A Future We Would Make Ourselves
By littlelights
Disclaimer: I am not making any money, blah, blah, blah.
Chapter Two
Gendry's experience of highborns was the same as most other smallfolk. Keep your head down, pay the proper respect, and maybe you won't be cuffed over the head. As an armorer's apprentice, he'd hadn't had much experience talking with the customers, and that had been a small relief. It was hard enough walking through the streets of Flea Bottom, weighed down by the laws and customs of the powerful rulers of the city. Westeros may not have had slavery, but the poor felt the weight of servitude none the less. There was little respite for it. The taverns, alleys, and brothels may have been an escape, but they were expensive and few folk could afford to go there often. He'd figured he'd probably be in Flea Bottom his whole life.
But here he was, sitting at a table with The Onion knight and the King in the North. Gendry had learned long ago to accept the surreal turns his life and focus on ways to creating something better for himself. He may have been intimidated by highborns, but no longer. So many of them had died in the wars, the old power structures were falling. The world, once so ridged and cold, suddenly seemed open.
Admittedly, he was slightly intimidated by the dark haired and moody Lord Jon Snow, King of the North at the moment. When they first met, Gendry admired him more for being born a bastard like him. Right now, deference wasn't the reason he was intimidated. Not because Jon Snow was a bastard turned king, but because of the connection to his sister, Arya Stark.
Quick witted, stubbornly brave, free-spirited, Arya Stark.
Gendry needed to know if she was alright.
Gendry and Ser Davos Seaworth had exchanged a few pleasantries, while Jon Snow reached in his pocket to retrieve a new message in his pocket, sealed with the sigil of House Stark. There wasn't a lot to say, really. Lord Snow had been forthcoming about his sister's whereabouts when they met a week ago. Gendry wasn't sure what had been written in the first letter, he couldn't read after all, but Jon Snow opened the message determinedly and began to read it.
"Is it from Arya, m'lord?" The habit of withholding Arya's title had been instilled in him so long, he quickly amended, "Lady Arya, m'lord."
Jon looked up from the letter to meet his eyes, and proceeded to read aloud.
If he can tell you the name of the Flea Bottom baker and the bread he made for me, the man is Gendry Waters. Missing Old Nan's cooking and Nymeria. I am well. Please come home soon.
"What's your answer, my lord?" Lord Snow asked. His face was impassive, and voice insistent. Gendry stole a glance at Ser Davos, the Onion Knight's countenance matching those of his liege lord.
Of course, Arya would want proof it was him. She would have thought he was dead, and he would have been if Lord Stannis and the Red Priestess followed through on their plans. He remembered that parting of ways, the armorer's apprentice, a noble born girl, and a baker's boy. It had been a farewell conversation between just the three of them.
The answer poured confidently from his lips. "The baker, his name is Hot Pie. He traveled with Arya and me north with the Knights Watch, then to Harrenhall. He was sold to an inn keeper in the Riverlands by the Brotherhood without Banners. Before we left, Hot Pie made Arya a loaf of bread, shaped like a wolf - a direwolf. She didn't know what it was for a moment. I had to tell her. But it had the legs, head and everything. Bad tail though."
Ser Davos smiled faintly. "Hot Pie. Now that's a proper Flea Bottom name."
Jon Snow seemed to grin from one side of his mouth. He'd seen the answers hidden in his sister's letter. Clever little Arya. The one sibling left alive from his youth who treated him like a brother and not a bastard. If circumstances had been different, Jon would have ridden home for Winterfell as soon as he'd received Sansa's letter announcing Arya's arrival. The details had been vague, other than she was well and had been reunited with Nymeria in the Riverlands.
Jon was lost in his musings for a moment longer, re-reading the letter and the assurance his sisters were safe at home.
"She writes that she's well, and adds 'please come home soon.'"
Feeling a bit deflated, Gendry quipped "Well, she probably thought I was dead. What do you put in a letter to a dead man?" Gendry couldn't blame her. Being sold to a Red Priestess wasn't a good indicator of a pleasant outcome. Not that his life had been terribly pleasant overall.
