Chapter Text
The breeze flowed through her hair and whipped softly at her cloak, and Artanis turned her head towards it with a pleased smile, allowing herself a minute to enjoy it and the tender kiss of a bright yellow sun on her skin.
It was not the first time she stopped to quite literally smell the roses and it would not be the last.
In the wind she caught the distinct tang of manure and the peace was interrupted, her spine stiffening. She would have to wait until cresting the hill the road hugged but if her suspicions were right then behind it she would find another village.
A lifetime ago a bright summer morning would have called for lively mischief or cozy laziness, the sounds of the largest city in the North a background tune that was as soothing as it was energizing. Now she couldn’t help but to feel wary whenever she approached a populated place, and the bright sun overhead brought as much life to the surroundings as paranoia to her heart. She was too exposed in the open, too visible…
Artanis still pulled her cloak closer against her body, a meager defense against her own feelings, and let her right hand rest over the hilt of her blade in its usual place. The tingle from the magical blade was a whisper of comfort she would be lost without, her trust inspired her confidence enough to follow her path.
Her suspicions were proven correct when she finally broke over the hill and behind it sat sprawling farmlands. Cultivated fields and pastures filled with grazing sheep. Delight curled in her throat and she clung to it as her feet moved forward. Anxiety tried to rear its head at the shadows of the humble homes that dotted the sides of the road. It was what she needed anyway, a place to trade the jars of honey magic had provided for provisions other than honey.
The years had taught her not to be picky, but she was about ready to kill for some salt - avoiding food poisoning by eating the wrong mushroom would also be nice. Maybe there would be an inn in town and she could enjoy a warm meal before continuing on her way. Artanis still had some of the coins she had gotten from her last trade and if that was not enough, she could always offer up her music to cover up the rest.
The thought of food cemented her confidence back in her bones, and it was with a smile on her face and a tune in her lips that she crossed the invisible line that marked the limits of the village.
It was a scene plucked out from a tale - or a dream.
A maiden fair sitting by a stream. Long, elegant fingers delicately plucking the silver strings of a harp, her voice a sweet counterpoint to the gurgle of water over rocks. A vision of golden platinum and warm bronze cloaked in the azure of the sky.
The rumors did not lie.
Gerion got off his horse and quickly passed the reins to his squire, the boy’s eyes wide as his own felt at the sight before them. He approached, cautious of both scaring the vision of and of the treacherous rocks hidden under fresh grass that would break his ankles if he stepped wrong. He took his eyes from his path when the melody was deprived of the sweet voice to find her looking at him. What little remained of his breath left him.
Beautiful women he had seen lots of, both in Westeros and Essos. From the most humble of smallfolk to the highest born of ladies a land had to show. Tales and books and songs alike spoke of legendary beauties, and both Queen Rhaella and his brother's late wife, Lady Joanna, could be counted among them- Even then it was only now that he understood how accounts could talk of people of inhuman beauty.
The woman before him, for it was obvious at the sight of her defined features that she was a woman grown, was one such beauty.
Her entire being shone in radiance, and he would only imagine the effect a smile could have on her features were they to change from her impassive expression. Her eyes the palest silver color, rooting him to the spot with but a glance. So deep was his charm that it was only when her words broke his reverie that Gerion registered, at the back of his mind and as an afterthought only, how underneath the cloak there were clearly visible the studs of a brigandine and the hilt of a sword.
“Well met, Ser Knight,” the words flowed from her lips like water. Her voice weaving a song even when she was not singing. Her light accent unlike any other he had ever heard. She tilted her head to the side and a few strands of wrought silver followed the move. Her hands were still absentmindedly plucking at the strings of her instrument. “Has my playing disrupted you in some way? I assure you that was not my intent.”
