Part 7
CaekDaemon
Dragon and Commander
- Location
- Mercia
Praise the Smith, for another part is complete! 
The Dance of the Dragons.
For the first time in their history, the three headed dragon had truly fought against itself, not as the mere one sided slaughter that had been Maegor against Aegon over the Gods Eye, where Balerion let forth its black flame in so great a torrent as to burn the smaller Quicksilver's wings from its body and sent forth a rain of molten bone that was said to have made the waters of the lake below explode as it rained down from above, but as a true clash of equals. Many were the men and women who pledged themselves for the blacks and many were the men and women who pledged themselves for the greens, and just as many were the dragons that flew for one side or the other. It was those dragons that had clashed against one another in battles the likes of which the world had never seen before, not even in the days of Old Valyria, whose dragonlords had such a reverence for the laws of their land that they resolved their differences in courtrooms and legalities, not on the battlefield.
It was those dragons that had made the war so damaging, with entire lordships reduced to ash billowing in the winds like dust after a harvest, and even in the North songs came of how the Riverlands had burnt in Vhagar's dragon flame from Stoney Sept to the Twins. The very same thing would have surely befell the North, if Aemond and his dreaded mount were not slain over the God's Eye at the cost of Daemon Targaryen's own life and that of his dragon, Caraxes, who had done the impossible and felled the greatest dragon to have soared the skies of the Seven Kingdoms since the Black Dread.
And it was that war that had seen the beginning and midsts of the Kingsroad smashed. It was for a simple reason: a paved road of white stone was a long and broad thing, easy to see from the skies above and easier still to follow, but a dirt track was a thousand times harder to notice from the horizon and a hundred thousand times harder to use as a landmark...and so the Kingsroad had been deliberately destroyed, here and there and at the city itself, armies put to work with picks and hammers to reduce its beautiful masonry to dust so that the dragons of their enemies might not use it to find them so easily.
That should have been the end of the road's wounds, for the realm was once more at peace and able to rebuild and heal, yet the commonfolk were desperate for shelter and desperate to replace their lost homes and so took the simplest, nearest source of stone that they might find to be able to rebuild their houses.
Then Daeron's war against Dorne had bled the realm's coffers to pay the wages of men-at-arms and to lay down galleys and build siege engines and pay for the baggage train needed to support his massive warhosts, coin that would have otherwise gone to maintaining and even expanding the road.
Then Baelor once more besieged the royal treasury and gave it away on charity, delivering loaves of bread to the beggars of Flea Bottom and all those who might wish for it, even if they did not need such charity in the first place Jonnel had heard.
And all that meant that the Kingsroad had been neglected. That meant only one thing.
Potholes.
The cartsman sighed as he inspected the broken wheel, the armored cart threatening to fall over entirely and spill an ocean of coin across the Kingsroad. He reached down towards the hub of the front-left wheel, and tugged on a thick wooden spoke enough to reveal the break in the wooden ring that was the felloes, the wooden ring threatening to snap out of its steel tire and deform entirely.
"I'm sorry, m'lord," the cartsman said, honestly apologetic. "The wheel must've landed in one of these holes funny, put the weight of the cart all on one bit."
Cregan Stark rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed.
"How long will it take to repair?"
"Not too long," the lowborn answered. "We've spares enough! All that needs to be done is to raise the cart back upright, and it'll be a quick fix."
"Get on it, then," the Lord of Winterfell said, turning towards Jonnel, the son stood not far from his father as a group of cartsmen came over, placing blocks beneath the front left corner to take the weight as they lifted the wheel upright again. "We will have to stop here for a time."
"If this keeps up, father, we won't make it to Hayford before nightfall," his son said, glancing towards the skies where the sun was already moving towards the horizon. "Might be we could never have made it there at all."
"It could have been done if we set out earlier," Cregan sighed. "We may yet make it there still, if we ride through the earliest hours of the night. We may be flying the royal banner, but I would not wish to leave so great a fortune as the dowry outside of a castle's walls at night for long."
"Are there brigands on the Kingsroad, father?" he asked.
"Not brigands, no, and certainly not this close to the capital," his father nodded. "But common thieves? Aye. Throw a few stones to distract the guards, then come forth and smash part of the cart in and take as many gold dragons as you can carry, or mayhaps go for one of the wedding gifts even."
His father surveyed the grounds around them, looking with eyes narrowed by the lowering sun, watching the horizon the way a man preparing for battle might watch for his enemies. The grounds this far to the south were awfully open, with the old forests of the south having long been cut back, but they left behind the hills that they had grown upon, hills that were covered in farm fields and yet hills that still could cover a clever thief's approach once the sun was down.
"Even a man who has nothing can still lose his life," his father said, turning towards his son and heir once more. "But a man who has nothing has little else to lose and much to gain for that risk. Make sure the carts are as well guarded as your wife's own."
My wife, he thought to himself, the thought echoing with his father's voice.
"Mayhaps now is time enough for you to have that talk you have been needing to have," his father mused, thinking. "There will be time enough for it, I think."
"I would rather not, at least not yet," he answered more quietly.
"For gods' sake, boy, were the two of you not already bedded?" his father sighed. "For all we know she might already have your child growing inside of her."
"And if that is so, then it is my child inside my wife, not yours," he answered more coldly, meeting his father's eyes. "I will talk to her when I please."
"And when is that, then?"
"Once we reach the God's Eye," he said, softening. "It is quiet there, far from anyone else, and calming too. Half the realm probably expects us as Northmen to want to visit the Isle of Faces where the Pact was signed, and so I shall with her at my side where there are none to hear."
His father was quiet for a moment, thinking...and then he nodded, satisfied with his son's answer.
"Very well. But I will hope that settles the matter, once and for all," the Lord of Winterfell said. "Had I been so haunted by the death of my first wife, you wouldn't have even been born."
"You had much longer to mourn, father," was the son's answer back. "I have had not even a quarter of a year to move on from Robyn's passing..."
The mere mention of his wife's name saw him in Winterfell again, stood outside the door waiting for the maester to finish his work, his ears ringing with her choking sobs as she realizes the life inside of her is gone, as his nose burns with the stench of blood and death, as his hands tremble as the kindly old man tells him with the utmost sadness again and again that the child she was carrying would never come to be. He would never find out whether he had a son or a daughter. He would never have the chance to see them practicing on the courtyard, or learning to sing in the great hall. He would never have the chance to see them blushing at the sight of their betrothed, or holding their own sons and daughters in their arms. He would never even have the chance to see them at all, to even so much as hold them and give them a name. That was the worst part, he felt. They died without a name. How could someone possibly be remembered without a name? How could he grieve for that which he had lost, when he never even had a chance to know them at all? How could he remember that which he had not seen or heard?
And then there was Robyn. Smiling. Sobbing. Dying.
"Jonnel?" his father asked, genuinely concerned as his son seemed to stare into the distance, tormented by the ghosts of the past and the world that could have been, but never was to be.
"...she haunts me still," he admitted without needing to do so. "The longer the time between then and now, the better."
His father's answer was more gentle than he ever expected.
"Then take all the time you need," Cregan said, patting his son on the shoulder. "But don't allow your future to be ruled by the past, lest you find yourself an old man with naught but memories. You should speak to her. If not about that, then about Winterfell or the North."
"...I would rather not," he answered quietly, words little higher than a whisper. "Merely looking at her -"
"Then if not for your sake, then hers," his father tried to reason. "Imagine how she must feel to have wed you last night, only for you to wish to say nothing more to her now."
Jonnel sighed, feeling more tired than he had in years.
"Not yet," he said, half a statement and half a plead.
"Then at least do something to take your mind off the matter," his father suggested. "Anything would do. Might be that you could go down the length of the party?"
"If you wish it," he sighed.
"I do now," Cregan commanded. "See if there is anything to be done."
The heir to Winterfell only gave his father a nod in answer before turning away and doing as he was commanding, making his way down the length of the great party, looking to see if there were any who seemed in need of aid: though everywhere he looked flew or bore with pride the direwolf or the three headed dragon, there were more than his father's retainers and other, northwards bound guests. Of the wealthier peoples that had chosen to accompany them on their journey, there were merchantmen with wagons filled with goods who saw the chance to travel beneath the royal banner as a means to make their way to Hayford Castle and further still all the safer, adding their hired mercenary protection to the household guard of Winterfell whilst attempting to tempt the highborn members of the group with their wares. Of the lowborn, either with the great party proper or trailing behind, there were entertainers who thought it good and safe to accompany them on the roads and a chance to make coin when they settled down for the night. There were artists and poets hungry for patronage, hoping and praying that this would be their chance to escape the gutters by catching the eye of the princess or any other lord or lady of means willing to pay them for their works, in the party or at the castles they might stop at. There were carpenters and craftsmen as well, ready to help them make their way northwards whenever something inevitably broke, bringing with them wagons filled with all their tools and with workspace enough and everything else they might need to carry out repairs, tempting the rest with their wares as they travelled, from chairs to cups to cradles. And last of all and there with the utmost reluctance from the Lord of Winterfell, staying a fair distance from the group, were the beggars ready to tear one another apart with their own two hands for a dropped ring a lady cared little enough about to not even bother to look for, kept from the retinue by a wall of Stark men and hedge knights, many of whom had served in the armies of the blacks or the greens before their twentieth name days but thirty years before, hoping that they might find regular work again...and some for whom the war had simply never truly ended, with their homes destroyed and their families slain and leaving them nothing but the armor they wore, the sword on their hip and the road beneath their feet.
It was no wonder he found the Captain of the Guard, Meryn Poole, keeping a close hand near the pommel of his arming sword and a closer eye on the gold carts that stood idle besides him. His family was old but humble, Jonnel knew, and often switched roles with the Cassels who were just the same, with one being the Steward of Winterfell and another the castle's Master-of-Arms and going back and forth between the two in every generation...but this time, Meryn seemed more suited for the other role than the one he had. Though he had surely been a mighty man in his youth indeed to have earnt his father's trust and appointment to the position, his broad shoulders had begun to make him more barrel bellied than chested, and hard cheeks had grown grey with the dulling of his brown hair and the beard that covered his face like an old forest.
Yet even still, the man had grown wiser from his years, not weaker, for many of the men of his day had gone south with Roderick Dustin, the Ruin himself, and died with that siege engine of a man at Tumbleton along with so many other of the North's best warriors. That meant that for all his age, there must only be true skill and understanding beneath, for none were so afeared as old warriors.
"How goes things, Meryn?" he asked, coming to a halt before the captain. "I trust the party is in order?"
