Miracles and Memories
Twenty-Eight Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
He had heard it for the first time in the market from the mouth of a fishmonger and he did not believe it
, another Targaryen they said. Living in secret under a glamour. The second time Ser Bonifer Hasty heard the news was from one of the passing grey-cloaks and this time there was a name too:
Rhaella, the word like a knife twisting in his gut. For just the briefest instant the knight was overcome by rage such as he had not felt in years. It was as though the whole world were conspiring to play some cruel jest upon him.
Because the whole world turns around you, doesn't it? With that thought the anger cooled as swiftly as it had come, leaving him shaky and off balance. He'd seen a winged snake that danced in the clouds, dogs that slipped from place to place through rays of moonlight, and woods where the bushes and flowers spoke and moved.
Why not this? Hope cut far deeper than anger ever could. He had to know...
And so barely looking at where he was walking Bonifer set off through the crowded streets, his mind in a haze of questions and speculation. He did not even care to look left or right as he entered the stately inn that had sprung up near the Terminus. He did not stop until he was in front of Nizuta's door, and even then only long enough to knock insistently, the steel gauntlet echoing strangely against the ebony wood. It was all he could do not to burst in.
"What?" the stone man rumbled, cracking the door open just enough to reveal eyes narrowed with what Bonifer suspected was the consequence of overindulging in wine.
"Can magic restore the dead to life?" the knight blurted out, still in the hall, not knowing or caring who was listening.
"Yes. It is easier with mortals than with us for your lives and thus your deaths have less weight, but I would not call it easy even so. It requires a mage of the Fifth Circle, usually the servant of some god or spirit, though there are ways for a mage to make the call of one's own power."
Bonifer found himself profoundly grateful for Nizuta's talkativeness. "What circle of power do you think the King can summon?"
"The Dragon? Seventh at least, perhaps as high as Ninth," the stone-clad one replied, opening the door a bit wider. "Are you coming in or are you planning to have a full conversation on a threshold?"
Hope grew a little brighter like a spark fanned into a flame.
"My apologies," Bonifer said a moment later, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks as his courtesy finally caught up to the rest of him. "I should not have woken you so early..."
"You are going to tell me what this was about
eventually?"
The words were bearably a question, but the knight decided to treat them as such regardless. He did owe the man an explanation for the inconvenience. "I will, just not now... I have a great deal of thinking to do." The understatement was so enormous he could hardly encompass it with his thoughts.
What did it mean that she was alive in some miraculous way he could not truly grasp?
It meant the bright girl he had seen for the first time waving happily out of a carriage window more than thirty years ago was not consigned to some moldering tomb. That was more joy than he ever could have hoped to feel. To hope for more would be... madness.
***
As he rode onto the tourney grounds Bonifer felt a surge of recognition to the fishmonger and grey-cloak. If his first sign that Rhaella Targaryen lived had been the sight of her with the morning light tangled in her hair he likely would have fallen off his horse then and there. She was alive, she was
truly alive. She looked well, laughter in her eyes as she spoke to the princess... her daughter.
The queen looked older than when last he had seen her, though not nearly as old as him. Where the years had worn him down as wind wears down stone and rust upon steel, she had only grown more beautiful, stately as she was fair, a queen in every sense. With a start Bonifer noticed her dress, and he realized he
had seen her before under the glamour at the King's side. He had felt something then... known her even if just for an instant as their gazes met.
Had she been the one to send him his new armor? Ruthlessly the knight crushed the vain ridiculous thought from his mind. The King had probably not wanted a knight in his service wearing armor older than his grandsire.
He would ride for her regardless, even if it made no sense, even if she would never know or care. Lance in hand and shield in the other he faced his foe, Ser Karl Terrick he knew him to be though he did not bear his House's crest, only a hawk's talon in crimson upon white. The first pass was more test than struggle, both lances glancing upon shields. On the second Bonifer thought he had the younger man's measure, and so he did for his lance slipped under his shield and flung him from his horse... but he had not been watching his lance. A blow to the middle of his breastplate tossed him from his horse.
Again. Quick as he had ever done it, Bonifer jumped into his saddle like a boy new to his spurs. On the third pass he struck again, and for one brilliant moment he dared to hope, to imagine.
She smiled at him.
Ser Terrick's lance was as the very finger of fate chastising him... again he fell from his saddle while his opponent barely clung to his. Slowly, painfully, with far more than the ache in his muscles and the pain in his back, the old knight picked himself up, shook the Riverlander's hand, and left the field with whatever dignity he could still muster.
She was alive, and that was more than enough.
***
"I apologize for distracting you, Ser Knight," a familiar,
impossible voice called out behind him as he was leading his horse into the stables beside the tourney ground.
This was the place for impossible things. Bonifer Hasty turned to see Rhaella Targaryen standing a few steps behind him in the flesh... and he found he could not open his mouth to reply if his life depended upon it.
"You had an exceptionally good showing," she continued a little awkwardly.
The thought that he was causing her discomfort finally cut through the haze of whirling emotions. "My faults are my own, Your Grace. You should not trouble yourself over them..."
Or with me, the words were unspoken, but clear in his mind.
She heard the implication clearly enough. "Come now, Ser. We were friends, or at least as close to it as I was allowed to have such in those days." The queen sounded faintly wistful.
They had spoken only eleven times in all, the longest of which was about an hour at the feast after the Tourney of Dragonstone. Bonifer was about to point out that she probably knew quite a few people more deserving of the title of friend than him, but he too heard the words unspoken. They might have been friends given the chance. He'd made her laugh then, though thinking back some of the japes he made had been dreadful.
"I greatly enjoyed your playing of the harp, Your Grace," he managed to say.
"Well, I have certainly had more time to practice my playing," she replied just as gingerly. "You are more than welcome to listen, and then perhaps speak of other things, too."
OOC: I know you guys will be tempted but no need to plan the wedding yet. Rhaella saw Bonifer was dejected when leaving the field so she decided to step in. She was not even sure what she would say until the moment she opened her mouth.