“You have in no way disrupted me, my lady.” On the contrary he wanted to say, but there were more pressing matters. A lady like that, highborn or not, alone on the road- His consciousness would never let him live in peace if something happened to her. “But you have brought disquiet to my heart, for to find such a lady of your kind alone on the road fills me with fright. Honor demands that I know you safe.”
She smiled then, and he had been right before of how the expression transformed her. A vision of the Maiden in the flesh, garlanded in light.
“Your honor needs not be imposed upon on my account, Ser Knight,” she said and one of her hands let the plucking to rest easy on the hilt of her blade. “I am quite able to defend myself.”
And yet she remained sat with a hand on a harp. Neither Gerion nor his men would ever dream of harming a lady but he had the disgrace of knowing of many a man who would. He could tell right away she was stubborn, the exact same tilt of her chin his darling niece Cersei had when she would not accept him denying her another tale. Still, she had to heed reason.
“A skilled warrior you might be, but even the most skilled of my knights would fall to a treacherous ambush- And there are lots of ambushes for lone travelers, my lady, knights or no.”
Especially wealthy ones: her attire had bright colors and was kept pristine, and it was impossible to ignore the richness of her instrument or her blade. Or the rings she openly wore on her fingers. By the Seven, it was a wonder - and probably a testament to the safety of the Westerlands - that the woman hadn’t been ransomed already.
Gerion let himself fall to his knees, his words carrying out his honesty for her to hear.
“I could never forgive myself if news came that a disgrace had befallen such a lady. I swore to the Mother I would protect the innocent, and I swore to the Maid I would protect women. Now I offer you the protection of my house so long as you are in the Westerlands, and I would swear no harm will befall you so long as you are in the land of my family.”
Her head tilted back a little and it was a second before a delicate sigh left her lips.“I assume that proving myself capable enough by defeating both you and your men in a friendly combat is out of the question, no?”
Gerion couldn’t stop his scandalized expression from showing but had enough sense to curtail the smile that wanted to burst. Just like young Jamie and every single green squire: overconfident to a fault.
With a wave of her hand she bid him to rise as she did the same, her movements well practiced as she quickly bent and put her harp into a case. She seemed to have no other luggage than her instrument and a small bag that had seen better days. When she finally faced him fully he could see that there was another blade hanging from the other side of her waist, long and thin - the kind of blade that had an easier time penetrating the weak points between the plates of a full armor. Just what manner of education had the lady received?
Standing it was obvious she would reach no taller than his chin, her figure delicate and lean and barely disguised by her brigandine and her tassets. Without a dress to disguise her movements the warrior’s grace was obvious. There was confidence in the way she wove between the unsteady terrain that was strange to see in one of the fairer sex- mayhaps a consequence of being unhindered by long skirts. She finally stood just out of reach of his outstretched arm and Gerion appreciated her caution.
“May I have the honor of knowing the name of the knight I am to follow and to where you would take me?”
Gerion felt himself blush at the faux-pas. Of course a lady would want to at least know who he was.
“Of course, my lady. I am Ser Gerion Lannister,” he said with a bow, and rose back to smile at her. “And I aim to take you to the seat of my house, Casterly Rock, where you will be safe.” Safe from the hardships of the road at least. Kevan would no doubt notify Tywin if she was important in some manner, but even then maybe he could offer her his personal protection…
That didn’t matter, now. He cleared his throat and put his hand forward as an aid. “Would you bestow upon me the same honor?”
The woman smiled and with a single step laid her hand upon his own. Through the leather of his gloves he could only feel a shadow of her warmth but it was present and pleasant.
“My name is Artanis Thann, Ser Gerion.” She looked beyond him to the road ahead. “Shall we move forward, then?”
Traveling with others was a pleasant experience.
If she closed her eyes Artanis might even believe she was back to the days in which Vondall decided that having musical accompaniment was more valuable than riding himself. He would then insist she ride Marion and he would walk in front of her with his hands on the reins as she played music for them.