"Only because the beggars aren't nearly so desperate as they seem," the Poole answered, looking down the road with a squint before turning back towards his lord's heir. "A bunch of vultures, they are, following us like wights behind an Other. Some of them look nearly as dead."
"Have you tried to drive them off?" he asked.
"Aye, and even offered them a bag of groats each if they left and didn't come back," the Captain of the Guard sighed. "They'd rather take the chance of finding a gold dragon than get a hundred coppers for sure. But they won't be no danger to us, that's for sure."
"Mayhaps not for us, but for others with our party," Jonnel answered. "The merchantmen have sellswords with them, do they not?"
"They do, and they've placed them at your lord father's command," Meryn said, glancing at a lock on the side of a nearest cart. "I wouldn't trust them near this much coin even if they were chained to the cart by the foot."
"Still, they cannot be so foolish as to think they can steal from the Lord of Winterfell himself and get away with it," he reasoned. "Have them take up some of the patrol work. It keeps the beggars from getting too close and risk having them picking any pockets or covering the way for any real thieves and keeps the sellswords away from the carts."
"It'll be as you command, my lord," Meryn said, bowing before him and giving him a lord's courtesy. "Not that it'll do much help, I feel. Say what you will about them ending on the street, but if a beggar's able to live as a beggar, then they have a sense for gold and where to find it. I wouldn't be surprised if they started coming out the bloody ground like moles."
"Mole's Town must've earnt its name from somewhere, captain," he japed, the old warrior laughing. "But I am surprised...I hadn't expected to see so many beggars this far from the capital."
"T's all Baelor's fault," the Poole said in answer, raising his heavy shoulders in a short shrug. "He has the goldcloaks give out bread to the beggars of the city once a week, and they ain't small loaves either. Big round ones, more like marching tack than not, but filling."
"It is a good thing, my lord," The Poole said before sighing. "Half the men coming for that bread fought for the dragons in the war and left behind an arm or a leg or both, maybe even lost those who might look after them when they grew old. S'only fair the dragons to help look after them now."
"How do you know all this?" he asked. "We weren't in the city long enough."
"That may be so, my lord, but I was in the south with Roddy," were the old soldier's words. "Most of those men never came home again...and not just because they died, either. Some simply took a liking to things in the south, found wives, fathered sons and settled. Can't blame them much when they were second and third sons, but imagine my surprise when I see one of the men-at-arms thought dead during the war is now a captain in the City Watch?"
"He was not nearly so surprised as when he saw me, though, my lord," he rumbled, the sound growing into a laugh they shared. "He nearly pissed his leggings when he saw me come through the door, thinking I was come to take his head as a deserter, thirty years after!"
"Living down here for thirty years is punishment enough for a Northman," Jonnel japed, dragged out of the mire he had fallen into earlier. "I can't imagine spending more than a few moons here in the heat."
"If you think it is bad here, my lord, just imagine how bad it must be in Dorne," Meryn said, the pair protected from the sun's power by the cart's cool shadow. "No wonder they're all so mad down there. The poor buggers must have had their wits baked out by all that sun, left them with nothin' but passion in those heads of theirs. Must be why the Summer Islanders spend all their time fucking from dawn till dusk."
Wiping sweat from his brow, the talkative Poole continued. "If I have anything to say about it, its this: if the gods wanted us to stay out in the sunshine and the warmth all day, I say they wouldn't make us burn if we were in it too long. Give me a cool autumn's day, and I'll be happy enough."
"Mayhaps a winter one," Jonnel added. "Then you'll be a frozen pond instead of a Poole."
The old captain roared with laughter. "Mayhaps a hot one like this will make me a steam pool, eh?"
Then he clapped Jonnel on the shoulder.
"Oh, and congratulations on your wedding," he said with a smile. "I would've given you it earlier, but between all the patrols your father had me on and being placed outside the hall during the feast I hadn't had much of a chance. She's quite a sight."
"Yes she is," he sighed. "She's the most beautiful woman in all the realm."
"...something wrong, Jonnel?" the Poole asked, caught off guard even as he quietened his voice and looked to the heir to Winterfell with concern. "Your face just changed like a wildling who won a fight just to realize he's got an arrow in the chest."
Then before he could even answer, Meryn nodded, a knowing look in his eye.
"Oh, I see," the captain murmured. "Robyn's still got your mind, eh?"
"How couldn't she?" he said, feeling a thousand times more able to speak to the captain than he could to his own father. "She was my wife for years. We may not have loved one another...but we were more than simply friends. I still almost can't believe she's gone...she was simply there one day, full of life, and dead and buried the next."
"And everytime you look at her, you think the same thing will happen, is that so?" the captain answered, scratching his beard. "Well, that is a tough one...but haven't you noticed the difference between the two?"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I saw Robyn when she came to Winterfell that first time before you were betrothed to her, yet alone married. Might be her father even planned for her to have Rickon's hand instead of yours," the guard captain said. "She was smaller than your princess, that's for sure."
"I know my Robyn was mayhaps not the tallest lady in the court," Jonnel answered. "But what might that have to do with it?"
"Not just that, my lord, her..." the captain paused, searching for a polite word. "Her hips were smaller than your Daena's."
"And what does that have anything to do with it?" he asked, with a growing impatience.
"Well, my lord, she might just...well, not have been made by birthing children," the captain reasoned. "Might be that she could have married any man in the realm and had the same misfortunes as she did with you."
Jonnel went quiet at that. Could he have been right? Could his Robyn simply not have been suited for making children? Even he had to admit, her hips were more on the slender side when compared to the Targaryen princess's own, and she was certainly more...vigorous than the Ryswell was even on their most passionate nights together. Could it be that she simply could not have had children with any man, and the pair simply had the misfortune of being wed together? Could he have been innocent? Could he be free of the blood that stained his hands?
...even if she was as Meryn says, it is still my fault for lying with her in the first place, a part of him stabbed from the shadows. She would still be here if I had not. I had a brother who could rule Winterfell after me.
But she had always dreamed of being a mother, another part howled, adding to the maelstrom of guilt and remorse within. Every time she lost a child another part of her died with them. But she was the one to ask to try again and again, wasn't she?
Or did she do that simply because she knew I wanted to have children as well? whispered one more. She knew all of my ghosts, just as I knew hers. She knew how it hurt me...might that have made her want to try again and again, despite the dangers?
Or maybe it was because she knew it was her duty to give you children, another spoke in a voice that sounded like his father, judging and commanding in one. Just as it is yours to do your part to continue Brandon the Builder's lineage.
Or maybe she never cared for you nearly as much as you thought she did and used death as a chance to escape, cried another, going for the throat -
"My lords!" quickly shouted a guardsmen from down the way. "Riders from the south! Some two dozen of them beneath the royal banner, coming at speed!"
"A royal patrol?" Jonnel said quickly and without thinking, trying to banish the storm of business with the sweet relief that was distraction as he stepped out of the shadow and placed his hand over his brow, looking southwards to see for himself. The soldier was right in his count, for there were two dozen riders atop strong horses, some armored in chain and with sword and shield as patrolmen might, some in plate and with lances that bore the black and red banner of the dragon kings writ small fluttering from their tips, true guardsmen and men-at-arms all. But at the head of the group were knights, true knights, in armor that had been polished to so shining a perfection that they seemed to radiate light themselves, so bright in the fading sun of noon that he almost didn't see the white cloaks billowing from their shoulders as they rode.
Kingsguard.
And at the head of the group as the one man who was surely their reason for coming.
"Meryn," he commanded, drawing the Poole's attentions to him as though it was his father and not him who spoke. "Tell my father that the Hand of the King is here."
"Truly?" the Poole asked, squinting to see for himself. "How can you tell?"
"Only a Targaryen would be flanked by knights of the Kingsguard and no other Targaryen would be riding here," was Jonnel's answer, already turning towards the head of the caravan where his father would be waiting. "Make sure the beggars and the like don't bother the Hand."
"Of course, my lord," the Captain of the Guard answered, barking his orders to the men as the Stark made his way back to his father, a father who was already aware of what was to come and quickly readying himself, perfecting his clothes and even going so far as to rotate his belts even so slightly to once more assume the regal appearance he had before the court.
"The Hand of the King would not ride out here for something minor," Cregan said quickly to his heir, snapping his fingers and sending the cartwrights retreating around to the other side of the wounded carriage at the sound. "That means it is something important, boy. Brace yourself for trouble."
"You cannot think that something that Daena said might have caused something?"
"I very much doubt my words might have troubled Baelor so much, considering they came from a woman and not from a pious septon of the kind he keeps as company," his wife quipped with amusement, walking up behind him as he forced a smile onto his face and turned to see a warm look on her heartshaped face, a hint of blush upon her cheeks. "And where have you been these hours, dear husband, to have been kept from my company?"
It was everything he could do not to turn away from her then and there, before he saw it. The argument had certainly stung, for it struck a weakness that few men or women knew of...but it was not that which made a part of him desperate to do anything in his power to avert his gaze from her beautiful form. No. That couldn't be it, for she had not realized what she had done and could not have done it with intent. It was an accident, nothing more. But the bedding was no accident. There was no question about whether or not he had enjoyed it, for how could he not, but it was not the question of his enjoyment that was the fault, but what it meant: it was the last of the things to make them husband and wife, and more, it was the first chance they might have had to make a child together.
It was that which filled him with fear and unease just at the mere presence of her before him. It was that which made him want to turn away from her despite her beauty, a beauty that only fools or the blind might think otherwise of her, for everytime he looked to her now he couldn't help but see her in that death bed as Robyn had been, panting for breaths and with a brow covered in chill sweat, her skin pale, clammy, filled with the cold touch of death and with her lap soaked in blood.
It was that which he saw as he lay his eyes upon her again. Not the beauty of her smile, not the curious violet of her eyes or the shining silver of her hair, but the nightmare that could be again.
And no matter how hard he tried, he saw her in that bed.
Be quick and cunning, his father's voice spoke. Do not let yourself be mired down. Keep the momentum and you need not fear your ghosts.
"Still recovering from the last time I shared your company, wife," he answered more quietly and with a forced smile, making her laugh once more. "I see you heard already?"
"Indeed I did," Daena said eagerly, still dressed in the same clothes she had worn since their departure. They fitted her well, he couldn't help but notice, just as she noticed he had and flashed him a sultry, knowing look before turning to false innocence once more as she looked towards his father. "I am sure it is an urgent matter, for him to come so far so quickly. Mayhaps there is a gold dragon missing from the dowry, and he's come to ask whether you would like to swing the sword to take the heads of the odd-dozen or so men who'll die for it."
