Chapter Text
The Seating Arrangements
« Patience is bitter bit its fruit is sweet. »
Aristotle
The army entered King’s Landing beneath a forest of banners. The banners of the victors. Scarlet dragons dominated the procession, snapping in the winds above ranks of men clad in black and red. The golden roses of the Tyrell, the fox of House Florent, the apples green and red from both Houses Fosseway, the Tower of House Hightower, the oaken door of House Rhysling, the silver wyvern of House Vyrwel, the huntsman of House Tarly and the burgundy grape of House Redwine rioted with each other in such number that one might have mistaken the host for a Reach army.
More surprising was the Dornish’s banners scattered among them. The sigil of House Dayne was proudly displayed. Gerold recognized the black portcullis grill over sand of House Yronwood and the black vulture with an infant in its claws of House Blackmont fluttered amongst the clamors. Gerold considered if he should assess them as a tangible threat. He decided to appreciate the brief respite.
The men-at-arms passage through the capital was slow and orderly, thousands of boots and hooves in the city streets.
King’s Landing citizen crowded windows, balconies, and rooftops to witness the return of the victorious heroes from the Westerlands. The realm had torn itself apart only month ago and was now marching beneath the same sky, where roamed a dragon, toward the Red Keep. Gerold appreciated the allegory.
In another life, Gerold would have suspected the display had been carefully arranged. However, Prince Daemon rarely concerned himself with symbolism. He usually stumbled into political brilliance by accident and achieved a better result than men who dedicated their entire lives to the craft.
Maybe Lord Tarly or Lord Tyrell had organized the demonstration.
Wealth stripped from the Westerlands was redistributed through the capital as a visible sign of “just retribution”. Though the distinction between justice and spectacle was thin enough to be meaningless. Victory would feed mouths for weeks.
Prisoners were exhibited in iron cages along the route. Like exotic beasts. A warning, no men anymore. So that no kingdoms could doubt who had lost. Between them heralds proclaimed a new age of Peace and Prosperity, a Golden Age, under the Crown, in the name of Queen Alyssa, First of Her Name.
Gerold noted, without little feeling left to spare, that the combination of coin, fear, and pageantry had proven highly effective in securing loyalty. The arrangement was not subtle and worked precisely as intended.
Sir Gerold, Lord Commander of the Queensguard realized with exhaustion he would soon have to contend with Sir Arthur, Lord Hand of Queen Alyssa’s, presumably vocal opposition to such a strategy. Despite the recent assassination attempt on his person, the White Cloak was noble to a fault and inclined to seek dignity where the Iron Throne now dealt in necessity.
Gerold knew another dispute was brewing between the Prince Regent Daemon and the Lord Hand of the Queen. Gerold would, once again, be forced to translate between conviction and consequences.
The task was convoluted by the Prince Regent’s obsessive concern for the sanctity of Maegor’s Holdfast.
Since the assassination attemp on Queen Alyssa, Prince Daemon had gathered the Dowager Queen, Prince Viserys, ‘Prince’ Aurane, and the Lord Hand himself behind the formidable defenses of Maegor’s Holdfast.
The ancient fortress at the heart of the Red Keep had been conceived by Maegor the Cruel as a castle within a castle, a final refuge against treachery.The twelve-foot walls, the dry moat bristling with iron spikes, the drawbridge, the surviving Queensguards had been inspected and apparently judged insufficient barriers against invisible ennemy.
Prince Daemon’s precautions did not end with stone and steel.
New reports arrived daily concerning suspicious travelers upon the kingsroad, unrest in distant villages, outbreaks of flux among merchant caravans, or highwaymen of unprecedented audacity.
Each tale, supported by an alarming quantity of intelligence, concluded with the recommendation that remaining within the Holdfast represented the safest course of action.
The children were informed of dangers waiting to ambush them beyond the gates.
The Dowager Queen was reminded of her condition.
The Lord Hand was furnished with endless matters of state demanding his presence.
Whether the Prince Regent believed every threat or was simply practical enough to found them useful. Gerold could not determine.
It did not alter the results.
Cosseted captives, confined within the most defended bastion in Westeros.
The Prince Regent’s vigilance seamlessly woven into the fabric of the fortress’ inhabitants daily life.
Caraxes was the strongest redoubt in the Seven Kingdoms.
The Dowager Queen Rhaella humored Prince Daemon with good grace.
Prince Viserys offered no objection to the confinement. Sleep still deserted him on many nights, yielding instead to troubled dreams. The Prince of Dragonstone had attached himself to Prince Daemon with the wholehearted devotion peculiar to children. Sir Gerold witnessed his admiration for his dragonrider uncle and the princeling marked preference for the Prince Regent and Sir Arthur.
As for the ‘Prince’ Aurane, Gerold was certain he would scarcely be persuaded to leave the Holdfast, even under duress. The child regarded his elevation into the orbit of the royal family with a fierce gratitude. Despite his mischievous nature, he obeyed Prince Daemon and the Lord Hand with unwavering, instinctive fealty. He lavished upon Prince Viserys and the infant Queen the protective affection one might bestow upon siblings restored by the mercy of the Seven’s forbearance.
‘Prince’ Aurane, Gerold admitted, not without reluctance, exhibited none of the bitterness so promptly offered soil to root and fester in the malicious temper ascribed to those of uncertain birth. Resentment had found no purchase in the legitimated bastard. Gerold Hightower was obliged to acknowledge the courtly prejudice imagined to linger in the fruit of deception had not embedded itself in Aurane’s disposition. Aurane possessed a heart inclined equally toward mischief and affection. The two impulses were but different expressions of the same untamed generosity. He was a stranger to cruelty, and incapable of witnessing distress without attempting to soothe it. By all accounts, he was disarmingly charming.
The Lord Commander was to accept Prince Daemon’s orders without debate: the child was to be safeguarded as any trueborn Prince of House Targaryen. His security henceforth inforced with the same strict discipline as that of Viserys and the Queen herself.
Sir Gerold was unrestrained in his unshakable faith in Queen Alyssa. His pride House Hightower’s unfurled in service to the Crown. Their renewed prominence in the regency was poised to stretch forward into years yet to be shaped, decades that lay ahead.
The peace of the Seven Kingdoms rested in the infant entrusted to Queensguards’ care. Queen Alyssa, daughter of Prince Rhaegar. By blood and law.