The first time she had pulled her harp back from its case on top of the horse the knights had almost been scandalized, but that had lasted all of two minutes before she began to play- And she wasn’t even trying to charm them at all!
Silence descended on the group as she played. A happy jig at first that reminded her of warm tavern fires and festival days in the Crown of the North, but it soon turned to melancholic songs in elvish - of empires long gone and loves long lost. How could she be surrounded by people and her mood be up still when none of them knew her songs or sang along?
Yet it was hard to remain in her dark mood when her ears twitched every time she caught one of them humming along to her tune, or keeping rhythm by tapping on leather or metal, however well or not they did. So it was with a lighter heart that she let her notes die off and her voice to rise clear.
“I have shared my songs for a while with you now, men of the Westerlands. Would you share your own songs with me?” New songs meant new friends. They meant knowledge and a measure of familiarity. Artanis would need new songs if she stayed.
Artanis turned on her borrowed mount enough to look at them all. The lighter armored scouts rode ahead and the heavier armored circle of knights surrounded her like precious cargo, their leader Ser Gerion included. She found more blushes than she expected as her eyes landed on them, and shot Gerion a questioning look when he reddened as well.
“My lady- ah- I fear most of the songs you would hear from our lips would not be pleasant for the ears of a lady.”
Artanis turned her head to the side, “do you mean that none of you men in this company can carry a tune to save your lives, Ser Gerion? I highly doubt that within a company of such fine knights there is not a single one that can sing.”
“Not like you, lady Artanis,” said an older man, with more salt than pepper to his hair and beard and kind dark eyes. “I doubt there is a single knight in the realm but one that could even dare to share a song with you and not feel shame at their own lack of ability. But I think that what my lord Gerion here means is that the songs we would know are not fit to be heard by a lady.”
The training of a performer was most certainly useful to stop herself from huffing in response to that. Bawdy songs were nothing new, the favorite of most back in the days when performance had been the only thing keeping a roof over her head. Still, there was a time and a place for manners, and the higher the status she could affect the safer she would be.
Rather than producing any unladylike sound, Artanis waved her hand in dismissal.
“There is value to every song, Ser, even those that would hurt the sensibilities of some. Scholars can tell a lot of the culture and thoughts and fears of the people by the songs that are popular at one time.” Was that too uppity? She had met some bards along the years that studied the history of music the same way most acolytes studied the history of their religion.
Artanis realized at the back of her mind that maybe she was not so far away from what she mocked even as she began to formulate the next sentence in her mind, about how revelry songs had value and such. But the older man turned grim then.
“There is one song,” he said and it was almost shameful the way she felt herself perk up in excitement. The man shook his head, “but that one is-”
“If she is to come to Casterly Rock she will hear it anyway,” cut in Gerion with a grim look about his face she hadn’t seen before. He turned to her and his expression was severe, his eyes cold jasper rather and a hint of resignation to the twist of his mouth. “Do you know of the Reyne-Tarbeck Revolt, my lady?”
All knights went silent and Artanis felt the tension electrify the air, as though lightning was about to fall from the sky. She took a quick glance at them before going back to Gerion, who kindly pulled his horse so that they rode side by side and she didn’t have to strain her neck. Artanis smiled softly in thanks. She knew nothing of those rebellions and for a single second her hands wanted to tense on the reins. Better to weave her words carefully.
“I think that, whatever I might have heard or read about it, might have been distorted by the darkening of information that comes with distance from the source and time. I would like to hear from you what I need to know.”
She could almost hear Khairon’s whistle at the back of her mind, the tales and memories of gorgeous archfey and ghastly hags quite present as well. The twist of words that came with dealing with those in power. Her face remained pleasant and undisturbed, like any noblewoman should when dealing with politics. And Artanis knew she was good - had made a life out of how good she was at saying what people wanted to hear.
Gerion nodded and his expression turned even grimmer.