"I would hope not," Cregan answered. "Beheading men is far too tiring for my tastes. One man is easy. A dozen men one after another is why the King's Justice exists."
"Mayhaps you have need of a Wolf's Justice?" she suggested, looking down the way to where her uncle was swiftly approaching. "Or better yet, a Winter's Justice?"
"There is a mummer's show with that name already, good daughter," his father answered as the Hand of the King's horse slowed, hooves clopping along the road's stones as Viserys looked amongst the crowd with a piercing gaze. "It is a tale of bloody slaughter. I doubt you would like it."
"You might be surprised," was her answer...
...and the last thing said before the Hand himself was in earshot. Like many Targaryens from now back to the days of the Conquest, he rode upon an ashen horse so dark as to be almost black, like death itself, a fine match for the great travelling cloak of pitch black and blood red he wore about his shoulders, giving but bare hints of the fine clothes beneath. He looked every part a king in his own right, even if he was only the Hand of one...though Jonnel could not help but think that it was so, for who else had ruled the realm as Daeron warred with Dorne and as Baelor fasted in his sept?
Mayhaps he will be king, if Baelor passes before he does, Jonnel thought to himself as the Hand's eyes looked towards him, calculating and considering, before going to his father. A good Hand should make a good king.
"Prince Viserys," Cregan said, bowing before the Hand of the King once more. "I must admit this is a surprise. What brings you here to us? Was there an issue with the carts?"
"Not nearly so surprising for me, Lord Stark," the Hand answered, looking around the crowds of Northmen and their retainers from his horse, searching, before returning his attentions to the Lord of Winterfell. "It would seem you may have two princesses in your company rather than just one."
"How so?"
"Princess Elaena, the youngest of my brother's three daughters, may the Seven keep him in their embrace, is missing from the Red Keep," the Hand said, speaking loudly enough that he might be heard. "Ser Joffrey Staunton had arrived to deliver her dinner, only to find that the body in her bed was three pillows and a mophead."
Daena laughed quietly.
"...and considering how close my good nieces were together," Viserys said, eying Daena with a shake of his head before turning back towards the Lord of Winterfell, "It seems only prudent she would be here. No doubt she has snuck in amongst your party, aiming to come northwards with you."
"We have had no sight of her if she is here," Cregan said. "None of my men have seen her, nor my son. They would have told me if so."
On that point, father, you are sorely mistaken, Jonnel thought to himself.
"Oh, I am quite certain she is here, Lord Stark" Viserys said, turning in his saddle to look amongst the crowds before raising his voice to shout. "Elaena! We know you are here!"
There was silence in answer.
The Hand of the King looked towards Cregan Stark, meeting him in the eye...and to Jonnel, it felt as though the world might crack, such was the force of their gaze.
Yet it was the Lord of Winterfell who relented first.
"Meryn, have your men search the party," he commanded to his captain of the guard. "Every girl of the proper age is to let you see if their eyes are violet as the Valyrians are. Then search the carriages, high and low. Open every cupboard and chest. If they are locked, have your men lift them and turn them."
"It will be done, my lord," the Poole answered obediently, passing his commands onto the rest of the household guard. "You heard your lordship! Look for any girl with purple eyes!"
"I think you'll find little point in doing that," Daena said, innocent and yet with a smile. "I would have known if she was here, because she would have came to me first thing."
"Indeed she would," her uncle nodded from horseback. "You were always closer to her than anyone else. No wonder she takes so much after you."
"Not nearly as much as she does you, uncle," Daena said sweetly. "She does know her sums, after all. I was always better with my bow than numbers. Have you thought that she had - mayhaps - fled into the tunnels beneath the Red Keep, waiting for you to leave, so that she might flee all the easier afterwards?"
"A poor choice if so," Viserys answered. "So, you are confident that she is not here?"
"As confident as I am that the sun is going to soon set, yes," was his wife's answer.
"Then it seems we may well be wasting our time after all," Viserys answered in acknowledgement. "Mayhaps we should turn back to the capital..."
"...and all's the pity" the Hand sighed, producing a letter from his breast pocket. "This decree marks her appointment as your personal handmaiden."
"Wait, what?" Daena asked, caught off guard. "You're letting me have her?"
"But of course," Viserys answered, smiling. "Do you think I would let my niece go northwards without a lady with the skills she might need to help her? Or did you mayhaps think a little maid might be able to escape King's Landing so quickly if the grounds were not already made for her to depart?"
"Let me read that," Daena demanded only for Viserys to pass her the letter, never for an instant losing his smile as she snapped the seal of the Hand of the King, violet eyes skimming over the text. "...and hereby place Elaena Targaryen, daughter of Aegon the Third of his Name and a maid as yet unflowered, into the custody of her elder sister, Lady Daena Stark, formerly Targaryen, of Winterfell, to come south upon reaching her sixteenth name day so as to wed a betrothed as yet decided."
"As you can see, Lady Stark, there was very little reason for her to escape at all," Viserys smiled, addressing her formally by her true title rather than by any fond word. "If she had simply remained in her bedchambers, she would have been delivered to you directly rather than however she managed to escape the castle."
"And judging by your reaction, I take it she is here after all," the Hand maneuvered deftly, as only an uncle who knew his niece well might, even as Cregan looked towards Daena and sighed wearily, gesturing to his captain to stop the search. "Still, I suppose you may tell her the news at a later time. But I would wish to speak with you."
"There is plenty of time before we make it to Hayford."
"In private," he said with a tone that made it clear it was no small request.
"...if you insist, we can speak in my wheelhouse," she said, turning towards Jonnel, who steeled himself in an instant as she waved him over and as he followed towards the steps. "Would you be so kind as to come along, dear husband?"
"I had hoped to speak with you alone, niece," the Hand said as he swung out of the saddle and dismounted with practiced movements, using the stirrups as a step to aid his descent, leaving a Stark man came and took the reins of his steed as he made his way to them. "It is an important matter, one that concerns House Targaryen first and foremost."
"Actually, I would prefer it if Jonnel was there," his wife said with a smile as they stood. "After all, as my husband, any problem of mine important enough to bring you here is a problem of his. Especially since he is going to be the Lord of the North some day. "
The Hand of the King looked over to Jonnel for a while, meeting his eyes as if to peer inside and see what kind of man he was...before nodding and speaking more quietly, more comfortably. "Very well, little niece, if that is what you want."
"It is," Daena smiled, allowing a servant to open the door to the wheel house and stepping forth, followed by Viserys and Jonnel last of all...
...who stepped into what was more akin to a palace upon wheels than a carriage, a place he had never entered before and could help but to be awed by its works; every part of it was decorated as though it was a lady's ballroom, filled with nothing but the finest of furnishings: at the far end of the room - and a room it was for there were doors on the opposite side - were bookcases filled with texts and scrolls and game boards and yarn and anything else that might be of interest for a lady during her travels, with one of the three serving as a rack filled with bottles of wine from across the realm. Cushioned seats sat before the glass windows of either side, allowing any woman to be able to sit in perfect comfort even as she looked out and saw the landscape rolling by, yet even that seemed dwarfed in grandeur by the great, oaken dining table that sat in the table's midst, great enough in length and width to comfortably seat eight, one at either end and three on either side, with plates and other such things surely hidden in an adjoining cupboard and yet with a center decorated with a large, bountiful bowl of fruit from across the length and breadth of the Seven Kingdoms and a plate with a flagon of wine and cups to fill.
And as if that were not enough, the very walls themselves were plastered with gypsum, used as a foundation to be painted red and to fill the gaps between a framework that had been decorated with ebonwood, painstakingly carved into draconic forms to match the many others that filled the room; even the lamps that adorned the walls were so carved, oil lanterns whose flames glowed in the mouths of dragons.
...I see now why this wheelhouse needs so many horses to pull, he thought, looking around the room with awed eyes. There are parts of Winterfell that are not nearly so well furnished as this.
"...if you had come in earlier, dear husband, I would have given you a tour," his lady wife whispered as she stood close to his side, hot breath caressing his neck. "My dining room, my leisure room and especially my bedchamber."
Then she leaned back and smiled, acting as if she had said something entirely different. "But I suppose those last two are the same thing, aren't they?"
"...even I must admit to being impressed with the craftsmanship," Viserys mused, examining one of the ebon frames. "Still, no expense had been spared."
"I must ask how you managed to have it built so quickly?" Jonnel asked, taking a seat at Daena's table only to notice that each chair had been nailed to the floor for stability. "Or was it already done?"
"A little of both," the Hand answered, taking a chair at the far end. "The Volantenes had started work on it as a gift for my mother, Rhaenyra, as a gratitude for what they saw as waging war against a common enemy in the Triarchy of Lys, Myr and Tyrosh. Unfortunately, she did not live to see it completed, even though it was all but done, and so it sat in one of their great workshops till I learnt of it and paid to have it finished after learning of my good little niece's betrothal."
"You always did spoil me, uncle," Daena laughed, taking the flagon and pouring herself a generous cup of wine before setting it back in the midst of the table.
"It is an uncle's duty to spoil his nieces and nephews," Viserys japed before growing serious once more. "But we best move forward to the matter I come here...Aegon is acting hand, and though this is a fine enough chance for him to gain some experience, I doubt leaving him alone for too long shall result in anything more than pregnant women."
"Then please, what brings you all the way here so soon?" Daena asked innocently, Jonnel and her both knowing already what he was about to say. "Other than Elaena, that is?"
"You know full well," Viserys said, taking a cup for himself. "If there is one thing you know, little niece, it is how to raise the Seven Hells themselves whenever you wish it."
"Me, raise hell?" Daena asked, blushing with a hand over her heart as if slighted. "I am the most innocent woman in the entire realm! Well, other than Baelor -"
"This is a serious matter, Daena, for whilst you might have merely wanted to hurt Baelor as he had hurt you, your words have done much more than that," Viserys said, suddenly having her total, serious attentions. "You proved, for all the great lords of the land to see, that our king is a king without will. He is a snake without fangs, a dragon without flame. He has no ability to enforce upon his commands, not because of a lack of strength, but because of a lack of will."
"And a king without will is no king," Viserys said with a sigh, looking from his wine to the princess that was now Jonnel's wife. "The realm is weakened because of it."
"What?" Daena asked, leaning forward. "How?"
