Part MMMCDXXVIII: Stepping in Tandem
Stepping in Tandem
Twenty-Sixth Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC
"Don't wear red...?" It is not the first time you have been surprised by an answer born of your own foresight, but it is the first time you have been legitimately bemused. "What could the color of my cloak have to do with meeting Lord Tybalt?" Personally you are rather fond of red accents in your illusory garb. It sets off softer, more muted colors nicely and if used carefully can distract witnesses from recalling more pertinent details about one's appearance. Ideally even glamoured you can pass through a town and not be recalled for more than a few days.
"Never mind colors. What could my presence possibly do to offend him?" Lya asks annoyed. "It can't be because of the magic, you haven't precisely been subtle with yours. Hells, the Reach is full of magic these days..."
"It's because you're a woman most likely," Ser Richard says, setting his tankard of bear down on the splintered table. He had assured you it tastes better than this place looks at least, not that it's saying much. The Grouse and Gander had likely seen its heyday back when the Greens and Blacks were fighting overhead.
"Oh..." you trail off in understanding. "That is remarkably stupid." You had already killed one lord today, but you remind yourself idiocy alone is no reason to kill someone. Turning to Lya you explain. "The Dornish have a reputation, deserved of course, for seeing more women in power. The sly Dornishwoman plotting behind her ineffectual husband's back is something of a staple of a particular sort of ballad common in the Reach."
"Still not seeing what that has to do with me," Lya's eyes narrow the way they do when faced with a stubborn riddle to unravel... or an enemy who will soon not be counted among the living.
"You've got the coloring for it, underneath all the magic I mean," Ser Richard adds. "Maybe he'd think you are some Dornish lord's bastard, maybe he just won't think at all and just do what his gut tells him."
"Guts are usually best used for processing food," Lya says tightly, seamlessly slipping into High Valyrian. "Though given what I have been hearing perhaps the good Lord Tybalt thinks with something further down the digestive tract."
"Something full of shit, aye," you laugh. "Well, he will just have to deal with you just the same, you will either be his queen soon or he will not have a lordship to trouble himself with."
Lya briefly contemplates the prospect before inclining her head thoughtfully. "What if I dressed differently? Well, change the glamour to look like I'm dressed differently, more like they do here in the Reach?"
"You don't have to..." you begin.
"I want to," she cuts in firmly. "You are the one who said ruling is a lot like mummery. What's mummery without costumes?" Though she smiles on the last question Lya's words are still thoughtful. "It costs me practically nothing and would help ensure a pledge of fealty from a lord of some import."
"What did I ever do to deserve you?" you ask ruefully.
"Well, you started out by walking into a temple under a glamour to deliver a ransom note..." she begins teasingly.
"Don't remind me, drives a man to drink it does," Ser Richard said, draining his tankard to illustrate point.
***
So it is that two hours later that the three of you find yourselves ushered into the solar of Lord Tybalt Blackbar by a somewhat nervous footman. The letter you sent had been met with a cautious assent as you had known it would. By contrast the smile upon the face of the man who greets you is almost blinding. The Lord of Bandallon is well into the sixth decade, though hair and beard turned grey with age do little to hide the lines of a face that must have been much admired in his youth. A vain man too, you have little doubt, and one with no tolerance for whatever humiliation he endured.
"Your Grace, Ser knight," he bows to you and nods towards Ser Richard before turning to Lya with a question in his eyes. "My lady...?"
"Lya of Braavos," she replies with a courtesy that owes far more to sorcery than experience. "I have no kin to claim me so I would claim my work instead."
"Ah... I heard," from the sounds of it Lord Blackbar had not quite believed what he had heard. "Wisdom Lya is it?"
"Yes, if you wish to be formal," she shrugs, the gesture more calculated than she is wont to use, sorcery still humming in the air. "I would not think ill of you, my lord, for not having wholly mastered the formalities of a realm a thousand leagues away." The words are delivered with a smile graciously meant to keep the lord from taking offense, all the while placing him subtly in her debt. "There are far more pressing needs upon us all in these trying times." And ended on an implicit compliment, excellent.
The fact that she had been speaking High Valyrian throughout, the tongue of scholarship in Westeros, which you happen to know Lord Tybalt speaks fluently as well, doubtlessly made for an unusual impression.
"Indeed, trying times, strange times like a whirlwind on a clear day," he shakes before his head turning to you. "Between the Tyrells plotting with the fey and Doran bloody Martell gathering an army of wizards right under the nose of that fool in King's Landing it'll be a wonder if there won't be war in these lands within the year, mark my words."
The remark is a test of some sort, though of what you cannot say for certain. How far you would defend Prince Doran, how quickly you would ponce on the comment about the Usurper? Perhaps even your thoughts on the Tyrells and their fey bargains.
What do you reply?
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OOC: Some good rolls from Lya overall, mostly by cheating as only a mythic archmage can.
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