“I am afraid that with a tale such as this there is not much an ill-intended retelling can change to make it worse.” His eyes ran through her and he sighed, choosing to look ahead instead, “you must have been no older than I was when it happened, a child of six. Two of my father’s - Lord Tytos Lannister - vassals rebelled. They refused to pay debts they had contracted and although my lord father was willing to negotiate, my elder brother and current lord was not.” Nothing out of the ordinary there. Debts were meant to be collected and examples were meant to be made of those who reneged them.
Artanis had preferred to wear boots with holes in the soles and eat moldy bread rather than contracting one such debt; even though she had enough prescience to recognize she had been outstandingly lucky in that she hadn’t been forced to. The power that hummed under her skin, her very education and affinity for music from the cradle, had allowed her to take less traveled paths.
She hummed under her breath so that Gerion would know she was paying attention to him.
There was only the sound of wind and the soft clops of hooves on the dirt to cut when Gerion decided to continue his tale.
“Hostilities were quick to rise. Hostages were taken, oaths of allegiance were broken. My brother first marched upon Tarbeck Hall, sundered its walls and put it to the torch. The seat of the Reynes was the castle of Castamere that sat on top of mines, hard to get into and ready to withstand a siege. Lord Reyne believed himself untouchable there, all his people inside, and issued conditions for his surrender if my elder brother Tywin gave his brothers up as hostages.”
A flash of a thought and her hands did tense upon the reins now. The mere thought of giving up a friend, nevermind a brother to serve up as a hostage was infuriating.
“My brother did not accept, of course,” Gerion was studiously looking everywhere but at her now. “He instead blocked the exits to their mines and flooded them. Not a single soul of the ones that went into the mines came out.” Anger dissolved to horror in her chest and she couldn’t help her slack jawed expression. How did an affront over a debt ended up with so many people dead…? Then anger again, and she felt her jaw lock and her eyes narrow. After all, it wouldn’t be the first noble for whom the lives of those at their charge was worth little.
Gerion still didn’t look at her as he continued.
“It wasn’t much later that a song emerged from the event, and my brother has sometimes used it to remind some vassals as to why rebellion is not a good idea.” He turned to her now, his smile painfully insincere.
Then he gave her a song.
Lady Artanis’ expression was careful and guarded even when she had shown them joy, but as he sang the Rains of Castamere he could see a hint of anger ignite deep within those silver depths of her. Her expression was severe now, and she looked older than the youthful maiden he had found by the road.
None of his men pitched in, and he finished the song the silence was almost oppressive. Then, Lady Artanis closed her eyes, and with a tension he had not seen in her began to pluck at her harp.
“One shy of a million gold coins,
and one shy of a hundred souls-
So asked the Lord of the Hells
as payment for a return to grace…”
She wove a tale for his ears and those of his men then, of a lord and a lady who had fallen in misfortune and of the deal they made. Horror unlike anything took root in his heart, and Gerion couldn’t help but to imagine young Jamie and Cersei in the role of those two kids, a death sentence hanging over their heads through no fault of their own. The song faded when a group intervened and then-
“Does the song continue, my lady?” Asked Thomas, his squire, holding the reins of the lady’s horse and walking by her side with tears in his eyes. “Were the children saved?”
Her hand went and mused his hair, the way an older sister or a mother might muse the hair of a child as a soft wan smile returned to her lips.
“Aye, they were.”
And to all but the young boy it was evident that Lady Artanis was lying.
Night had come and Ser Gerion and his retinue had insisted that, with a lady in their midst, camping out in the open was not adequate.
They had paid for an inn, rejecting her own attempts to pay her share with the jars of honey she had made for this very express purpose. It was irritating. Artanis didn’t like people paying for her things. It both made her feel like a freeloader, and it made her wary of the debts she might be racking and in which way payment might be asked of her.