Leyton ensured thusly.
Queen Alyssa was destined to bear the aspects gifted by Targaryen blood. The mark of her lineage was unmistakable. A gift from the Mother, whose care extended toward all her children with gentle vigilance.
Her bearing was comely. Her mismatched eyes reflected no fault. She presented the familiar remoteness associated to Valyrian ancestry, an inheritance of her House. Her dragon was white and gold in hue. Shaped and wrought by the Smith in accordance to her birthright. A mirror of her station. A child born into queenship as soon as she breathed. Elaenaerys appeared as an omen.
Queen Alyssa, a fragile hope granted to the Seven Kingdoms future. The sole guarantor against the long shadow of King Aerys Targaryen. Prospect of insanity that had once defined and had marred Targaryen lineage had been diminished, grown faint enough to ignore
He earnestly hoped the Lords would rally, comforted by the alliances she brought.
A young sovereign, untested but untainted. Her existence a promise of stability instead fire and ruin.
Unfortunately, Gerold confessed he possessed no natural inclination for infants or familiarity in their care. No aptitude, experience, or discernible that elicited sympathy for their condition in the Lord Commander of the Queensguards.
Gerold as a policy, considered prudent to avoid speculation. Infants, notably royal infants were a category of creature. He had concluded, after observation, that they operated according to laws of nature insufficiently explained by maesters. Entirely incomprehensible to knights.
Prince Daemon implicit confinement of Maegor’s Holfast’s inhabitants, rationalized and enforced as prevention of another tragedy, found Gerold Hightower, by insidious errands, displaced from the position of Lord Commander of the Queensguards into the ungrateful role of intermediary for the governance of the Seven Kingdoms.
The court had been reduced to an enclosed assembly. Practical affairs requiring the presence of authority radiated inward toward Sir Gerold. Petitions, minor decrees, and the daily inconveniences of rule were passed through his hands with the regularity of tide against stone. In effect, Gerold was the point of balance upon which the Seven Kingdoms turned.
No man of sense would have called it an honor. There was no honor in a glorified keystone.
Gerold suffered the indignity of serving as the fulcrum of the Crown’s affairs.
Had the Prince Regent been left entirely to his own devices, this prevailing order might have continued thus for years
Alas for Prince Daemon, a second will tempered the arrangement. The Lord Hand, blissfully unaware of those careful crafted boundaries, showed signs of mounting frustration. Though Gerold suspected the source was less the circumstances, than Prince Daemon himself.
How was the incapacity of two adult men to communicate Gerold’s main preoccupation? At what precise point had he offended the gods so thoroughly he was now reduced to contemplating the Prince Regent’s love life as one did statecraft. A form of personal penance.
Sir Gerold Hightower, Lord Commander of the Queensguard, would never resort to so undignified a solution as locking the most powerful men in Westeros in a secure chamber where no servants ventured, until reason prevailed. Nor would he ever conveniently misplace the key, afterwards in the manner of careless or desperate men.
Such behavior would be unbecoming of his station.
He was simply considering it. As some men consider sailing west beyond the sunset sea in search of glory, madness and a swift and merciful death.
Prince Daemon and Sir Arthur would only fling themselves through the window, likely both of them, neither willing to be outdone by the other, all the while hurling accusation of cowardice and a lamentable lack of imagination at one another.
Sir Arthur and Prince Daemon had returned to their old footing, the one that predated the poisoning, and the men sank into it with obvious relish. Gerold could almost hear the sigh of relief. As if the Seven Kingdoms were no more than an inconvenience, a stage for their strange courtship. With alarming ease, they had slipped into their former rhythm. The one that had existed before the Strangler, before near-death, the vengeance – for it had been vengeance- in the Westerlands. The Nursery violated, stained by the spilled blood of innocent and perpetrator.
Before duty had interrupted the disaster they had called a relationship.
The two pillars of the governance of Seven Kingdoms, presently circled one another, reduced to exhausted hounds attracted by an unhealed and festering wound.
Gone were the days when Daemon kept vigil at Arthur’s bedside through day and night, from dawn to dusk.
Not that the Prince Regent’s incumbency, by rights, ought to have been consumed upon vigils, in any properly ordered universe.
Gerold remembered the vigils with clarity. He had stood watch upon them himself. On and off, in those grim interval, bleak, when no one could predict if Sir Arthur would survive to witness the next sunrise, as he lay suspended between life and oblivion. Maester Torrhen, for all his evident efficiency, his diligent care, might yet have prove insufficient. Arthur might have slipped beyond any of their reach. Maester Torrhen’s experience had remained untested…Prince Daemon, in a fit of near-paranoia distrust, had dismissed the competence of any other healers who might have been summoned. His vocabulary had been colorful and imaged in dismissing their values. His temper had brooked no contradiction. Gerold recalled the lowered voices, the hush of the Chamber, the rhythm of forced breath, as Sir Arthur drew gulps of air through an artificial contrivance meant to preserve what life remained, as remedies struggled. The poison, by all reasonable odds, had held the advantage.
The Lord Commander remembered the day Arthur, half fevered, delirious, convinced of his imminent death, had confessed his love for the Prince Regent. Not as a vassal owes his liege in duty and fealty. A confession for the ages of cataclysmic candor, an indiscretion of a magnitude destined for the chronicles, from a man abandoning restraint. The confession of a condemned man who believed no further opportunity would be granted him to unburden his conscience, satisfied no future would allow him to bear the consequences. Arthur’s voice had been broken in fear. His world diminished to its end; his lavender eyes had revealed the avowal of affection in inconvertible truth.
Prince Daemon, the Father help the Seven Kingdoms, had returned the sentiment. Shamelessly. He had permitted for the shadow of a doubt to be cast. Without a single hesitation he had leaned into an embrace Arthur. Without so much as considering the courtesy of prudence or propriety. Without the decency of confusion.
As thought this answer had been concluded within the Prince Regent’s mind long before anyone else had deemed it necessary to formally inform Sir Gerold.
What, Sir Gerold wondered, for the thousandth times, between these two grown men and the natural conclusion of their feeling? They had declared their devotion, acted upon it, and Prince Daemon brought a kingdom to ruin in his wake.