"Though our king might not wish it was so, ours is a world built on force," Viserys said simply. "It works because of the usage of force and the threat of the usage of force. You cannot have the first without the second, for the second is far more important. For what reason does a subject swear fealty to his lord, if not for the protection he gives and fear of his enemies? What else keeps the enemies of the Seven Kingdoms at bay, if not the knowledge that we can lay waste to them with our hosts and fleets?"
"...seven hells," Daena said with realization. "Did I break the Seven Kingdoms?"
"The Seven Kingdoms have withstood much worse than just one woman's anger, little niece," Viserys laughed. "Yours is not even a shadow of your grandmother's fury. No, you've merely damaged the bond between king and vassal. The realm can heal from such things and shall heal from this as well. Given time, all things are forgiven."
"Not all things, dear uncle," Daena said, quiet. "Some things are unforgivable."
"But not unpunishable," Viserys answered, turning towards the heir to Winterfell. "I hear Northmen such as yourself can hold grudges for decades due to being trapped inside your castles in wintertime for so long. I am sure you know how vengeance has a tendency to march at its own pace."
"It does," Jonnel nodded. "My father tells me the son of the last Red King held a grudge for near enough a century before waging war against Winterfell on the grounds we had let Bolton men die against Argos Sevenstar for our own gain."
...and they probably weren't wrong, either, he thought to himself on what his father had told him. The Kings of Winter had taken the vassalage of the skin kings and combined their forces into one to fight the Andals, but that doesn't mean they didn't let the Boltons be weakened as much as they might before they did, so as to make sure they served Winterfell and not the other way around.
"The maesters like to say that the Valyrian Freehold could foster a grudge like no other," Viserys answered, reaching for the wine flagon in the table's midst and pouring himself a cup after receiving a nod from his niece. "It is said that there are tapestries in Mereen and what other remnants there are of the old Ghiscari Empire of Valyrian warriors being marched into slavery during the first wars, when the Freehold still knew little of how to make battle with their dragon mounts and when the union of the cities of Oros, Tyria and Valyria was still young."
"Such tapestries were woven in celebration of their victories in the Second War beneath that great general of theirs and his elephants," Viserys said. "So much did our forefathers hate him that they struck his name from history, even though it was those victories that united the three cities together in full beneath the Freehold as we know it now. But the Freehold used such taking of prisoners and celebration of victory as reason enough for the Fourth War, half a millenia later."
"They truly waited five hundred years?" Jonnel asked, surprised and interested both. "Could they not have used it as reason for the Third War?"
"Possibly, but the Third War was a simple thing, as the Ghiscari victories in the second had left them vulnerable to the Sarnori to the north," Viserys answered. "They never truly recovered from that war, not when Valyria struck and took back everything they had lost and more whilst the Ghiscari and their lockstep legions were occupied elsewhere."
Then the Hand of the King laughed.
"It is said that the Freeholders celebrated their victory by constructing a great statue in Valyria," he toasted, raising his cup in celebration of the victories of his forefathers. "A mighty dragon, mounting a surprised harpy from behind."
"Maybe we will need to have one made of a three headed dragon and Nymeria instead," Daena laughed.
"Mayhaps," Viserys answered warmly, sipping his wine. "In any case, that is a matter for tomorrow, not today. No, the matter of today is making sure that the realm does not get another wound to the muscles that bind it together before it has recovered from the first. That involves you and your husband, good niece."
"What do we need to do?" he asked.
"Make no more mentions or mockeries of King Baelor and especially not accusations that he is not doing right for the realm or anything of the sort," he said. "A simple thing, and one that prevents more damage done to the stability of the Seven Kingdoms than has already been done. Words have power, little niece, and the wrong ones will only make things worse."
"That will be very, very difficult," Daena laughed.
"But I am sure you will find a way," the Hand of the King answered. "You see, I was at first going to bring Elaena back to the capital, to prevent the lords of the land from seeing that we cannot keep track of our own; a weakness if there ever was one. Lord Stark would have had no choice but to transfer her to my custody once she was found, then we would have returned to the capital where she would be delivered back to her chambers as King Baelor would wish, were he aware of the matter and not isolated due to his fasting."
"But instead, I chose a different path," he continued, swilling the wine in his his cup absentmindedly. "That letter I gave to you was nothing more than an afterthought I wrote and sealed before leaving, one our king knows nothing of. Another way to make sure it does not seems as though we Targaryens cannot keep track of our own daughters by making her departure seem deliberate, yes, but that isn't the only reason."
"You don't want to see Elaena waste her life in his Maidenvault, do you?"
"I swore to your father, my brother, that I would look after you all in his stead," Viserys said as he straightened himself. "Leaving her there to such a fate is not a way for me to carry out his wishes. Getting her out of the capital takes her from his influence for years to come, as well as lets me cut around him in the future...he may be the head of our house, little niece, yet even his reach has limits when the paper is a legal one signed by his own Hand and concerns a sister in a place as far away as Winterfell. In time, that may well see her able to wed a man of her own, whether he wishes it or not, by having her travel from Winterfell to her betrothed's home."
"But I ask one thing in return for this gift," Viserys said at last. "Make no more trouble."
And without hesitation, without a moment's thought, his wife's answer was instant.
"I shan't, I swear it," Daena said, truly grateful. "So long as Elaena is with me, you won't hear word or rumor of me speaking ill of the king."
"I would not be surprised if I heard rumors of it even if you said nothing, Daena," the Hand of the King smiled as he drank his wine. "Say what you will of him in private. Say nothing in public. Swear it."
"I swear," she said, raising her hand to show her sincerity. "You won't hear anything. I promise."
"Then I think I can depart without any further issue," Viserys said, the rumbling of an empty stomach echoing through the air from a nearby cupboard...bringing the Hand's attentions towards Daena as he took hold of the handle and pulled it open to reveal Elaena, stuffed into the bottom with her arms around a dragon's egg, still dressed like a serving girl. "And do make sure the littlest dragoness of the family is fed, would you? I wouldn't wish her placed in your care only to have her starve to death before you make it to Winterfell."
"...you mean I'm free?" Elaena asked, turning and placing her foot against the cupboard's back wall to push herself out and upright, the little princess smiling wider than Jonnel had ever seen her. "Truly?"
"Yes you are, littlest niece," Viserys smiled before taking note of her wear and the coal in her hair. "...though it seems I may have to have a ship sent northwards with the rest of your wardrobe."
"Please do," Elaena asked, looking down at the serving girl's dress she wore. "It was a nice change at first...but now, I just want my old ones back."
"And a bath, most likely," Daena japed.
"And a bath," Elaena echoed in agreement. "A long, hot bath."
"Then don't allow me to keep you both," Viserys said, striding towards the door before turning towards both of the two Targaryens, the woman and the girl both. "It was a pleasure to see you both again...though I hope I will not have to see you both too soon?"
"Not at all," Daena smiled, Elaena nodding in agreement.
"Then I shall go and leave you in peace," Viserys nodded, knocking the door so that the servant outside might open it, giving the two one last bow and a respectful nod towards his niece's husband before stepping out into the world once more.
"...sorry husband, but whilst I might have wished to have your company, I'll be needing to find my sister something to wear," Daena apologized. "...as well as figuring out where I can find hot water without burning myself to death in a wheelhouse fire."
"Seems the Volantenes didn't think of everything," Jonnel japed, rising from his seat as his wife laughed. "I will be with my father if you need me."
"Oh, I shall be needing you, just not yet," Daena smiled back before turning towards Elaena. "Now, let's see if I don't have something that can fit you."
"You don't," Elaena said quickly, her words made obvious by the height difference between the two.
Daena met her sister with a teasing smile and playfully crossed arms. "Would you rather stay in that peasant's gown than try?"
Elaena's look towards Jonnel was answer enough.
"...I best go," Jonnel said, making his way out the door and into the darkening day outside, the sun continuing to creep ever close to the horizon, breathing a sigh of relief as he did, free to have the relief of isolation once more. Viserys was already gone, but his father was waiting for him as the cartwrights hurriedly attached the mended wheel to the cart, working as a group to get it done as quickly as was possible.
"I trust things went well?" his father asked, glancing towards the men at their work.
"Very, father," he answered. "Though you will need to find room for another princess at Winterfell."
"It shan't be too hard," Cregan murmured with a tip of his head. "Winterfell was big enough for all the daughters of the Kings in the North to live comfortably enough. It should be big enough for two Targaryen princesses."
I do hope you are right, father, he said in silence, knowing he would receive a long lecture otherwise. The last thing I wish is to find that I have freed two princesses from captivity only to have made them worse off than they were before.
"There, m'lord!" one of the cartwrights said at last, wiping sweat from his brow as another kicked the blocks free, hurriedly picking them up to clear the way for the cart's mended wheel. "We've finished!"
"Good," Cregan grinned. "Mayhaps we might yet make it to Hayford, a hot meal and a featherbed before sundown after all, if the gods are kind and we have no more trouble."
"The Good King Baelor always talks about the kindness and love of the gods," one of the cartwrights said back, drawing a seven sided star on his chest with his first finger. "The Smith'll keep it strong, I promise that to you, Lord Stark!"
"I hope so, Northern taxes are being spent on that Great Sept of his," Cregan countered before turning towards the rest, Jonnel making his way towards the head of the party to take leadership and await his father's arrival. "Back to your carts and carriages! We move once more, this time to Hayford!"
They made it a good hour before an axle broke and forced them to make camp for the evening beneath the stars...leaving Jonnel with the choice of a warm featherbed with his wife and her passionate touch, or standing watch in the cold winds to keep an eye out for beggars or any thieves that might wish to take a portion of their wealth for themselves in the near total blackness of a moonless night.
As he made his choice, he made sure to thank the gods old and new that he never was afraid of the dark.
And no real summary this time, as I did a bit of a marathon (some thirty thousand characters in a single sitting today) and I should really get to bed@[
And the next part should be be out sometime before the end of the week after a little break to recover my energy, as I'm going to bring this up to part 10 before going on a little break to resume work on the MSOW, as planned!
****
...A few hours later on the Kingsroad...
Though the royal road might have started north of the capital as little more than a path of packed dirt hever threatening to be overgrown by weeds and grasses, the Kingsroad grew all the more proud and beautiful with every mile they made northwards, Jonnel couldn't help but notice. Taverns grew ever more common in the grasslands and hills that flanked the road, as did the homes of the lowborn Crownlanders working in their fields, bare-chested and sweating in the summer heat and never once did the heir to Winterfell see a burnt out house or plot of land left to grow wild, only action and growth, never decay. His father had told him many stories of the South, stories of fields of wheat that stretched as far as the eye could see and further still, stories of great cities and castles, stories of great wealth and prosperity, yet there was just as many stories of great intrigues and great tensions and great conflicts...and none could be greater than those that he told of him why the Kingsroad - mayhaps the greatest achievement of any of the dragon kings - lay so decrepit so close to the capital itself, the very final destination towards which it led....A few hours later on the Kingsroad...
