A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

Fourth Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC

Sweetgrove Keep, the Reach

Ser Willem Darry stretched his back as surreptitiously as he could, afraid the armor might clank beneath the glamour and give the game away. He'd grown used to not worrying about the old scar across his left shoulder in Sorcerer's Deep, and truth be told that was not all he'd gotten the into habit of not worrying about. King Viserys' court was different from his father's, like a well kept fish-pond compared a stagnant bog. You knew where you stood and what your business was, and if you were not minded to play the games of power and influence you didn't have to. For the last half year his job had been thwacking the King's wards with blunt blades to help them to get as ready for battle as anyone who'd never drawn a blade in anger could be.

Now here he was in the godsbedamned Reach, playing along to fake smiles and false praise all over again. The fact that some of these folk were enchanted and probably screaming for help inside didn't help his appetite any. Truth be told he would rather be in an honest battle himself again, and wasn't that a notion he never thought he would have past his sixtieth year.

The girl, Vonilda, looked jittery as a horse to a new bridle, not exactly the image of a hard-eyed enchantress, but then Willem had seen Princess Daenerys play along to being just any other child so well you would swear she was someone else entirely. What was that saying the King was fond of... ah yes, 'magic covered a multitude of sins'. How many sins are you hiding girl?


Her Grace did good work when it came to sifting through the chaff, more importantly for Willem's nerves at a time like this she did quick work. As the feast wound to an end she had deftly maneuvered the girl into having a private talk later in spite of the fact that the enchantress would have preferred to do the talking in the shadows of the feasthall where she had all her thralls close and a fight risked revealing all of them.

Another thought the old knight had he never imagined would cross his mind was relief at being sent off into a showing room with three women... well two women, a dragon and whatever the Seeker was lurking unseen. He hadn't been in a room like this since... well, since his own mother had passed on more than half a century ago it was now, but he still remembered her scolding him for tripping over a sewing wheel and breaking her best spindle. Odds were a good deal more would be breaking today, he thought watching the enchantress collapse into a chair.

"Well now, this is a tangle fit to strange your whole House. Care to explain or should I start?" the queen's tone was a lot harder than she had used before and there was no trace of a smile on her lips.

"Right, the whole House," Vonilda sighed. "Wouldn't want to bring dishonor to House Ambrose now would we? Funny how honor just means whatever the head of the House says it does, unless his liege disagrees on account of his levies or his dragons making him even more honorable."

Willem was sure the queen was going to say something, she's seen more wickedness and borne more heartbreak than this girl could have thought possible, instead she just waited silently, looking at her in askance like Vonilda hadn't said anything at all.

Apparently that was the right thing to do since the girl squirmed a little in her seat then jumped from it like it had turned to hot coals and some of those coals were in her eyes come to that. "Do you know who they wanted to marry me to? What sort of man..."

"No and I'm not going to know unless you tell me," the queen interjected calmly.

And so she did, words pouring out so quick it was almost as if some rusted lock had finally broken. "Never had many friends growing up, my brother is so much younger than me and my father preferred to squire boys not foster girls, so I was mostly left to the company of my nurses than my septa and tutors, the maids were about the only girls my age I even knew so I was kinder than most, I paid more attention than most, when a girl needed a bit of silver to tide their family over I'd find some way to get it. Take a sudden dislike to perfectly fine dresses, that sort of thing..."

Willem had no earthly clue what that had to do with enchanting her family and half the staff but he kept his peace, not his place to figure it out thank the gods.

"That's how I met the fey after I started hearing stories of them, one of my maids smuggled a sprite in when I asked her. We sort of talked and one thing lead to another. I learned my first bit of magic then. Us mortals can do things they fey can't you know so once I learned how to cast a glamour I'd sneak out of the keep and do favors for them and they would teach me more magic. I learned some on my own too..."

"You mentioned a marriage," the dragon in human guise cut in, being less patient than the queen.

"Right well..." Vonilda swallowed. "Last year my father said I as to be wed to Ser Rogar Costayne, Lord Armond, a hero of the Greyjoy Rebellion they said, a great knight, probably what caught father's eye. But when she heard of it one of the maids, Barra, started crying, she had been a salt wife on Old Wyk, father took in a lot of those who wanted to leave the Iron Islands after the war, salt wives, thralls... I thought."

"The girl knew of the knight from then?" the queen asked, her gaze softening slightly.

"Yes, Rogar had been the one who killed her husband and he obviously felt he was owed a reward for his 'heroism'," Vonilda continued, all but spitting out the last word. "He raped her, that's all you need to know, it's all anyone should need to know. When I went to my parents father all but called Barra a liar and a slut and mother told me that it would be different for me, after all, I'd be his wife. How in the Seven Hells would it be different?!" she shouted, the fire returning to her words. "I would be bound by oath before the Seven to bed him and provide him an heir, who's to say he would not take me when and how he pleased. I... I couldn't see a way out, I used magic on father, then on mother, just a charm, just to get away from the marriage, but then it got...."

"Easier?" the queen prompted, the word barely more than a sigh.

"I didn't use it just because I wanted more power," the girl replied, and indeed she was just a girl Willem realized for all she had more power than most of the Scholarum wizards could hope for. "I didn't do it just for power, there was a lot of suspicion about magic, fey, smallfolk were burning witches, stoning to death those known to have made bargains with the fey before word came from Highgarden that that was not to be allowed. I made father put a stop to it sooner..."

"What changed? Why enthrallment?" the dragon asked while the queen had fallen into thoughtful silence.

"After the Conclave of Oldtown mages who had sworn themselves to the Faith started offering their services to lords, and since father had been so accepting of sorcery from the beginning he was one of the first to get offers. They would see, they would reveal me and I could not just use charm, refusing him went against everything I'd built up so far so I had to..."

"Dig yourself even deeper," the queen finished, though she sounded more tired than accusing. "I cannot promise anything right now, I will have to send a letter to see if you can be granted sanctuary in Sorcerer's Deep."

What solution does Viserys suggest for the situation in Sweetgrove?

[] Arrange Vonilda's disappearance, give her a new name, a new face, not just a glamour but by fleshcraft that she might start a new life, though under careful supervision by the Inquisition to ensure she does not fall back on old habits

[] Imprison Vonilda, she has proven dangerously irresponsible with a great deal of arcane power

[] Try to negotiate some kind of reconciliation with Lord Arthur
-[] Write in

OOC: And here we are, I started writing this from Rhaella's PoV but then I realized it would work far better from an outside perspective where I could just let the story flow instead of focusing on the details of the social challenges and how they were passed. I did not want to make this another three interludes, not that this is a small update.