Arthur had required a manual, that Sir Gerold, in his generosity had provided. The knight was painfully innocent, honorable to the point of blindness, on subject of that persuasion, despite his fearsome reputation. An army, Sir Arthur could defeat with ease. No a simple implication.
Daemon required not such excuses.
Prince Daemon had sired children, for the Maiden’s sake. He fathered six, at a minimum, according to the History books accounting. Presumably more if recorded court’s gossip was to be believed. What precisely was the Prince Regent’s excuse?
In Gerold’s experience vigils were not what the nights in the Prince Regent’s personal Chambers were ought, customarily, to be dedicated to.
Alas, neither Arthur nor Daemon displayed any appreciation whatsoever of the benefits customarily associated with darkness.
Gerold’s patience, already frayed by governance, war, and the perpetual burden of preserving the Iron Throne’s authority through willpower and dragonfire, settled upon the conclusion to which it invariably returned
For the sake of his own sanity and, incidentally, the stability of the Crown, the Small Council in his restraint session – composed, at the present, of Sir Gerold - was of the opinion that it would be preferable if Prince Daemon and Sir Arthur resolved this matter like sensible adults, within the confine of the Prince Regent’s sheets.
Ser Gerold crossed the drawbridge into Maegor’s Holdfast.
Men-at-arms stood at every gate and postern, their vigilance unwavering.
Access to the royal fortress was tightly controlled. Few could boast the privilege to enter the royal stronghold unchallenged. The Maegor’s Holfast admitted visitors sparingly and trusted none.
The Lord Commander of the Queensguards was one of them. The guards did not bar his passage and saluted the familiar sight of his White Cloak. His distinction carried considerable weight. He passed through the layers of security effortlessly, as he was waved through them.
In the aftermath of the attempt upon Queen Alyssa’s life servants were no longer permitted to depart the Red Keep without express authorization. None had care to test the rules. They surrendered their freedom alongside their wages. A deemed preferable to allowing vital information wandering the city in humans form.
Open skies and sea winds vanished. Its winding corridors and windowless stretches lent it a perpetual sense of enclosure. The very stone seemed determined to press inward. The corridors were narrow, the walls thick, and every turn seemed to shut out another measure of stake air and light.
A stone coffer. A trap.
Designed to keep the Red Keep at bay. Sir Gerold fought the familiar sensation of entering a particularly well-defended prison.
Ser Gerold found the place oppressive.
Gerold Hightower entered the Queen’s solar expecting an argument. He was wholly unprepared to behold the aftermath of a campaign apparently fought by means of inks alone.
The two most dangerous men in Westeros, the leaders of armies, commanders of soldiers, architects of victories written in blood, stood amid parchment in the ruin of what had once been decorum. Their clothes bore eloquent testimony of the catastrophe.
The Lord Commander was grateful to the Warrior Arthur had possessed the good sense and graciousness to not adoring his Withe Cloak. A blessing. The cloak was the outward manifestation of a sacred charge, a symbol of incorruptible service to Crown and the Seven Kingdoms. A declaration of purpose, a promise made visible. Centuries of sacrifice, fidelity, and knightly excellence. No living man embodied those virtues more comprehensively than the Sword of the Morning. Few men had borne it with greater rectitude than Ser Arthur Dayne : The White Cloak was an extension of his honor.
Sir Gerold would be spared the arduous exercise of explaining why one of the Crown most hallowed symbols had been dragged into an indignity by acquiring rainbow decoration. Sir Gerold was appalled at the notion.
The royal attire, garments most could only dream to touch, of the Prince Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, Lord Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, had not been extended the curtesy. Nor that the formal apparels of the Hand of the Queen had been less fit to Sir Arthur new station. Both had been sumptious.
The reckless opulence had been irrevocably reduced to lavish refuse.
The Lord Commander’s jaw tightened. One gloved hand drifted to the bridge of his nose, lingering there a moment longer than respect strictly allowed.
Ruinous extravagances, whose value Gerold Hightower could estimate with uncomfortable accuracy, had been reduced to a sacrifice to colorful violence, ruined by blue, red and, inexplicably, pink stains, beyond redemption.
Gerold blinked. Paused. Briefly, he questioned of where precisely one acquired pink ink for a Prince Regent. He decided he did not wish to be aware of the answer.
Fabrics for which merchants would have crossed half the known world. Myrish lace, the finer weave, so fine the rumors circulated a single loom-press required three days of uninterrupted work and a blind girl was trained to detect flaws no eye could see with her fingertips. Rich velvets from Qohor, where the great black forests supplied the hardwood ash used in the iron-oak tincture. Qohor guarded their techniques’ secrecy by secluding the guild craftsmen on an island they were forbidden to leave under the penalty of death. Oldtown could afford to purchase it twice a year. Silk from Lys, for wich a single bolt required months of labour: silkworm thread was imported from the east, woven upon massive looms, then sheared and brushed until its surface caught the light like liquid.
The Prince Regent and the Lord Hand attires had been worth some Lords annual income.
The lining, soaked and stiffening, had been Braavosi sea-wool treated in Lysene oils to resist salt and sweat alike, a refinement reserved for Houses more concerned by elegance than comfort.
Painstaking embroidery.
All had suffered irreparable aggravations.
Sir Gerold’s expression grew noticeably grimmer with each new detail.
The inks.
Gerold, raised amidst tariffs, and the ceaseless traffic of Oldtown’s harbour, evaluated the ludicrous, lurid shade.
The crimson had been made from crushed cochineal, the insects imported at ruinous expense from southern markets, crushed, gathered, dried, and ground into powder manipulated by practiced hands before being mixed with mordants. The brilliant blue came from indigo and lapis compound, carried across a thousand perils by caravans and trading galleys. The subtler hue had been obtained not by a separate pigment but through repeated dye baths, requiring greater quantities of golden dragons passing hands of sailors, merchants, dyers, weavers, factors, and craftsmen.
Perhaps the work of some Citadel alchemist experimenting with rarer ingredient, split under heat or pressure.
The pink was absurd, obscene in its delicacy, suggesting either crushed Myrish dye-stone or spilled tincture from some apothecary’s glass vial.
The pink, in particular, suggested terrible judgment in abundance.
Sir Gerold winced, the pain of the loss of precious craftdmanship, skills and dedication beyond imagination settling in his mind.
