable to sit still this past week.”
“The life of a Princess must be restless,” he said, so easily even she nearly believed her attempt at changing the subject wasn’t painful.
“Not as much as one might believe. To be blunt, Criston, it is all because of you.”
His face lit up with amusement, a smile tinged with skepticism. “The Princess of the Seven Kingdoms has been restlessly waiting for a common-born sellsword?”
“She’s been terribly bored of late,” she says. It’s not a lie if it is only part of the whole truth. “She seems to think you will be cure to all her ails at court.”
“What troubles could a Princess possibly have at her own royal court?” he asked, and Alicent’s struck with the sudden terror that she’s revealed something she shouldn’t have.
“For one,” a voice called out across the garden, “a friend who spreads gossip about her behind her back!”
Criston and Alicent turned.
The shouting match that had left Rhaenyra near to tears with rage went forgotten entirely when she caught sight of him – after a deep breath.
Rhaenyra smiled, soft at the sight of Alicent walking beside the rosebushes and lemon trees where Rhaenyra once played Knight and Princess with her (Rhaenyra as the former, of course), but now a grown woman and escorted by a sellsword. The sellsword. A certainty bloomed in Rhaenyra’s heart that she was witnessing a prelude to her future, one with Alicent still at her side and this dashing rogue to fend off anyone who should attempt to change that. She watched the unlikely pair stop to sit on a bench beneath the shade of a maple tree, and from there her pleasure only increased at listening to Alicent stammer like Mira whenever Loras the page (or was it messenger boy?) greeted her smiling.
Alicent Hightower, weak for Dornish boys. Otto will eat his foot if he discovers this.
She fought to keep her voice even before she called out.
“For one, a friend who spreads gossip about her behind her own back! What took you so long?” She stepped out from under the loggia, taking on a displeased mien. “A less understanding employer might have taken your tardiness for insult, sellsword.”
“As I recall, Princess, the initiative was yours,” Criston said, standing. “If one were daring enough, they might say you kept me waiting when you were to convince your mother and father.”
“Would they?” She glared fiercely. “I would call them insolent, and warn that they had best guard their tongue.”
He only smiled. “It is a good thing then that I would never dare.”
She failed to stop her grin from breaking out, though admirably she managed to contain it to a mere smile. “Well said. Welcome to my home, Sellsword Criston.”
“You honour me.” He bowed gracefully. “It is Bodyguard Criston now, is it not?”
Now she grinned. “Indeed.”Your bodyguard, she imagined rolling off that dornish tongue of his, which ever so subtly rolled its ‘r’s. Rebellion surged through her, resentment for the King and Queen’s humiliating demands, more fit for a disobedient little girl than a grown princess - and she held out her hand, heart racing until she was nearly faint, and he took it without hesitation to place a kiss upon it. She burned in his lips' wake, and cursed the glove she wore.
A throat cleared somewhere, but Rhaenyra was surprised to find it came from the opposite direction of Alicent, the usual suspect (who to be fair blushed furiously and glared a wide-eyed warning).
“Ser Gwayne? I’m glad to see you recovered.”
“I thank you, my lady,” he said, standing there awkward and armored. He looked as if he wished to speak on this sellsword kissing her hand.
“Is something wrong?” she asked innocently. He shook his head after a pause and she hummed. “As you say.” She turned. “Disregarding my dear friend’s slanderous accusations, she’s not wrong in saying that I have been bored. Deathly. So I expect stories of great feats from you, and perhaps some demonstrations.”
“Do you?” The corners of his eyes wrinkled.
“Of course. And should I need a loose-tongued lord silenced, an annoying lady taught a lesson, or a dangerous hero to save me from brigands with devilish intentions, I shall expect you to go to work diligently.”
“I will keep my blades sharp, Princess.”
“Excellent!” Allowing herself to admire him for some five seconds, she then turned, held out her arm for Alicent to loop her own through, and began to walk. “Come. We have a dreadfully boring tea party to attend, resplendent with ladies of the lickspittle sort and sundry old crones. Only don’t expect wisdom from the latter. Their lanterns, unlike the Holy Crone’s, have dimmed. More from wine than age, if truth be told. Well? Come, come, don't feign shyness! Walk beside us, before a crick builds in my neck." To her pleasure, he obeyed immediately. “We don’t frighten you, I hope?”
“You outnumber me, my ladies,” he said, very seriously.
“As did the Cargyll Twins,” Alicent giggled, “but you did away with them swiftly enough.”
Ah, yes. Rhaenyra could still recall that master-stroke with excruciating detail. “That may have been the first time I saw Alicent so exultant at a tourney,” she said, unable to stop herself from teasing. “She has less affinity than most for violence, but it seems yours struck a different chord with her, Criston.”
Alicent squeezed her arm just under the point of pain in revenge.
“That warms the heart to hear,” Criston said. “It is not often my violence brings someone an innocent sort of joy, so it gladdens me that it did for you, Lady Alicent.”
Rhaenyra groaned. “Gods be good, man, can’t you see I’m trying to embarrass my friend?!” Laughter rang out as they neared the end of the garden cloisters and the beginning of the yard that led to Maegor’s Holdfast. “I believe I may have managed to hire the one well-mannered mercenary to walk this mortal realm.”
“Will life’s woes ever cease?” he quipped, and her mask of exasperation finally broke with a smile.
Oh, she’d struck gold with this Dornishman. Perhaps with his company, this tea party wouldn’t end with Rhaenyra wanting to throw herself from the window just to stimulate her wit.
When Ser Gwayne suddenly piped up to say he must excuse himself is when Rhaenyra remembered he was there at all; stamping down her private embarrassment, she teased him to be on his way and keep Lady Darke company before she grew too lonely and another knight swooped in to steal her.
Ser Gwayne’s following blush (as furiously beautiful as his sister’s) let her know she was right on the mark on that one. “Don’t be cruel. She’s a good sort,” Alicent said after he left them, amused. “And the first to keep his attention beyond what is a polite measure of time.”
“Truly? She must be good indeed, then.” She lowered her voice and leaned in. “I’d begun to suspect your brother was a sword swallower.”
“Rhaenyra!” A hand slapped her on the arm hard. Criston laughed loudly.
Notes:
Bad news: I'm still a slow bitch.
Good news: this time I was a slow bitch because I was writing a crisnyra smut fic alongside this chapter.
Reader-dependent news: the smut fic is dead dove. Turns out I'm addicted to psycho Criston and hurt Rhaenyra, so for those of you who're into that stuff, you got something else coming! For those who aren't, well... there's other fish in the sea?IM SO GLAD PEOPLE STILL READ THE POOKIES AAAAAAAAAAAA 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️ Istg even when I wasn't writing these 3 I was daydreaming about them one way or another. It warms the heart that I'm spreading joy for others like me who love them together 🥺🥺🥺
Your comments are worth their key-pressed in gold. I don't know what that means either, I'm just trying to say that it's super heartening everytime. So thank you!!!Now as regards this story, I'm considering already changing the rating to explicit because of the filthy smut that's to come. We aren't there yet, but maybe it's good to let people browsing this site know when they see my story what is planned. Just thinking out loud here (and also teasing smut hehe)
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!
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