Lord Snow extended the letter to him for a better look. Taking the letter in hand Gendry examined the words, wishing for the first time in a long time that he could read them for himself. The writing seemed clear, no blotches or smudges. Larger curves of ink giving way to a few large letters. Not much to read really. But if he could read it himself, he would have been able to hear her voice read them aloud.
She was alive, and well. Thank the Gods.
He was aware how holding the letter for much longer would look strange, he extended the paper back to its owner. "Thank you, m'lord. Will you tell her I hope to see her when we march north?"
"Why don't you write her, and tell her yourself? I'd have no objection to that." Lord Snow suggested.
Gendry never felt shame for being lowborn. It had been a fact of life, and he couldn't change it. No more than he could change his eye color or his resemblance to the dead King Robert. Now that everything had changed, being legitimized by the Dragon Queen and spending time with men who had proper book learning, his lack of education was glaringly apparent.
"I can't read or write, m'lord." Gendry said simply. "And besides, I wouldn't know what to say." Besides, what could he say to her after all these years, especially when he'd hurt her during their last conversation together?
"I can be your family," she had said near the end. Her grey eyes pleading 'Please stay with me. Please don't leave me,' when her voice would not. She'd grown too tough to cry outright at his words.
He thought he was letting her go gently while being true to himself. Staying with the Brotherhood and serving Lord Beric in a place where he could work for good man with a higher calling. His upbringing of paying deference to his betters inspired his decision. Arya would go back to her mother, and brother. She'd be a lady of Winterfell again. Her family would never allow her to interact with a tradesman in a familiar manner.
His expression and voice had been slightly sad, and matter of fact, "You wouldn't be my family. You'd be m'lady."
Yes, he was a right bastard for that. No wonder she'd barely written anything.
Gendry shrugged, and rose from his chair. "Thank you, m'lord. I'll see you in the training yard." Nodding his goodbyes to both men, he left the room toward the forges. He'd been charged with designing and forging new weapons for the war ahead. The new maester from the Night's Watch was arriving soon with what he claimed to be details of making Valyrian steel swords. Gendry would believe that horse shite when he saw it.
An apprentice at the forge had prepared a workspace and was already working on a pile of weapons to be repaired. Gendry stripped off his leathers, donning a light shirt for working so close to the heat and flame of the fire. Shards of Dragonglass were laying on his workbench. He had an idea of making uniform dragonglass arrow heads quickly and efficiently. Now all he had to do was come up with how. Melt the glass down and place it in molds? Hammer equal sizes like a stone mason?
Gendry attempted the second idea of hammering sizes by using different tools and techniques. It wasn't working well. He must have been hammering a long time, when he looked up the last watch of the day was filing inside to have dinner. Gendry ignored them, preferring to drown his disappointments in work. Concentrating on work kept his mind off other things. Other things and one Stark girl. She probably wasn't a girl anymore, now that he thought about it. When he looked up, he saw Ser Davos Seaworth walking through the yard holding two mugs of ale.
"I see you haven't had your supper," the older man said when he walked into the forge.
"Don't feel like it." Gendry replied. He accepted the ale with a grin. "But this, I'll take."
"Good lad," his companion replied. They clinked tankards. "It's not a bowl of brown, but it's good for what ails ya."
"Yeah," Gendry agreed, "A good ale keeps ya going."
Gendry drank deeply from is mug. He like Ser Davos, and owed the older man his life. When he rowed away from Dragonstone in that little boat, he'd been grateful to the Onion Knight. Here they were again; two boys from Flea Bottom the castle of the Dragon Queen. No one he'd known in King's Landing would have believed it.
"How goes it then," Ser Davos asked, glancing around the forge and pointing to the dragonglass shards. Gendry showed him a few arrow head pieces, as well as some of his glass mold ideas. The knight looked thoughtful, injecting questions into the mix until their conversation moved from forge work to other topics. Ser Davos had that effect on people. He was a good listener, and could steer a conversation as masterfully as he could a smuggling sloop.
"Are you going to write to Lady Arya?" Ser Davos asked, taking another drink and looking at the armorer expectantly. "She will probably want to hear more from you now that she knows you're alive and working with her brother."
"Doesn't matter, does it?" Gendry said with a shrug. "Can't read or write. Need both to send her a letter."