Each of those inks prepared by trained men and women and had been intended for illuminated manuscripts, maps, records of lasting value. Hundreds of carefully copied pages, countless hours of a scribe’s labour.
Instead the colors condemned garnments that rivaled them in value.
The collision of fortune had been survived by neither side of the conflict.
The Lord Commander stared at the scene in silence. The slight furrow between his brows suggested an unpleasant calculation was underway. Gerold tried to estimate whether the greater waste of wealth resided in the stains or the staining.
Gold dragons down the drains, the Lord Commander thought with weary clarity. An insult to the smallfolk, if ever there was one.
A muscle flickered in his cheek. To those who knew him, the display bordered on theatrical, loss of composure.
Prodigal excess despoiled beyond salvation.
Expended, squandered, on men who acted as children were expected to, and should, by rights of their respective stations have understood the value…of nothing.
Even the stone of the solar had not been spared; bright stains marked its surface, spilled gems that refused to fade.
Was this green?
Gerold closed his eyes, his lips pressed into a thin line. He muttered a prayer. He resumed his inspection. The situation, regrettably, had not improved.
Prince Daemon and Sir Arthur stood apart, glaring at one another with the stubborn intensity of men who had forgotten the existence of compromise. Daemon’s rage sat dark in him, almost black beneath his purple eyes. Arthur’s gaze, lilac and unyielding, met it with the same righteousness that so often worsened matters rather than resolve them.
The desk was buried beneath discarded letters. Some lay scattered across the floor. Others were crushed beneath boots, corners soaked had curling where ink had bled through expensive lamb’s skin.
Sir Gerold did not need to read a single one of the ruined letters to understand the cause of the devastation. He knew with the tired accuracy of hard-won knowledge, that they were invitations.
Invitations to the Coronation.
Preparation of the Coronation of Queen Alyssa had proceeded at a sound, steady, pace. A measured and regular progress.
The Reach held the capital in uneasy order, joined by the Crownlands garrisons in their mission to ensure peace.
Lords and host from the Vale, the Riverlands and even the Stormlands were gathered beneath the same banners.
The men from the Vale and the Stormlands, though kept ignorant of the fate awaiting their own Lord Paramounts’ House had witnessed Caraxes return from the scorched earth of the Westerlands, the judgment rendered with flame, dispute transformed into ash, his presence bright with recent destruction. The Lords had concluded that the best course for their continued survival depended upon a swift and unequivocal renewal of their oath to House Targaryen.
History had agreed, reluctantly, to turn a page.
It had not yet decided whether to close the book. Ghosts lingered in the margins.
The Ceremony should be a triumph. A Coronation with such attendance would be the greatest in the History of Westeros, in living memory or books. The Seven Kingdoms’ Great Houses assembled in one place. The Coronation of the first second first Queen to reign over the Seven Kingdoms could not hope for better auspice.
The greater part of the important Houses of Westeros were represented. The war concluded. The Crown secured upon the head of Queen Alyssa First of Her Name, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, Queen of the Andals, and the Rhoynar.
Yet, the invitation had proved impossible to draft. Soon, the subject of the messages had become extremely sensitive.
The cursed invitations. How does one summons the Lords of the Seven Kingdoms, some sworn enemies, only recently brought to heel others, still uncertain of their peace, to assist the Coronation of a six-months child? One who did not possess the common sense of owning a cock.
Gerold’s gaze drifted once more over the compromised solar, over chaos and the two men responsible for the descent into dissaray.
The Lord Commander ought to entrust himself to compose them personally, before either the Prince Regent or the Lord Hand impressed his authority on the parchments.
The Lord Commander exhaled. The closest he permitted himself to a display of frustration. Years of discipline kept his expression composed. Only the faint tightening around his eyes revealed the strain.
If he was fortunate, truly fortunate, no raven would have yet left the capital.
The only ravens that were dispatched from the capital had carried Lord Eddard Stark’s correspondence to Winterfell and his own bannermen. A great part of those recipients were already assembled in the Red Keep but Lords, even Northmen, were notoriously fond of observing proper forms
The Prince Regent had likewise sanctioned the messages pertaining to his proposed embassy to the Wall. As approved by the Small Council before Lord Gerold return with the army, the mission’s purpose was the retrieval of Maester Aemon from the frozen desolations of his exile amidst the Night’s Watch.
The Lord Commander failed to grasp the entire enterprise, the Prince Regent’s emergency or his purpose. The anticipated benefit escaped him.
Maester Aemon was ancient, spent decades upon the Wall by choice. He advised the Night’s Watch in their vigilance against the Wildings, observing from afar, whilst his younger brother presided over the near-destruction of their dynasty. Summerhall had engulfed a King, his children, nephew, nieces in flames and set House Targaryen upon the path of annihilation.
Gerold Hightower struggled to see what indispensable wisdom such a man could now provide.
Maester Aemon had long ago renounced any claim to influence.
No other ravens had flown from the rockeries.
Gerold pretended he was no disposed to faint from relief.
Prince Daemon’s mouth twisted in a manner that suggested both exasperation and pity. His irritations did not manifest in raised voices, but dramatic gestures and sighs of suffering. His thinly veiled contempt was genuine.
The dragonrider position was the sole evidence and the rest of the Red Keep had proven unavailing to cognize his discernement.
His demeanor suggested his opinion of the opposition’s intellect had become increasingly arduous to disguise.
“Sir Gerold, grandson, perhaps you inherited enough of Rhaena’s good sense to make the Lord Hand see reason.”
A faint flush rose beneath Arthur’s golden complexion.
His embarrassment did little to diminish his comeliness; regrettably, his pleasing appearance was accentuated.
Since Daemon’s arrival at the Tower of Joy, Sir Gerold had devoted an unhelpful amount of consideration to Ser Arthur’s distinctly distracting good looks. He had privately lamented Sir Arthur apparent offensive handsomeness, his fair face and knightly bearing.
“I must apologize, Lord Commander. The Prince Regent found fault with my drafts of the Coronation invitations.”
Sir Gerold bemoaned in the privacy of his mind.
Sir Arthur showed a persistent disinclination to acknowledge his seniority over the Lord Commander of the Queensguard. He adjusted neither speech nor conduct to the reality of courtly precedence. His manner remained unchanged without the slightest alteration.
However, Gerold’s brief amusement vanished.