The Dance of the Dragons.
For the first time in their history, the three headed dragon had truly fought against itself, not as the mere one sided slaughter that had been Maegor against Aegon over the Gods Eye, where Balerion let forth its black flame in so great a torrent as to burn the smaller Quicksilver's wings from its body and sent forth a rain of molten bone that was said to have made the waters of the lake below explode as it rained down from above, but as a true clash of equals. Many were the men and women who pledged themselves for the blacks and many were the men and women who pledged themselves for the greens, and just as many were the dragons that flew for one side or the other. It was those dragons that had clashed against one another in battles the likes of which the world had never seen before, not even in the days of Old Valyria, whose dragonlords had such a reverence for the laws of their land that they resolved their differences in courtrooms and legalities, not on the battlefield.
It was those dragons that had made the war so damaging, with entire lordships reduced to ash billowing in the winds like dust after a harvest, and even in the North songs came of how the Riverlands had burnt in Vhagar's dragon flame from Stoney Sept to the Twins. The very same thing would have surely befell the North, if Aemond and his dreaded mount were not slain over the God's Eye at the cost of Daemon Targaryen's own life and that of his dragon, Caraxes, who had done the impossible and felled the greatest dragon to have soared the skies of the Seven Kingdoms since the Black Dread.
And it was that war that had seen the beginning and midsts of the Kingsroad smashed. It was for a simple reason: a paved road of white stone was a long and broad thing, easy to see from the skies above and easier still to follow, but a dirt track was a thousand times harder to notice from the horizon and a hundred thousand times harder to use as a landmark...and so the Kingsroad had been deliberately destroyed, here and there and at the city itself, armies put to work with picks and hammers to reduce its beautiful masonry to dust so that the dragons of their enemies might not use it to find them so easily.
That should have been the end of the road's wounds, for the realm was once more at peace and able to rebuild and heal, yet the commonfolk were desperate for shelter and desperate to replace their lost homes and so took the simplest, nearest source of stone that they might find to be able to rebuild their houses.
Then Daeron's war against Dorne had bled the realm's coffers to pay the wages of men-at-arms and to lay down galleys and build siege engines and pay for the baggage train needed to support his massive warhosts, coin that would have otherwise gone to maintaining and even expanding the road.
Then Baelor once more besieged the royal treasury and gave it away on charity, delivering loaves of bread to the beggars of Flea Bottom and all those who might wish for it, even if they did not need such charity in the first place Jonnel had heard.
And all that meant that the Kingsroad had been neglected. That meant only one thing.
Potholes.
The cartsman sighed as he inspected the broken wheel, the armored cart threatening to fall over entirely and spill an ocean of coin across the Kingsroad. He reached down towards the hub of the front-left wheel, and tugged on a thick wooden spoke enough to reveal the break in the wooden ring that was the felloes, the wooden ring threatening to snap out of its steel tire and deform entirely.
"I'm sorry, m'lord," the cartsman said, honestly apologetic. "The wheel must've landed in one of these holes funny, put the weight of the cart all on one bit."
Cregan Stark rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed.
"How long will it take to repair?"
"Not too long," the lowborn answered. "We've spares enough! All that needs to be done is to raise the cart back upright, and it'll be a quick fix."
"Get on it, then," the Lord of Winterfell said, turning towards Jonnel, the son stood not far from his father as a group of cartsmen came over, placing blocks beneath the front left corner to take the weight as they lifted the wheel upright again. "We will have to stop here for a time."
"If this keeps up, father, we won't make it to Hayford before nightfall," his son said, glancing towards the skies where the sun was already moving towards the horizon. "Might be we could never have made it there at all."
"It could have been done if we set out earlier," Cregan sighed. "We may yet make it there still, if we ride through the earliest hours of the night. We may be flying the royal banner, but I would not wish to leave so great a fortune as the dowry outside of a castle's walls at night for long."
"Are there brigands on the Kingsroad, father?" he asked.
"Not brigands, no, and certainly not this close to the capital," his father nodded. "But common thieves? Aye. Throw a few stones to distract the guards, then come forth and smash part of the cart in and take as many gold dragons as you can carry, or mayhaps go for one of the wedding gifts even."
His father surveyed the grounds around them, looking with eyes narrowed by the lowering sun, watching the horizon the way a man preparing for battle might watch for his enemies. The grounds this far to the south were awfully open, with the old forests of the south having long been cut back, but they left behind the hills that they had grown upon, hills that were covered in farm fields and yet hills that still could cover a clever thief's approach once the sun was down.
"Even a man who has nothing can still lose his life," his father said, turning towards his son and heir once more. "But a man who has nothing has little else to lose and much to gain for that risk. Make sure the carts are as well guarded as your wife's own."
My wife, he thought to himself, the thought echoing with his father's voice.
"Mayhaps now is time enough for you to have that talk you have been needing to have," his father mused, thinking. "There will be time enough for it, I think."
"I would rather not, at least not yet," he answered more quietly.
"For gods' sake, boy, were the two of you not already bedded?" his father sighed. "For all we know she might already have your child growing inside of her."
"And if that is so, then it is my child inside my wife, not yours," he answered more coldly, meeting his father's eyes. "I will talk to her when I please."
"And when is that, then?"
"Once we reach the God's Eye," he said, softening. "It is quiet there, far from anyone else, and calming too. Half the realm probably expects us as Northmen to want to visit the Isle of Faces where the Pact was signed, and so I shall with her at my side where there are none to hear."
His father was quiet for a moment, thinking...and then he nodded, satisfied with his son's answer.
"Very well. But I will hope that settles the matter, once and for all," the Lord of Winterfell said. "Had I been so haunted by the death of my first wife, you wouldn't have even been born."
"You had much longer to mourn, father," was the son's answer back. "I have had not even a quarter of a year to move on from Robyn's passing..."
The mere mention of his wife's name saw him in Winterfell again, stood outside the door waiting for the maester to finish his work, his ears ringing with her choking sobs as she realizes the life inside of her is gone, as his nose burns with the stench of blood and death, as his hands tremble as the kindly old man tells him with the utmost sadness again and again that the child she was carrying would never come to be. He would never find out whether he had a son or a daughter. He would never have the chance to see them practicing on the courtyard, or learning to sing in the great hall. He would never have the chance to see them blushing at the sight of their betrothed, or holding their own sons and daughters in their arms. He would never even have the chance to see them at all, to even so much as hold them and give them a name. That was the worst part, he felt. They died without a name. How could someone possibly be remembered without a name? How could he grieve for that which he had lost, when he never even had a chance to know them at all? How could he remember that which he had not seen or heard?
And then there was Robyn. Smiling. Sobbing. Dying.
"Jonnel?" his father asked, genuinely concerned as his son seemed to stare into the distance, tormented by the ghosts of the past and the world that could have been, but never was to be.
"...she haunts me still," he admitted without needing to do so. "The longer the time between then and now, the better."
His father's answer was more gentle than he ever expected.
"Then take all the time you need," Cregan said, patting his son on the shoulder. "But don't allow your future to be ruled by the past, lest you find yourself an old man with naught but memories. You should speak to her. If not about that, then about Winterfell or the North."
"...I would rather not," he answered quietly, words little higher than a whisper. "Merely looking at her -"
"Then if not for your sake, then hers," his father tried to reason. "Imagine how she must feel to have wed you last night, only for you to wish to say nothing more to her now."
Jonnel sighed, feeling more tired than he had in years.
"Not yet," he said, half a statement and half a plead.
"Then at least do something to take your mind off the matter," his father suggested. "Anything would do. Might be that you could go down the length of the party?"
"If you wish it," he sighed.
"I do now," Cregan commanded. "See if there is anything to be done."
The heir to Winterfell only gave his father a nod in answer before turning away and doing as he was commanding, making his way down the length of the great party, looking to see if there were any who seemed in need of aid: though everywhere he looked flew or bore with pride the direwolf or the three headed dragon, there were more than his father's retainers and other, northwards bound guests. Of the wealthier peoples that had chosen to accompany them on their journey, there were merchantmen with wagons filled with goods who saw the chance to travel beneath the royal banner as a means to make their way to Hayford Castle and further still all the safer, adding their hired mercenary protection to the household guard of Winterfell whilst attempting to tempt the highborn members of the group with their wares. Of the lowborn, either with the great party proper or trailing behind, there were entertainers who thought it good and safe to accompany them on the roads and a chance to make coin when they settled down for the night. There were artists and poets hungry for patronage, hoping and praying that this would be their chance to escape the gutters by catching the eye of the princess or any other lord or lady of means willing to pay them for their works, in the party or at the castles they might stop at. There were carpenters and craftsmen as well, ready to help them make their way northwards whenever something inevitably broke, bringing with them wagons filled with all their tools and with workspace enough and everything else they might need to carry out repairs, tempting the rest with their wares as they travelled, from chairs to cups to cradles. And last of all and there with the utmost reluctance from the Lord of Winterfell, staying a fair distance from the group, were the beggars ready to tear one another apart with their own two hands for a dropped ring a lady cared little enough about to not even bother to look for, kept from the retinue by a wall of Stark men and hedge knights, many of whom had served in the armies of the blacks or the greens before their twentieth name days but thirty years before, hoping that they might find regular work again...and some for whom the war had simply never truly ended, with their homes destroyed and their families slain and leaving them nothing but the armor they wore, the sword on their hip and the road beneath their feet.
It was no wonder he found the Captain of the Guard, Meryn Poole, keeping a close hand near the pommel of his arming sword and a closer eye on the gold carts that stood idle besides him. His family was old but humble, Jonnel knew, and often switched roles with the Cassels who were just the same, with one being the Steward of Winterfell and another the castle's Master-of-Arms and going back and forth between the two in every generation...but this time, Meryn seemed more suited for the other role than the one he had. Though he had surely been a mighty man in his youth indeed to have earnt his father's trust and appointment to the position, his broad shoulders had begun to make him more barrel bellied than chested, and hard cheeks had grown grey with the dulling of his brown hair and the beard that covered his face like an old forest.