"I could help you out there," Davos said. "I couldn't read or write myself when I served Lord Stannis. I thought I could get by. When I learned how to read, it saved my life when I served as Hand to the King."
The knight's service as Hand of the King had been a dark, unhappy time of his life. Watching a man he respected slide deeper into his obsession to win the Iron Throne at any price had been almost unbearable to watch. Ser Davos spoke of it rarely to anyone he knew well or otherwise.
"You taught yourself?" Gendry asked.
"Gods, no." Ser Davos lowered his mug. The older man's eyes drifted away then, seeing something from his memory which seemed sad. "No, I learned to read when I was locked up in Dragonstone."
"Stannis tossed you in the dungeon?" The idea was shocking. A man, as loyal to his liege lord as the Onion Knight, locked up at Dragonstone. "What for?"
The knight chuckled. "I counseled Stannis against bringing the Red Priestess with him during the Battle of Blackwater Bay. I slighted her, and he took it badly. Called me a traitor and locked me up. He nearly had me executed when I went behind his back again and set you free."
Gendry was floored. When he rowed away, he hadn't stopped long enough to ask what would happen to Ser Davos. He'd always assumed the older man would be fine, blaming the escape on a sleeping guardsman. Gendry shook his head, "I am so sorry -."
"Don't be," Ser Davos interrupted. "I'd do it again. I learned to read in those dungeons, and it's made me a better man for it. I had to be imprisoned to get an education. And my teacher wouldn't take no for an answer."
"Who was your teacher then?"
"Your cousin, the Princess Shireen." The knight's words stopped. His eyes saddened, and it made the forge feel colder with their grief.
Gendry had heard some of the men talking about the little princess, burned to death as a sacrifice to the Lord of Light. How her father looked on with acceptance, and how her screams broke the hearts of the men who watched. The death of an innocent girl hurt Lord Stannis' cause in the end. His wife hung herself, and many of the men deserted. The beginning of the end for King Stannis Baratheon.
"She was a good teacher," Ser Davos continued, his voice growing richer in remembrance. "Stubborn, like you. Wouldn't take no for an answer. I told her 'no' time and time again, and she found a way around every argument. I asked her to think of what would happen if she were caught, and she said 'What will they do, lock us in a cell?' The bravery of that girl."
Gendry mirrored his smile. It had seemed tragic to him how the one relation he would have wanted to meet, and who would have wanted to meet him in return, was dead. He wished now he could have seen her, even if it was through the bars of a cell. She sounded brave and kind, and more than a little like Arya.
"So, my cousin Shireen, she would have liked teaching me?" Gendry asked.
The knight took another swig of ale, met the younger man's eyes and smiled a bit. "I don't think anyone could have stopped her. She even taught a few of the wildlings how to read up at Castle Black. She was a good soul, kind and patient."
The temperature was dropping again, this time not from the sadness in the room, but from the winter winds kicking up outside. Ser Davos finished the rest of his ale, and clapped his hand on Gendry's shoulder.
"Go on, grab your stuff. We'll head inside for your first lesson."
"What?" Gendry grimaced as he choked on the ruminates of ale in his mug. "You're going to teach me to read?"
"Yeah," the knight replied. "It'll be fun."
The armorer gestured to the forge still warm from the coals. "There's a war on, and I have work to do."
Ser Davos wasn't leaving any room for discussion. He reached over and picked up Gendry's leathers. "It's easy," he said, remembering how it hadn't seemed easy at the time. "You're younger than me when I learned. You'll pick up fast."
"I wouldn't know where to start," Gendry protested.
Ser Davos rolled his eyes. "You Baratheons are a stubborn lot. You know the story of Ageon the Conqueror?" Gendry shook his head yes. "Good, we'll start with 'Aegon' and work our way from there."
Reading? Writing? If it wasn't too late for the Onion Knight to learn, then maybe it would be a good thing for Gendry to learn too. He thought of little Princess Shireen, teaching the older man to read in the thin light of a dungeon.
The two men walked through the castle and up the stairs to the library, where Ser Davos retrieved what he said was A History of Aegon the Conqueror. Placing the book on a table with several candles, the knight gestured to the chairs. "Let's start at the beginning, shall we?"
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