Arthur’s voice remained hoarse and rough. Forever altered by the poison. The Maester’s unorthodox reflex had preserved the man and ruined his throat.
The Sword of the Morning would require rigorous training if he wished to command a hall through discourse alone, or sing a child to sleep. Not that Arthur Dayne had been prone to grand declarations. His frustration at his inability to chant Dornish lullabies to the children of Maegor’s holdfast was more evident.
Gerold suspected Prince Daemon loathing for the poisoners burned ever more fiercely still.
A sentiment he happened to share.
There was little comfort to be found in the Prince Regent’s expression. A high collar, scented with crushed green apple, concealed the worst of the damage left by the poison though not the rage festering beneath. Daemon’s hatred had not cooled.
When Prince Daemon Targaryen’s gaze lingered upon the raw, ugly scar that marred the Lord Hand’s neck, Gerold was reminded that the dragonrider had once ordered the murder of an infant to avenge a son.
The certainty the Lannister bore no responsibility for this particular scheme had only sharpened his rage.
“Of course, I found fault with them, you dimwit”, Daemon snapped. “They are not invitations. »
The Prince did not restrain his disdainful scowl. His jaws tightened as he ground his irritation between his teeth, in an attempt to deny the outward outlet his temper sought. Courtesy never survived long in the company of fools.
Gerold applied pressure to his temples. The servants, wiser than most courtiers, had already mastered the art of disappearing whenever Prince Daemon and Sir Arthur occupied the same room. The princes had likewise developed an unexpected enthusiasm for gardens, courtyards, training yards, stables, and any location not within earshot of disputes. Prince Viserys, Gerold suspected was personally targeted by nature as he could not set a foot upon a patch of grass without being attacked by a wasp, a hornet, an adder, a scorpion, or increasingly rare vermine the gods had seen fit to loose upon the Red Keep that day, as though every stinging, biting, or venomous creature in the Seven Kingdoms had entered into a conspiracy against him.
‘Prince’ Aurane had saved Prince Viserys life more time than anyone cared to count. Despite nature’s effort, at present, the seven-namedays-old still preferred snakes to altercations. He had persuaded himself any chamber he occupied concealed no fewer than three scorpions.
The Hand of the Queen and Prince Regent found peace only at night when both men laid aside their quarrels to share the burden of watching over Prince Viserys, whose nightmares had become so frequent and violent they warranted vigilance.
One day, the Red Keep’s ambient folly would drive Gerold toward drink.
Daemon’s fingers drummed an impatient rythm upon the table. His foot tapped the cadence against the flagstones.
Arthur refused to concede ground.
“They must read as invitations, my Prince.”
The honorific emerged through clenched teeth, courtesy preserved only by force and habit.
The words themselves were beyond reproach.
Had this tone come from the mouth of a man less beloved than Arthur Dayne, they would be smoldering, reduced to a pile of ash and a cautionary tale.
“It is an invitation, my Prince”, insisted the Sword of the Morning still remarkably non-crispy.
“Invitations?” The Prince Regent claimed a chair mercifully spared the unfortunate ink incident. He lounged with the the languid, possessive sprawl Gerold had long associated with Caraxes. Between his fingers fluttered a morsel of blue parchment.
“They are strategy.”
Arthur met the declaration with unruffled composure.
“They are invitations my Prince.”
Daemon threw his hands toward the ceiling in appeal to whichever deity had drawn the shortest straw and been condemned to oversee the affairs of Daemon Targaryen and Arthur Dayne.
“They are summons, Lord Hand.”
Gerold breathed. The Lord Commander of the Queensguard crossed to the carved writing table in the Queen’s solar, ignoring the mangled attempt of the Lord Hand still displayed for his inspection. He succeeded in finding a corner unclaimed by fresh ink. Gerold selected a quill. Sharp. He dipped it in a pot of lackluster black ink. Dull. Joyless.
“They are”, continued Arthur, enduring Daemon’s admittedly poor argumentation, with the inexhaustible patience of one who had explain his views on the problem, and had long resigned to reiterate them on daily basis before his demise, “invitations. To a coronation. Alyssa’s coronation. Lords are invited to attend. In good faith and sincere amity.”
Daemon made a sweeping gesture toward Arthur and the offending drafts, silently inviting Gerold to bear witness the particular brand of torment to which he had been subjected.
“Lords” countered Prince Daemon, “are not invited to witness the crowning of their rightful Queen. They are informed that their presences are expected. Their absence will be noted, remembered. Should the circumstances warrant a response, their absence will be addressed.”
Arthur stared at the Prince Regent.
“Those are not summonses, my Prince. Those are death threats.”
Arthur had glided toward the writing desk to inspect Gerold’s tentative attempt at reasoned compromise. Despite the insigne of the Hand of the Queen on his chest, Arthur moved through the world with his habituel smooth restrain, reluctant to occupy more space than necessity demanded.
“Summonses, invitation.” Daemon dismissed subtlelty with a wave of his a hand. “Same document. Different wording.”
“They are not remotely similar.”
“They achieve the same result.” Daemon stretched, all feline indolence.
“One of them”, Arthur pointed out, remaining at a respectful distance from the Prince Regent, “results in Lords attending out of loyalty. The other results in Lords attending out of fear. They will ressent it. They will remember it. Do you wish to taint Alyssa’s Coronation with such resentment?”
Daemon showed his teeth.
“Let them resent it, then. Let them remember it. So long as they attend.”
Gerold resisted the urge to tear at his fair, blond, curls. Prince Daemon had ordered him to allow them to grow, so they could mark him as the blood of old Valyria. Gerold hated them with passion.
“My Prince,” he ventured, “might I suggest that a Coronation intended to demonstrate the strength, legitimacy, and popularity of her Grace’s reign would be better served by Lords who attend of their own accord than by Lords who fear they may not survive declining the invitation?”
Daemon smiled. The smile was unpleasant.
“Willing. Unwilling. Mere technicalitied. They will stand in the Sept either way.”
“The expression on their faces”, Arthur said quietly, “will differ condiderably.”
At that precise moment, the Sword of the Morning attempted to cough. The effort produced a dreadful, guttural sound that collapsed halfway through, dwindling into a feeble whimper, pitiful, wholly at odds with the perfect knight of the Seven Kingdoms. A sound more befitting a distressed kitten.