Yet even still, the man had grown wiser from his years, not weaker, for many of the men of his day had gone south with Roderick Dustin, the Ruin himself, and died with that siege engine of a man at Tumbleton along with so many other of the North's best warriors. That meant that for all his age, there must only be true skill and understanding beneath, for none were so afeared as old warriors.
"How goes things, Meryn?" he asked, coming to a halt before the captain. "I trust the party is in order?"
"Only because the beggars aren't nearly so desperate as they seem," the Poole answered, looking down the road with a squint before turning back towards his lord's heir. "A bunch of vultures, they are, following us like wights behind an Other. Some of them look nearly as dead."
"Have you tried to drive them off?" he asked.
"Aye, and even offered them a bag of groats each if they left and didn't come back," the Captain of the Guard sighed. "They'd rather take the chance of finding a gold dragon than get a hundred coppers for sure. But they won't be no danger to us, that's for sure."
"Mayhaps not for us, but for others with our party," Jonnel answered. "The merchantmen have sellswords with them, do they not?"
"They do, and they've placed them at your lord father's command," Meryn said, glancing at a lock on the side of a nearest cart. "I wouldn't trust them near this much coin even if they were chained to the cart by the foot."
"Still, they cannot be so foolish as to think they can steal from the Lord of Winterfell himself and get away with it," he reasoned. "Have them take up some of the patrol work. It keeps the beggars from getting too close and risk having them picking any pockets or covering the way for any real thieves and keeps the sellswords away from the carts."
"It'll be as you command, my lord," Meryn said, bowing before him and giving him a lord's courtesy. "Not that it'll do much help, I feel. Say what you will about them ending on the street, but if a beggar's able to live as a beggar, then they have a sense for gold and where to find it. I wouldn't be surprised if they started coming out the bloody ground like moles."
"Mole's Town must've earnt its name from somewhere, captain," he japed, the old warrior laughing. "But I am surprised...I hadn't expected to see so many beggars this far from the capital."
"T's all Baelor's fault," the Poole said in answer, raising his heavy shoulders in a short shrug. "He has the goldcloaks give out bread to the beggars of the city once a week, and they ain't small loaves either. Big round ones, more like marching tack than not, but filling."
"It is a good thing, my lord," The Poole said before sighing. "Half the men coming for that bread fought for the dragons in the war and left behind an arm or a leg or both, maybe even lost those who might look after them when they grew old. S'only fair the dragons to help look after them now."
"How do you know all this?" he asked. "We weren't in the city long enough."
"That may be so, my lord, but I was in the south with Roddy," were the old soldier's words. "Most of those men never came home again...and not just because they died, either. Some simply took a liking to things in the south, found wives, fathered sons and settled. Can't blame them much when they were second and third sons, but imagine my surprise when I see one of the men-at-arms thought dead during the war is now a captain in the City Watch?"
"He was not nearly so surprised as when he saw me, though, my lord," he rumbled, the sound growing into a laugh they shared. "He nearly pissed his leggings when he saw me come through the door, thinking I was come to take his head as a deserter, thirty years after!"
"Living down here for thirty years is punishment enough for a Northman," Jonnel japed, dragged out of the mire he had fallen into earlier. "I can't imagine spending more than a few moons here in the heat."
"If you think it is bad here, my lord, just imagine how bad it must be in Dorne," Meryn said, the pair protected from the sun's power by the cart's cool shadow. "No wonder they're all so mad down there. The poor buggers must have had their wits baked out by all that sun, left them with nothin' but passion in those heads of theirs. Must be why the Summer Islanders spend all their time fucking from dawn till dusk."
Wiping sweat from his brow, the talkative Poole continued. "If I have anything to say about it, its this: if the gods wanted us to stay out in the sunshine and the warmth all day, I say they wouldn't make us burn if we were in it too long. Give me a cool autumn's day, and I'll be happy enough."
"Mayhaps a winter one," Jonnel added. "Then you'll be a frozen pond instead of a Poole."
The old captain roared with laughter. "Mayhaps a hot one like this will make me a steam pool, eh?"
Then he clapped Jonnel on the shoulder.
"Oh, and congratulations on your wedding," he said with a smile. "I would've given you it earlier, but between all the patrols your father had me on and being placed outside the hall during the feast I hadn't had much of a chance. She's quite a sight."
"Yes she is," he sighed. "She's the most beautiful woman in all the realm."
"...something wrong, Jonnel?" the Poole asked, caught off guard even as he quietened his voice and looked to the heir to Winterfell with concern. "Your face just changed like a wildling who won a fight just to realize he's got an arrow in the chest."
Then before he could even answer, Meryn nodded, a knowing look in his eye.
"Oh, I see," the captain murmured. "Robyn's still got your mind, eh?"
"How couldn't she?" he said, feeling a thousand times more able to speak to the captain than he could to his own father. "She was my wife for years. We may not have loved one another...but we were more than simply friends. I still almost can't believe she's gone...she was simply there one day, full of life, and dead and buried the next."
"And everytime you look at her, you think the same thing will happen, is that so?" the captain answered, scratching his beard. "Well, that is a tough one...but haven't you noticed the difference between the two?"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I saw Robyn when she came to Winterfell that first time before you were betrothed to her, yet alone married. Might be her father even planned for her to have Rickon's hand instead of yours," the guard captain said. "She was smaller than your princess, that's for sure."
"I know my Robyn was mayhaps not the tallest lady in the court," Jonnel answered. "But what might that have to do with it?"
"Not just that, my lord, her..." the captain paused, searching for a polite word. "Her hips were smaller than your Daena's."
"And what does that have anything to do with it?" he asked, with a growing impatience.
"Well, my lord, she might just...well, not have been made by birthing children," the captain reasoned. "Might be that she could have married any man in the realm and had the same misfortunes as she did with you."
Jonnel went quiet at that. Could he have been right? Could his Robyn simply not have been suited for making children? Even he had to admit, her hips were more on the slender side when compared to the Targaryen princess's own, and she was certainly more...vigorous than the Ryswell was even on their most passionate nights together. Could it be that she simply could not have had children with any man, and the pair simply had the misfortune of being wed together? Could he have been innocent? Could he be free of the blood that stained his hands?
...even if she was as Meryn says, it is still my fault for lying with her in the first place, a part of him stabbed from the shadows. She would still be here if I had not. I had a brother who could rule Winterfell after me.
But she had always dreamed of being a mother, another part howled, adding to the maelstrom of guilt and remorse within. Every time she lost a child another part of her died with them. But she was the one to ask to try again and again, wasn't she?
Or did she do that simply because she knew I wanted to have children as well? whispered one more. She knew all of my ghosts, just as I knew hers. She knew how it hurt me...might that have made her want to try again and again, despite the dangers?
Or maybe it was because she knew it was her duty to give you children, another spoke in a voice that sounded like his father, judging and commanding in one. Just as it is yours to do your part to continue Brandon the Builder's lineage.
Or maybe she never cared for you nearly as much as you thought she did and used death as a chance to escape, cried another, going for the throat -
"My lords!" quickly shouted a guardsmen from down the way. "Riders from the south! Some two dozen of them beneath the royal banner, coming at speed!"
"A royal patrol?" Jonnel said quickly and without thinking, trying to banish the storm of business with the sweet relief that was distraction as he stepped out of the shadow and placed his hand over his brow, looking southwards to see for himself. The soldier was right in his count, for there were two dozen riders atop strong horses, some armored in chain and with sword and shield as patrolmen might, some in plate and with lances that bore the black and red banner of the dragon kings writ small fluttering from their tips, true guardsmen and men-at-arms all. But at the head of the group were knights, true knights, in armor that had been polished to so shining a perfection that they seemed to radiate light themselves, so bright in the fading sun of noon that he almost didn't see the white cloaks billowing from their shoulders as they rode.
Kingsguard.
And at the head of the group as the one man who was surely their reason for coming.
"Meryn," he commanded, drawing the Poole's attentions to him as though it was his father and not him who spoke. "Tell my father that the Hand of the King is here."
"Truly?" the Poole asked, squinting to see for himself. "How can you tell?"
"Only a Targaryen would be flanked by knights of the Kingsguard and no other Targaryen would be riding here," was Jonnel's answer, already turning towards the head of the caravan where his father would be waiting. "Make sure the beggars and the like don't bother the Hand."
"Of course, my lord," the Captain of the Guard answered, barking his orders to the men as the Stark made his way back to his father, a father who was already aware of what was to come and quickly readying himself, perfecting his clothes and even going so far as to rotate his belts even so slightly to once more assume the regal appearance he had before the court.
"The Hand of the King would not ride out here for something minor," Cregan said quickly to his heir, snapping his fingers and sending the cartwrights retreating around to the other side of the wounded carriage at the sound. "That means it is something important, boy. Brace yourself for trouble."
"You cannot think that something that Daena said might have caused something?"
"I very much doubt my words might have troubled Baelor so much, considering they came from a woman and not from a pious septon of the kind he keeps as company," his wife quipped with amusement, walking up behind him as he forced a smile onto his face and turned to see a warm look on her heartshaped face, a hint of blush upon her cheeks. "And where have you been these hours, dear husband, to have been kept from my company?"
It was everything he could do not to turn away from her then and there, before he saw it. The argument had certainly stung, for it struck a weakness that few men or women knew of...but it was not that which made a part of him desperate to do anything in his power to avert his gaze from her beautiful form. No. That couldn't be it, for she had not realized what she had done and could not have done it with intent. It was an accident, nothing more. But the bedding was no accident. There was no question about whether or not he had enjoyed it, for how could he not, but it was not the question of his enjoyment that was the fault, but what it meant: it was the last of the things to make them husband and wife, and more, it was the first chance they might have had to make a child together.
It was that which filled him with fear and unease just at the mere presence of her before him. It was that which made him want to turn away from her despite her beauty, a beauty that only fools or the blind might think otherwise of her, for everytime he looked to her now he couldn't help but see her in that death bed as Robyn had been, panting for breaths and with a brow covered in chill sweat, her skin pale, clammy, filled with the cold touch of death and with her lap soaked in blood.
It was that which he saw as he lay his eyes upon her again. Not the beauty of her smile, not the curious violet of her eyes or the shining silver of her hair, but the nightmare that could be again.
And no matter how hard he tried, he saw her in that bed.
Be quick and cunning, his father's voice spoke. Do not let yourself be mired down. Keep the momentum and you need not fear your ghosts.
"Still recovering from the last time I shared your company, wife," he answered more quietly and with a forced smile, making her laugh once more. "I see you heard already?"