She was already irritated by the memories the only song the knights had shared with her had brought up. How good and ill actions couldn’t always be defined. How Artanis couldn’t just stand on top of her high hill and claim Lord Tywin Lannister immoral and wrong for his actions because, in the end, the blood of innocents stained both their hands. How this was supposed to be a debate decades left behind. It seems like this strange new world had ways to remove the past back up and leave old wounds bleeding anew.
Life was much easier to deal with when the shades of gray gave way to clear black and whites. It made it easier too to ignore the shadows inside her own being.
Even now as she drank some watered down ale and partook in some lukewarm, hearty broth, Artanis could feel the wellspring of power inside her, filled to the brim after a day in which she hadn’t cast a single spell- and feel the threads and tunes that would annul the will of most people around her. A few seconds and the right note, maybe a wave of her fingers or her hand fisting upon the hilt of her blade and it would be done.
And it would be oh so dreadfully easy too . She had seen no wizard yet, and she would check in the laws as soon as she had access to the keep’s library, but everything pointed to the fact that Artanis could use her power unchecked and without restrictions… Well, none other than her conscience anyway.
Artanis was taken from her darker musings by Gerion himself sitting by her side, his own flagon of ale at hand and a smile on his face.
“My brother might be a fierce man to his enemies, Lady Artanis, but he would never hurt an innocent without provocation. You are under my personal protection as well, you need not worry about what might come your way at the Rock.” She turned to him with an arched brow and saw him blush, “ah, unless- You were not worrying about what might become of you at the Rock, were you?”
Artanis shook her head and took a sip from her ale, and with each sip the more she missed the aged Elvish Mead that Durnan would serve at the Yawning Portal for the right price and the right client.
“I am not, Ser Gerion. I trust your honor and your promise and the laws of the land. I know no harm will befall me, since I don’t particularly fancy starting a revolt against the lord right now,” she said in jest, and tested the waters by softly pushing his shoulder with her own. Gerion chuckled, bashful still, and she considered it a victory. “I must admit though, the tale of Castamere and then my own- I miss my home with all my heart, but it also reminded me of things better left behind.”
He turned to her, an arm resting on the table and his other hand going behind her chair. It was hard not to let the sudden tension show. The knight didn’t seem aware of the fact that, with her other side against the wall she was effectively caged, and how dangerous that might be for him. Gerion looked at her with soft eyes.
“Those children with those parents… Did you know someone like them who shared the same fate?”
Ah, a question to dread. What did it matter if she lied or not anyway? Artanis didn’t want to lie, not about this.
“I wrote the song myself. I knew those children,” and if Gerion looked now taken aback it was not entirely unexpected. Artanis took a big swig of her ale and flagged down a serving lady to fill up her flagon. “Terenzio and Elzerina were their names.” She looked at her companion, thankful that his hair was so gold and the red of his surcoat so bright, otherwise with turning to a human knight by her side she might have seen Vondall instead.
The innkeeper’s daughter topped her flagon, and Artanis shot her a kind smile. Gerion straightened and pulled his hand from the back of her chair, softly laying it over her forearm.
“My- I will be honest, my lady, I do not know how to respond to that. Even through the embellishments of the song your love for them was clear. I weep for your loss.”
Artanis snorted and gestured with her free hand.
“More like my guilt. It was a long time ago, Ser Gerion, and I only met those children once.” And even so they remained a cornerstone of her nightmares. The first and clearest warning that all actions had consequences. Artanis did not weep particularly hard because they had been close to her: she would cry all the same for the loss of any innocent life, even if she wouldn’t write songs about them.
It was the cruelty of being nothing more than an exchange coin for their parents which got to her.
Her hands itched for music and her soul for the comfort of old friends, but Gerion squeezing her arm was good as well. His voice was quiet, his words were kind.
“You needn’t make excuses, Lady Artanis. You can love having met only once, and be tormented even having stood aside.”
It didn’t take her long after that to retire to the room she was to occupy on her own.
That night, she dreamt of a ball and of demons looking through the glass.