Daemon was at Arthur’s side before the cough had subsided, thrusting a cup of water into his hands, while demanding to know whether the White Cloak had drunk his morning brew, then barking for hot mulled wine – or anything warm- to be brought at once. The Prince Regent had drawn breath to, probably, summon Maester Torrhen when Arthur raised a hand and, with remarkable dignity for a man being fussed over, forestalled the order before the command could leave his lips.
Gerold suddenly pondered, with dawning realization, whether the source of the incessant quarrels was neither politics nor governance, or their own stubborn nature, but Prince Daemon lingering fear over Arthur’s condition. Ever since the poisoning, the Prince Regent seemed determined to wage war against every fit of cough, missing meal and sign of fatigue. The Lord Hand resisted such attentions with all the determination he ordinarly reserved for the training yard.
Arthur glared at Daemon, a glare devoid of conviction. As he often did when Daemon’s attention was focused upon him, he looked away. Toward the window. Toward the desk. Toward anything but Daemon’s face.
Gerold wisely refused to allow his mind to dwell on the mangled corpse of former squire, dead before his eleventh nameday. An assassin. A poor one. A failure even in his death.
A child. Harrow had been a grieving child.
Had Gerold mellowed with age or had he been desperate to prove himself he different from the monster riding a dragon the color of fresh blood?
He preferred focusing on the future.
“Fine”, Daemon said, after a moment, with the air of a martyr yielding a vast concession. “Invitations. Imperative ones.”
“All invitations from the Crown are, by their very nature, imperative,” assured Gerold.
“Sharper.”
“My Prince…”
“I want it understood”, Daemon said leaning forward over the blank parchment, “that this is not a request.”
Gerold looked at Arthur. Arthur was studying a tapestry on the far wall that represented Valyria at its apogee. One the Lord Hand must have seen several hundred time, by Gerold’s estimation.
“Lord Hand”, prompted Gerold, pointedly recalling the younger man of his office, “do you have a counsel on the tenor of the invitations.”
Gerold could feel the promise of violence in Daemon’s baleful glare upon him.
“I propose”, Arthur said, addressing the tapestry, “that it might be appropriate to draft different letters according to the behavior of the House during the rebellion, their allegiance to our cause and their affiliation with our main ally.”
Gerold offered a silent and heartfelt prayer of gratitude to the Seven for the continued existence of common sense, a virtue increasingly imperilled within the walls of the Red Keep.
“Appropriate”, Daemon repeated, in the tone of a man for whom the word carried the weight of the the lowest acceptable standard of ambition.
“It is Alyssa’s invitation,” Arthur said.
“It is our invitation. We are the ones governing the Seven Kingdoms while she considers teething.” Daemon was stating a truth.
“Which is precisely why the Lords must not be procured cause to accuse us of appropriating this Coronation.”
Daemon opened his mouth. Closed it.
Gerold observed the occurrence with the bewilderment reserved for miracles witnessed after one had long since abandoned religion. An argument had resolved itself without his direct intervention.
It was a source of constant frustration to the Lord Commander Hightower that Arthur cared so little for politics, for he possessed the infuriating habit of excelling at everything he attempted and would, no doubt, have made a formidable statesman had he ever been inclined toward the craft.
“Fine,” Daemon surrendered. He turned Arthur’s hands over in his own, tracing imaginary lines.
“Thank you,” Arthur murmured. Prince Daemon place a light kiss on Arthur’s palm.
“I am still reading each version before I allow the ravens to be sent. »
Gerold dipped his quill. Again.
“At your command my Prince.”
“If there is a single lord on this list who might hesitate to attend or offer his deepest respect…”
“Then we will discuss it rationally.”
Daemon looked at Arthur for a long moment. Sethinh in his expression shifted. Softened, very slightly. Gerold had learned to recognize such moments and ignore them.
“Fine,” Daemon said. This time, the word almost sounded sincere.
The Prince Regent detached himself from the Lord Hand with considerable effort. He lingered a moment longer before turning toward the door.
“I still think convocation conveyed more gravitas”
“It conveyed violence,” Arthur replied.
“That,” said Daemon, grinning, “is what I meant by gravitas.”
Cries from the Queen’s chamber, where the infant played with a dragon doll seized both Daemon’s and Arthur’s attention. The Queen possessed a solemn disposition and never showed any sign of tantrum. Daemon and Arthur shared a glance, deciding without needing superflous words who was to deal with the emergency. The Prince Regent was out of the Solar in an instant, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to reach Alyssa, stripped from his usual poise.
Arthur stayed in the solar after the door shut behind the Prince Regent. Very quietly, he allowed himself a peculiar breath that, from any other man than the Sword of the Morning, might have been called a laugh.
Gerold raised his quill.
“Shall I proceed with the invitation, my Lord Hand?”
Arthur nodded.
“Shall I note”, Gerold added, dipping, unnecessarily the quill, “that the Lord Hand judgment prevailed.”
Arthur observed him with surprise and faint wariness, conscious of a tease escaped his understanding.
“The decision was unanimous.”
Arthur sounded extremely convincing.
Gerold scoffed.
“As you wish my Lord Hand.”
Gerold filed always the conversation in his growing private collection of evidence Arthur was quintessential for the Seven Kingdoms’ ruling.
Gerold began to write.
The Solar was quiet. It had perfect light at this hour of the day. The Lord Commander heard Prince Daemon imitating a dragon roar to provoke Queen Alyssa’s mirth.
To the Lords, Ladies, Knights and Faithful Servants of the Realm,
Be it known that, by the grace of the Seven and the will of the Iron Throne, the Coronation of her Grace Alyssa of House Targaryen and House Stark, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the First Men and the Rhoynars, Lady of the Seven Kingdom, Protector of the Faith and the Old Gods shall be held in King’s Landing.
The Crown extend his gratititude to those noble houses and loyal subject whose steadfast service, sacrifice, and devotion preserved the peace of the Seven Kingdoms through days of uncertainty and conflict. The prosperity now returning to Westeros had been purchased through courage and fidelity, and it is fitting that those who stand through true should bear witness to the beginning of a new reign.
You are therefore invited to attend the Coronation and the celebrations that shall accompany it, there to witness the anointing and crowning of Her Grace before gods and men, and to join in the festivities marking the dawn of a new age for the Seven Kingdoms.