"Indeed I did," Daena said eagerly, still dressed in the same clothes she had worn since their departure. They fitted her well, he couldn't help but notice, just as she noticed he had and flashed him a sultry, knowing look before turning to false innocence once more as she looked towards his father. "I am sure it is an urgent matter, for him to come so far so quickly. Mayhaps there is a gold dragon missing from the dowry, and he's come to ask whether you would like to swing the sword to take the heads of the odd-dozen or so men who'll die for it."
"I would hope not," Cregan answered. "Beheading men is far too tiring for my tastes. One man is easy. A dozen men one after another is why the King's Justice exists."
"Mayhaps you have need of a Wolf's Justice?" she suggested, looking down the way to where her uncle was swiftly approaching. "Or better yet, a Winter's Justice?"
"There is a mummer's show with that name already, good daughter," his father answered as the Hand of the King's horse slowed, hooves clopping along the road's stones as Viserys looked amongst the crowd with a piercing gaze. "It is a tale of bloody slaughter. I doubt you would like it."
"You might be surprised," was her answer...
...and the last thing said before the Hand himself was in earshot. Like many Targaryens from now back to the days of the Conquest, he rode upon an ashen horse so dark as to be almost black, like death itself, a fine match for the great travelling cloak of pitch black and blood red he wore about his shoulders, giving but bare hints of the fine clothes beneath. He looked every part a king in his own right, even if he was only the Hand of one...though Jonnel could not help but think that it was so, for who else had ruled the realm as Daeron warred with Dorne and as Baelor fasted in his sept?
Mayhaps he will be king, if Baelor passes before he does, Jonnel thought to himself as the Hand's eyes looked towards him, calculating and considering, before going to his father. A good Hand should make a good king.
"Prince Viserys," Cregan said, bowing before the Hand of the King once more. "I must admit this is a surprise. What brings you here to us? Was there an issue with the carts?"
"Not nearly so surprising for me, Lord Stark," the Hand answered, looking around the crowds of Northmen and their retainers from his horse, searching, before returning his attentions to the Lord of Winterfell. "It would seem you may have two princesses in your company rather than just one."
"How so?"
"Princess Elaena, the youngest of my brother's three daughters, may the Seven keep him in their embrace, is missing from the Red Keep," the Hand said, speaking loudly enough that he might be heard. "Ser Joffrey Staunton had arrived to deliver her dinner, only to find that the body in her bed was three pillows and a mophead."
Daena laughed quietly.
"...and considering how close my good nieces were together," Viserys said, eying Daena with a shake of his head before turning back towards the Lord of Winterfell, "It seems only prudent she would be here. No doubt she has snuck in amongst your party, aiming to come northwards with you."
"We have had no sight of her if she is here," Cregan said. "None of my men have seen her, nor my son. They would have told me if so."
On that point, father, you are sorely mistaken, Jonnel thought to himself.
"Oh, I am quite certain she is here, Lord Stark" Viserys said, turning in his saddle to look amongst the crowds before raising his voice to shout. "Elaena! We know you are here!"
There was silence in answer.
The Hand of the King looked towards Cregan Stark, meeting him in the eye...and to Jonnel, it felt as though the world might crack, such was the force of their gaze.
Yet it was the Lord of Winterfell who relented first.
"Meryn, have your men search the party," he commanded to his captain of the guard. "Every girl of the proper age is to let you see if their eyes are violet as the Valyrians are. Then search the carriages, high and low. Open every cupboard and chest. If they are locked, have your men lift them and turn them."
"It will be done, my lord," the Poole answered obediently, passing his commands onto the rest of the household guard. "You heard your lordship! Look for any girl with purple eyes!"
"I think you'll find little point in doing that," Daena said, innocent and yet with a smile. "I would have known if she was here, because she would have came to me first thing."
"Indeed she would," her uncle nodded from horseback. "You were always closer to her than anyone else. No wonder she takes so much after you."
"Not nearly as much as she does you, uncle," Daena said sweetly. "She does know her sums, after all. I was always better with my bow than numbers. Have you thought that she had - mayhaps - fled into the tunnels beneath the Red Keep, waiting for you to leave, so that she might flee all the easier afterwards?"
"A poor choice if so," Viserys answered. "So, you are confident that she is not here?"
"As confident as I am that the sun is going to soon set, yes," was his wife's answer.
"Then it seems we may well be wasting our time after all," Viserys answered in acknowledgement. "Mayhaps we should turn back to the capital..."
"...and all's the pity" the Hand sighed, producing a letter from his breast pocket. "This decree marks her appointment as your personal handmaiden."
"Wait, what?" Daena asked, caught off guard. "You're letting me have her?"
"But of course," Viserys answered, smiling. "Do you think I would let my niece go northwards without a lady with the skills she might need to help her? Or did you mayhaps think a little maid might be able to escape King's Landing so quickly if the grounds were not already made for her to depart?"
"Let me read that," Daena demanded only for Viserys to pass her the letter, never for an instant losing his smile as she snapped the seal of the Hand of the King, violet eyes skimming over the text. "...and hereby place Elaena Targaryen, daughter of Aegon the Third of his Name and a maid as yet unflowered, into the custody of her elder sister, Lady Daena Stark, formerly Targaryen, of Winterfell, to come south upon reaching her sixteenth name day so as to wed a betrothed as yet decided."
"As you can see, Lady Stark, there was very little reason for her to escape at all," Viserys smiled, addressing her formally by her true title rather than by any fond word. "If she had simply remained in her bedchambers, she would have been delivered to you directly rather than however she managed to escape the castle."
"And judging by your reaction, I take it she is here after all," the Hand maneuvered deftly, as only an uncle who knew his niece well might, even as Cregan looked towards Daena and sighed wearily, gesturing to his captain to stop the search. "Still, I suppose you may tell her the news at a later time. But I would wish to speak with you."
"There is plenty of time before we make it to Hayford."
"In private," he said with a tone that made it clear it was no small request.
"...if you insist, we can speak in my wheelhouse," she said, turning towards Jonnel, who steeled himself in an instant as she waved him over and as he followed towards the steps. "Would you be so kind as to come along, dear husband?"
"I had hoped to speak with you alone, niece," the Hand said as he swung out of the saddle and dismounted with practiced movements, using the stirrups as a step to aid his descent, leaving a Stark man came and took the reins of his steed as he made his way to them. "It is an important matter, one that concerns House Targaryen first and foremost."
"Actually, I would prefer it if Jonnel was there," his wife said with a smile as they stood. "After all, as my husband, any problem of mine important enough to bring you here is a problem of his. Especially since he is going to be the Lord of the North some day. "
The Hand of the King looked over to Jonnel for a while, meeting his eyes as if to peer inside and see what kind of man he was...before nodding and speaking more quietly, more comfortably. "Very well, little niece, if that is what you want."
"It is," Daena smiled, allowing a servant to open the door to the wheel house and stepping forth, followed by Viserys and Jonnel last of all...
...who stepped into what was more akin to a palace upon wheels than a carriage, a place he had never entered before and could help but to be awed by its works; every part of it was decorated as though it was a lady's ballroom, filled with nothing but the finest of furnishings: at the far end of the room - and a room it was for there were doors on the opposite side - were bookcases filled with texts and scrolls and game boards and yarn and anything else that might be of interest for a lady during her travels, with one of the three serving as a rack filled with bottles of wine from across the realm. Cushioned seats sat before the glass windows of either side, allowing any woman to be able to sit in perfect comfort even as she looked out and saw the landscape rolling by, yet even that seemed dwarfed in grandeur by the great, oaken dining table that sat in the table's midst, great enough in length and width to comfortably seat eight, one at either end and three on either side, with plates and other such things surely hidden in an adjoining cupboard and yet with a center decorated with a large, bountiful bowl of fruit from across the length and breadth of the Seven Kingdoms and a plate with a flagon of wine and cups to fill.
And as if that were not enough, the very walls themselves were plastered with gypsum, used as a foundation to be painted red and to fill the gaps between a framework that had been decorated with ebonwood, painstakingly carved into draconic forms to match the many others that filled the room; even the lamps that adorned the walls were so carved, oil lanterns whose flames glowed in the mouths of dragons.
...I see now why this wheelhouse needs so many horses to pull, he thought, looking around the room with awed eyes. There are parts of Winterfell that are not nearly so well furnished as this.
"...if you had come in earlier, dear husband, I would have given you a tour," his lady wife whispered as she stood close to his side, hot breath caressing his neck. "My dining room, my leisure room and especially my bedchamber."
Then she leaned back and smiled, acting as if she had said something entirely different. "But I suppose those last two are the same thing, aren't they?"
"...even I must admit to being impressed with the craftsmanship," Viserys mused, examining one of the ebon frames. "Still, no expense had been spared."
"I must ask how you managed to have it built so quickly?" Jonnel asked, taking a seat at Daena's table only to notice that each chair had been nailed to the floor for stability. "Or was it already done?"
"A little of both," the Hand answered, taking a chair at the far end. "The Volantenes had started work on it as a gift for my mother, Rhaenyra, as a gratitude for what they saw as waging war against a common enemy in the Triarchy of Lys, Myr and Tyrosh. Unfortunately, she did not live to see it completed, even though it was all but done, and so it sat in one of their great workshops till I learnt of it and paid to have it finished after learning of my good little niece's betrothal."
"You always did spoil me, uncle," Daena laughed, taking the flagon and pouring herself a generous cup of wine before setting it back in the midst of the table.
"It is an uncle's duty to spoil his nieces and nephews," Viserys japed before growing serious once more. "But we best move forward to the matter I come here...Aegon is acting hand, and though this is a fine enough chance for him to gain some experience, I doubt leaving him alone for too long shall result in anything more than pregnant women."
"Then please, what brings you all the way here so soon?" Daena asked innocently, Jonnel and her both knowing already what he was about to say. "Other than Elaena, that is?"
"You know full well," Viserys said, taking a cup for himself. "If there is one thing you know, little niece, it is how to raise the Seven Hells themselves whenever you wish it."
"Me, raise hell?" Daena asked, blushing with a hand over her heart as if slighted. "I am the most innocent woman in the entire realm! Well, other than Baelor -"
"This is a serious matter, Daena, for whilst you might have merely wanted to hurt Baelor as he had hurt you, your words have done much more than that," Viserys said, suddenly having her total, serious attentions. "You proved, for all the great lords of the land to see, that our king is a king without will. He is a snake without fangs, a dragon without flame. He has no ability to enforce upon his commands, not because of a lack of strength, but because of a lack of will."
