Songs from the South
Twenty-Eight Day of the Fifth Month 294 AC
Drinking is not as you recall it, perhaps in part because you have never indulged quite like this, in jovial but strange company other than Lya laughing on your arm while you try to stitch together a song to a hated tune made again in scathing mockery. The Raynes of Castamere had to this melody been sung, a tune made famous by the very man whose fall it shall now celebrate.
And who are you, the proud lord said,
that I must bow so low?
Only a beast of scaled coat,
that's all the truth I know.
But there is something else to the hour. Your gaze still pierces the shadows of the tavern without fail, your ears still hear as far as the waters of the river meandering towards the sea, and on your skin you can still feel the subtle gradients of heat from the fire in the hearth to the warmth of the patrons near and far as they toast and laugh, jostle and call out good natured ribaldry.
"You've gotten the way of things backwards, master singer," one broad shouldered man, a smith from the scent of charcoal still clinging to his hair and beard, calls out. "You are supposed to come in here, drink our wine and take our silver, and leave with a pretty lass on your arm, not come in with the first and the third and spread the... the... second around like cabbages rolling off the evening cart."
"Shhh, Jon, let the singer sing. You're drunk," the woman next to him says with an elbow to the ribs for good measure. "I want to hear this."
A King am I upon my throne of stone, of old by blood your lord,
'Though in blood you sought to drown me and all of mine
Behold I do not rule like you by whip and chain and sword
By law and land and oath of banners true I cast out all thine line'
Your fingers danced upon the lute with arcane skill and grace not your own as all around you the listeners clapped and cheered. It is good to cheer on the winning side, and for the smallfolk, whose lives are defined by the whims of their lord, it is good to hear that one of the high and mighty had fallen for their crimes, no matter how distant they might be from their day to day lives.
'You bind and weave and speak with cunning tongue, but no crime have I then done'
The lion roared at bay before the court of lord and liege of judge and scholar wise
'You say that I have claws, and so I do, we all do beasts of whom rule under the sun'
Dark and deep you make the voice of Tywin Lannister echo in song and tale, almost as though he might escape by making an argument true for all that it is foul. Of old the lords have named themselves for the beasts and birds and signs upon their banners, and from the pageantry a grim reality arose. They were more and less then men, above and beyond the common folk who tilled the land, who herded beasts and fished in the sea. So not from cold do they shiver at your words, but from the fear that had been driven into them since childhood, and into their kin since time out of mind.
'I see no claws, I see no mane
I see a man as day is plain
And as a man you will be tried
From golden vestments now unclad'
Apparently, your audience takes the last line more literally than you had meant it, to judge from the laughter that bursts forth in its wake. Best make it clear in the next line. Just a little twist of the melody right there...
In cloak of black, dark as his soul stood Tywin of no name
And to these titles he was given to his true fame
'Traitor twice false, ill weaver and slaver of wills
Thus may you be remembered long as the hills'
A hush lay on the common room now as all awaited the song's end with baited breath and cups frozen in their hands, for all they knew what you would speak, for such was the spell of music on the hearts of men which no magician could quite match.
A noose of hemp around his neck was tied
And in the eve that shone red upon the sea
Fell Tywin Hill, a man as other men had died
Swaying in the wind for all the world to see
The cheers are loud, the clapping thunderous, and coins clink upon the floor beside your proffered hat, and all the louder do they grow when you pick up that same hat and hand to the the innkeeper with a call for another round, this time not of mead or beer, or even arbor gold, but of rare Tyroshi strongwine in honor of a deed well done. You doubt the man misses that you slipped heavy marks in among the copper and silver, but you care not. Let them think you an agent of the Imperator in far off Sorcerer's Deep, whom you had in song named a king. It is clear enough the folk here are willing to dance on the grave of one who was mighty and feared. Given the fact that Lya, who is a little less hardy to drink than you, then proceeds to start telling anecdotes from the early days in the Deep, you doubt anyone still awake enough to put two and two together could have missed the connection.
"So just what did the Old
Hill do to earn his noose?" the blacksmith from before interrupts, relishing the word upon his lips as he speaks it. "I heard all sorts of things, read them too I did."
You are, of course, all too happy to tell him in as much detail as he wants, it makes for fair teaching on the dangers of magic without falling into fear and folly.
"Mother have mercy, like the Squishers do," a boy no more than four and ten says, his voice breaking ever so slightly in his disgust. The citizens of Oldtown are not unused to the notion of enchantment that steals away the mind. Soon enough the hall is filled with tales of magic and strange doings from the first days of the Lantern Bearers and the city, some amusing, some pleasant, and some grim as the folk present see the chance to unburden themselves, though thanks in part to the drink and in part to the tales of how things would be changing now that the Imperium had come, it never gets
too grim.
In truth, you could have done without a few of the more rambunctious questions. "Is it true the Imperator took all the noble daughters of Tyrosh to bed when he conquered the city?" one asks, obviously confusing you with Relath.
"Nay, I heard he has a guard of warrior women fairer than the fairest maid," another adds, fortunately for him out of hearing of any Erinyes.
"Well
I heard," Lya interjects with a smile. "That since his betrothed is a sorceress, she can take any form, or even more than one form at once."
That rumor is universally deemed as too fanciful to be true.
What next?
[] Continue the outing
-[] Write in where
[] More wrap up for the month
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: This was not the whole song obviously, in character there is a lot more to it.