Let the realm gather as one people beneath the Iron Throne. Let old wounds heals and new bond be forged in friendship, goodwill and sincere faith. May this occasion stand as a testament to the unity, strength, and enduring peace of the Seven Kingdoms under the reign of their young Queen.
Given under the authority of the Crown at the Red Keep in King’s Landing.
In service of her Grace.
Prince Daemon Targaryen,
Prince Regent and Lord Protector of the Seven Kingdoms
Sir Arthur Dayne
Lord Hand of the Queen
Gerold departed the Queen’s apartments before either Daemon or Arthur could discover a fresh venue through which to torment the Lord Commander. The invitations would be sent eventually. The Seven Kingdoms could endure their need to confront each other.
Gerold sanity, however, might not.
He informed himself that his destination was dictated entirely by the duty of an attentive Queensguard.
Sir Gerold Hightower was not seeking a fellow conspirator with whom to rail against the Prince Regent Daemon and the Lord Hand, though he admitted the temptation was not absent.
The Dowager Queen Rhaella ought to be apprised of the progress of her sole granddaughter’s Coronation. The organization for receiving the guests in the Red Keep would be assumed by the Dowager Queen. The amount of labor to accommodate guests put under her direct responsibility was staggering, despite the Maesters and numerous healers’ advices to avoid exertion at her stage of pregnancy was staggering. Lords required rooms. Household required servants. Knight required stabling. Attendant required consideration of rank, alliance, rivalry, Family Feuds, old feuds, recent feuds, ongoing feuds and prospective feuds.
Gerold might secretly understood why Prince Daemon preferred warfare.
Therefore, the Lord Commander feet conducted him toward the Queen Rhaella’s new quarters.
Sir Barristan stood guard in front of the Queen Dowager’s door. He admitted Sir Gerold without questions.
Ser Oswald was with the princes. The Queen was never far from either Sir Arthur or Prince Daemon.
The Queensguard would nonetheless need to elevate new members to their rank. An honor that would necessitate another argument.
Sunlight spilled through the narrow windows. The chamber he was introduce into smelled of lavenders. A calming scent. Herbs. Something sweet he failed to identify. An abandoned embroidery frame rested upon a nearby chair. On the carpet, several wooden blocks were the only remains of a probable decisive and aggressive construction of a fortress conducted by royal children.
Queen Rhaella reclined upon a cushioned settee, one hand resting upon the swell of her belly.
For a moment Sir Gerold observed her. Queen Rhaella had never been beautiful, though she still possessed the inexplicable attraction frequent in her lineage. Nor because he was moved by the future life she carried beneath her heart. The Lord Commander of the White Cloak was not overjoyed at the prospect of another child under his charge. If the Gods were good, the child she was to birth would live the long and uneventful life of a Prince or Princess of the realm under the Prince Regent firm but benevolent guidance.
Sir Gerold was struck by the image of the Dowager Queen, six months with child, appearing content. The realization shocked him anew each time.
For decades, Sir Gerold had witnessed Queen Rhaella suffer. Queen Rhaella suffered her marriage with a brother she has no love for, the court, infidelities, mockery. She suffered indignities no Queen should ever borne.
The White Cloaks had protected her when they were allowed to protect her. Mostly, they had repeatedly failed her.
Aerys was dead. Rhaella smiled.
The sight remained a miracle.
“Your Grace.”
“Lord Commander.”
Queen Rhaella’s gaze examined him with suspicious entertainment. She was savoring the present.
Sir Gerold immediately regretted the visit.
“Your Grace, I came to discuss the attendance to the Coronation of Queen Alyssa.”
Rhaella sighed, as one burdened by ancient and familiar sorrows.
“You sought a haven to escape Daemon and Arthur.”
The Lord Commander, ashamed, inclined his head.
“Among other considerations.”
A laugh escaped Rhaella.
“Wise. Did Daemon concede the use of colored ink to coordinate with House heraldry was a ridiculous idea?”
It explained the pink ink.
“The Queen’s solar was in some confusion.”
“Arthur was adamantly against the effort and cost of the endeavor. Daemon is increasingly inventive.”
Gerold grimaced. Queen Rhaella observed the disaster unfold with great interest.
“The Lord Hand is adamant in his disapproval of the Prince Regent most flamboyant whims.”
That earned Gerold another laugh.
Seven.
The Lord Commander had heard more laugher from Queen Rhaella in the last six months than in the previous twenty years combined. For years every murmur, every glance, every silence had been measured. Dictated by her brother-husband’s, her tormentor’s, moods.
Perhaps the war had been justified.
Queen Rhaella appeared healthier and lighter than Gerold remembered her during her former pregnancy. Six months according to the Maesters. Perhaps more. The child was determined to impose their presence.
Queen Rhaella carried high.
Her condition had forced the Coronation to be scheduled at the earliest reasonable date. Both the Prince Regent and the Lord Hand had been voluble on the presence of the dowager Queen to witness the crowning of her grandchild.
However memorable such a conjunction might prove for future historian, no one desired a Coronation and a royal birth proceeding on the same day.
Every man and woman attending the Dowager Queen agreed. Despite her age, which Sir Gerold privately considered a secondary concern compared to Rhaella personal’s antecedents, her pregnancy progressed as perfectly as one could hope. The stakes were very elevated for the Prince Regent had declared his deep implication in Queen Rhaella’s continued health.
Midwives spread tales of women delivering healthy heirs into their fifties.
The child still demanded much of Queen Rhaella strength. Such burdens were expected.
The Maesters predicted a boy, maybe forgetting the Iron Throne was no wanting of an heir nor a spare.
The healers affirmed it was a girl. Gerold knew that Rhaella privately prayed for a girl herself. A child that would belong entirely to the dowager Queen, to raise as she had once dreamt far from the intrigues of the Red Keep.
The truth, reflected Sir Gerold, would reveal itself in the birthing chamber.
A place he had no intention of entering. The Prince Regent obvious ordeal after the Queen birth was fresh in the Lord Commander’s memory.