"And a king without will is no king," Viserys said with a sigh, looking from his wine to the princess that was now Jonnel's wife. "The realm is weakened because of it."
"What?" Daena asked, leaning forward. "How?"
"Though our king might not wish it was so, ours is a world built on force," Viserys said simply. "It works because of the usage of force and the threat of the usage of force. You cannot have the first without the second, for the second is far more important. For what reason does a subject swear fealty to his lord, if not for the protection he gives and fear of his enemies? What else keeps the enemies of the Seven Kingdoms at bay, if not the knowledge that we can lay waste to them with our hosts and fleets?"
"...seven hells," Daena said with realization. "Did I break the Seven Kingdoms?"
"The Seven Kingdoms have withstood much worse than just one woman's anger, little niece," Viserys laughed. "Yours is not even a shadow of your grandmother's fury. No, you've merely damaged the bond between king and vassal. The realm can heal from such things and shall heal from this as well. Given time, all things are forgiven."
"Not all things, dear uncle," Daena said, quiet. "Some things are unforgivable."
"But not unpunishable," Viserys answered, turning towards the heir to Winterfell. "I hear Northmen such as yourself can hold grudges for decades due to being trapped inside your castles in wintertime for so long. I am sure you know how vengeance has a tendency to march at its own pace."
"It does," Jonnel nodded. "My father tells me the son of the last Red King held a grudge for near enough a century before waging war against Winterfell on the grounds we had let Bolton men die against Argos Sevenstar for our own gain."
...and they probably weren't wrong, either, he thought to himself on what his father had told him. The Kings of Winter had taken the vassalage of the skin kings and combined their forces into one to fight the Andals, but that doesn't mean they didn't let the Boltons be weakened as much as they might before they did, so as to make sure they served Winterfell and not the other way around.
"The maesters like to say that the Valyrian Freehold could foster a grudge like no other," Viserys answered, reaching for the wine flagon in the table's midst and pouring himself a cup after receiving a nod from his niece. "It is said that there are tapestries in Mereen and what other remnants there are of the old Ghiscari Empire of Valyrian warriors being marched into slavery during the first wars, when the Freehold still knew little of how to make battle with their dragon mounts and when the union of the cities of Oros, Tyria and Valyria was still young."
"Such tapestries were woven in celebration of their victories in the Second War beneath that great general of theirs and his elephants," Viserys said. "So much did our forefathers hate him that they struck his name from history, even though it was those victories that united the three cities together in full beneath the Freehold as we know it now. But the Freehold used such taking of prisoners and celebration of victory as reason enough for the Fourth War, half a millenia later."
"They truly waited five hundred years?" Jonnel asked, surprised and interested both. "Could they not have used it as reason for the Third War?"
"Possibly, but the Third War was a simple thing, as the Ghiscari victories in the second had left them vulnerable to the Sarnori to the north," Viserys answered. "They never truly recovered from that war, not when Valyria struck and took back everything they had lost and more whilst the Ghiscari and their lockstep legions were occupied elsewhere."
Then the Hand of the King laughed.
"It is said that the Freeholders celebrated their victory by constructing a great statue in Valyria," he toasted, raising his cup in celebration of the victories of his forefathers. "A mighty dragon, mounting a surprised harpy from behind."
"Maybe we will need to have one made of a three headed dragon and Nymeria instead," Daena laughed.
"Mayhaps," Viserys answered warmly, sipping his wine. "In any case, that is a matter for tomorrow, not today. No, the matter of today is making sure that the realm does not get another wound to the muscles that bind it together before it has recovered from the first. That involves you and your husband, good niece."
"What do we need to do?" he asked.
"Make no more mentions or mockeries of King Baelor and especially not accusations that he is not doing right for the realm or anything of the sort," he said. "A simple thing, and one that prevents more damage done to the stability of the Seven Kingdoms than has already been done. Words have power, little niece, and the wrong ones will only make things worse."
"That will be very, very difficult," Daena laughed.
"But I am sure you will find a way," the Hand of the King answered. "You see, I was at first going to bring Elaena back to the capital, to prevent the lords of the land from seeing that we cannot keep track of our own; a weakness if there ever was one. Lord Stark would have had no choice but to transfer her to my custody once she was found, then we would have returned to the capital where she would be delivered back to her chambers as King Baelor would wish, were he aware of the matter and not isolated due to his fasting."
"But instead, I chose a different path," he continued, swilling the wine in his his cup absentmindedly. "That letter I gave to you was nothing more than an afterthought I wrote and sealed before leaving, one our king knows nothing of. Another way to make sure it does not seems as though we Targaryens cannot keep track of our own daughters by making her departure seem deliberate, yes, but that isn't the only reason."
"You don't want to see Elaena waste her life in his Maidenvault, do you?"
"I swore to your father, my brother, that I would look after you all in his stead," Viserys said as he straightened himself. "Leaving her there to such a fate is not a way for me to carry out his wishes. Getting her out of the capital takes her from his influence for years to come, as well as lets me cut around him in the future...he may be the head of our house, little niece, yet even his reach has limits when the paper is a legal one signed by his own Hand and concerns a sister in a place as far away as Winterfell. In time, that may well see her able to wed a man of her own, whether he wishes it or not, by having her travel from Winterfell to her betrothed's home."
"But I ask one thing in return for this gift," Viserys said at last. "Make no more trouble."
And without hesitation, without a moment's thought, his wife's answer was instant.
"I shan't, I swear it," Daena said, truly grateful. "So long as Elaena is with me, you won't hear word or rumor of me speaking ill of the king."
"I would not be surprised if I heard rumors of it even if you said nothing, Daena," the Hand of the King smiled as he drank his wine. "Say what you will of him in private. Say nothing in public. Swear it."
"I swear," she said, raising her hand to show her sincerity. "You won't hear anything. I promise."
"Then I think I can depart without any further issue," Viserys said, the rumbling of an empty stomach echoing through the air from a nearby cupboard...bringing the Hand's attentions towards Daena as he took hold of the handle and pulled it open to reveal Elaena, stuffed into the bottom with her arms around a dragon's egg, still dressed like a serving girl. "And do make sure the littlest dragoness of the family is fed, would you? I wouldn't wish her placed in your care only to have her starve to death before you make it to Winterfell."
"...you mean I'm free?" Elaena asked, turning and placing her foot against the cupboard's back wall to push herself out and upright, the little princess smiling wider than Jonnel had ever seen her. "Truly?"
"Yes you are, littlest niece," Viserys smiled before taking note of her wear and the coal in her hair. "...though it seems I may have to have a ship sent northwards with the rest of your wardrobe."
"Please do," Elaena asked, looking down at the serving girl's dress she wore. "It was a nice change at first...but now, I just want my old ones back."
"And a bath, most likely," Daena japed.
"And a bath," Elaena echoed in agreement. "A long, hot bath."
"Then don't allow me to keep you both," Viserys said, striding towards the door before turning towards both of the two Targaryens, the woman and the girl both. "It was a pleasure to see you both again...though I hope I will not have to see you both too soon?"
"Not at all," Daena smiled, Elaena nodding in agreement.
"Then I shall go and leave you in peace," Viserys nodded, knocking the door so that the servant outside might open it, giving the two one last bow and a respectful nod towards his niece's husband before stepping out into the world once more.
"...sorry husband, but whilst I might have wished to have your company, I'll be needing to find my sister something to wear," Daena apologized. "...as well as figuring out where I can find hot water without burning myself to death in a wheelhouse fire."
"Seems the Volantenes didn't think of everything," Jonnel japed, rising from his seat as his wife laughed. "I will be with my father if you need me."
"Oh, I shall be needing you, just not yet," Daena smiled back before turning towards Elaena. "Now, let's see if I don't have something that can fit you."
"You don't," Elaena said quickly, her words made obvious by the height difference between the two.
Daena met her sister with a teasing smile and playfully crossed arms. "Would you rather stay in that peasant's gown than try?"
Elaena's look towards Jonnel was answer enough.
"...I best go," Jonnel said, making his way out the door and into the darkening day outside, the sun continuing to creep ever close to the horizon, breathing a sigh of relief as he did, free to have the relief of isolation once more. Viserys was already gone, but his father was waiting for him as the cartwrights hurriedly attached the mended wheel to the cart, working as a group to get it done as quickly as was possible.
"I trust things went well?" his father asked, glancing towards the men at their work.
"Very, father," he answered. "Though you will need to find room for another princess at Winterfell."
"It shan't be too hard," Cregan murmured with a tip of his head. "Winterfell was big enough for all the daughters of the Kings in the North to live comfortably enough. It should be big enough for two Targaryen princesses."
I do hope you are right, father, he said in silence, knowing he would receive a long lecture otherwise. The last thing I wish is to find that I have freed two princesses from captivity only to have made them worse off than they were before.
"There, m'lord!" one of the cartwrights said at last, wiping sweat from his brow as another kicked the blocks free, hurriedly picking them up to clear the way for the cart's mended wheel. "We've finished!"
"Good," Cregan grinned. "Mayhaps we might yet make it to Hayford, a hot meal and a featherbed before sundown after all, if the gods are kind and we have no more trouble."
"The Good King Baelor always talks about the kindness and love of the gods," one of the cartwrights said back, drawing a seven sided star on his chest with his first finger. "The Smith'll keep it strong, I promise that to you, Lord Stark!"
"I hope so, Northern taxes are being spent on that Great Sept of his," Cregan countered before turning towards the rest, Jonnel making his way towards the head of the party to take leadership and await his father's arrival. "Back to your carts and carriages! We move once more, this time to Hayford!"
They made it a good hour before an axle broke and forced them to make camp for the evening beneath the stars...leaving Jonnel with the choice of a warm featherbed with his wife and her passionate touch, or standing watch in the cold winds to keep an eye out for beggars or any thieves that might wish to take a portion of their wealth for themselves in the near total blackness of a moonless night.
As he made his choice, he made sure to thank the gods old and new that he never was afraid of the dark.
****
End of Part 7!
There! Made some really swift progress on this one as my problem of trying to figure out which one to do first in the part order, this or the Aegon one, had already done the hard work of turning my ideas and plans into a more concrete layout, so I managed to get this one done fast! End of Part 7!
And no real summary this time, as I did a bit of a marathon (some thirty thousand characters in a single sitting today) and I should really get to bed
@[And the next part should be be out sometime before the end of the week after a little break to recover my energy, as I'm going to bring this up to part 10 before going on a little break to resume work on the MSOW, as planned!