The Queen dowager suddenly grimaced and drank from a cup sat beside her. Gerold recognized the odor. Medicinal herbs against pain. Strong medicinal herbs. The healers had prescribed an outrageously expensive potent assortment of mixture to ease the discomfort of the pregnancy, a pregnancy most seemed perpetually surprised by the continuation as they deemed the “royal womb” fragile and delicate. Daemon had ordered recommendation obeyed with a buoyancy bordering on exhilaration or religious passion. Queen Rhaella had embraced the treatment with a fever unexpected and unintended. She was complying with three separate medications counseled by healers from different culture. The result was a monarchically exalted sort of intoxication. Her posture remained regal, graceful, her speech remained articulate. Yet, she carried herself with complete serenity, the unmistakable air of a woman who had achieved a private and favorable arrangement with the universe.
The knight estimated the herbs had rendered the Dowager Queen both insightful and alarmingly unpredictable.
The Queen Dowager may have felt the White Cloak’s silent judgment.
“The Maesters insist the brew is necessary. The Seven know they spare me from feeling as though a hatchling is attempting to claw a passage through my ribs. I find myself inclined to agree such experience is unnecessary.”
Gerold tried to not dwell upon the rumored lizard-hybrid that were rumored to be born to House Targaryen. Those abominations perished before drawing breath.
“Lord Commander since you were so kind as to visit an ailed woman, maybe you may assist me with some new ideas I wish your appreciations upon.”
The White Cloak stilled. Unfortunately, Queen Rhaella’s condition appeared to have affected her sense.
Specifically, in the subtle issue of names.
All the men in Maegor’s Holdfast had sustained the list of names the Dowager Queen intended to bestow upon her unsuspecting offspring.
The Queen Dowager Rhaella of House Targaryen was resolute in her aspiration to honor the saviors of the dynasty through her future child.
The consensus remained uncertain whether a Prince of Summerhall name Caraxys would be worse than a Princess of Summerhall named Daemyra.
Rhaenyra had been briefly considered. The Princess would stand sufficiently low in the line of succession to survive the curse attached to that particular name. The pure anguish in Daemon’s eyes had swiftly buried the suggestion.
Daecarys, Daecaryx, Careamon, Rhaemon, Nyraxes, and Arthrexes nevertheless remained under consideration.
Sir Gerold found comfort in the belief that these linguistic atrocities where rooted in the Queen’s medicinal routine. If not, Queen Rhaella might prove to be Aerys’ sister in more than blood.
One of the dragon might overhear Rhaella s cajoling her newborn and mistakenly conclude it was an instruction to reduce King’s Landing to a molten rubble.
The puppy milk proposed by the Maesters was evidently a powerful concoction.
Alas, Sir Gerold was deprive of his consolation by the Prince Regent himself who considered some proposal as actual possibilities. Maybe Prince Daemon was humoring the Dowager Queen.
According the Sir Barristan, Prince Daemon visited Queen Rhaella daily , lavishing upon her every comfort and kindness she had never received from the late King Scab. Together they shared teas, infusions, restorative tonics, and delicacies imported from every corner of the known world. Should the Dowager Queen express the faintest curiosity regarding some exotic fruit or sweetmeat, Daemon somehow acquired it before a fortnight had passed.
He had even gifted her a young Little Valyrian to keep her company during her confinement. The creature was scarcely tamed, hopelessly spoiled and apparently the light of Queen Rhaella’s days.
Their shared consummation may explain Prince Daemon extensive contribution to the list of name. Sir Gerold had to disclose the Prince Regent addition were usually reasonable.
Aenora. Aelys. Alaera. Aerion. Aenar. Aenerys. Confronted with Rhaella insistence for honoring the Lord Hand, Caraxes or Prince Daemon himself, the Prince Regent had shifted approach.
Daena. Daema. Daenora. Arthys. Lyannys.
Names that summoned images of laughing princesses with scrapped knees and older siblings hovering protectively nearby.
Aemon.
Prince Daemon had been abundantly vibrant that no child ought to ever bear the name of Aemond again.
However, Aemon was a solid homage. Aemon, after the « wise » Maester who had loved his little brother more than he had loved a crown.
Or who had gone entirely mad and convinced himself and Prince Rhaegar that the Others existed.
Opinions differed.
Aemon represented loyalty. How curious that the Prince Regent and the Lord Hand should concern themselves with an old Maester forgotten at the Wall. How fitting it would be if Maester Aemon survived the journey to King’s Landing and placed King Maekar’s crown upon the brow of the new Queen. Symbolically. No one wished to shatter the infant skull. Sir Gerold shuddered.
A Prince that renounced power. How perfectly in accordance with the narrative the Iron Throne sang.
Maybe the desire of Prince Daemon could be explained thusly
The Lord Commander of the White Cloak doubted it.
Gerold had no notion of what truly transpired between Arthur and Daemon but he fully intended in discovering their secret. The secret that stretched between the two men, binding them.
Aemma. Gerold was partial to Aemma.
None of those name had been deemed sufficiently original for Queen Rhaella’s miracle child. None had succeeded in changing her mind.
The conversation had circled back toward Daemarthexes.
Daemon eventually grew desperate enough to sacrifice the names he treasured the most.
Laena. Rhaena. Baela. Jacaerys. Lucerys. Joffrey.
Prince Daemon’s devotion had earned him Sir Barristan’s loyalty more surely than any battlefield, victory or conquest could have.
His reward for this sentimentality was to reduce the Queen Dowager to tears and find himself firmly escorted from her chambers.
Gerold sympathized.
The Lord Commander hurried to change the subject, the gleam in Rhaella pale eyes one he was familiar with. He armed himself with parchment.
They plunged into ledgers.
Ledgers, inventories, seating arrangements, household accounts, guest register, genealogy books.
The Dowager Queen Rhaella Targaryen subjugated the chaos.
The Lord Commander Gerold Hightower abetted her.
The Lord Commander felt the stirrings of optimism. Queen Rhaella proved horrified, as was proper by the annihilation, of costly artistry and generations of accumulated skill.
Few pleasures rivalled sharing a grievance concerning the ruin of expensive craftsmanship with a truly sympathetic audience. A rare virtue.
Queen Rhaella mourned the tragedy as keenly as Gerold Hightower did.
The Lord Commander felt a distinctly uncharitable relief as the Queen Dowager prepared orders for fabrics and inks.
Prince Daemon and the Lord Hand would be treated to a meticulous recital of uncommon length and detail on the value of what they had squandered and recklessly dissipated.
They would be made acutely aware of the price attached to their folly.