King's Landing
The Street of Silk smelled of exotically sweet incense cut with the underlying tang of lye soap and human waste. In the quiet back alleyway, Ashara emerged from her litter and squinted in the sun, pulling her veil tighter around her nose. The muscled guards before the iron lattice door bent low to listen as Corynne give her name and purpose, then opened the heavy doors and bowed her in.
Inside the brothel was cool and airy, the shades and heavy silk drapes filtering in only dim afternoon light. These back reception rooms were richer than Ashara remembered, and the incense that snaked from the braziers were of precious oud and the rarest black rose. The floors were laden with deeply dyed Myrish carpets, she noted, and the walls were lined with intricate Lyseni tapestries shimmering with gold thread.
So. She had done well for herself these decades past. The coin Ashara regularly sent as payment were mere droplets in the ocean, it seemed.
"My dearest Lady Ash, in the flesh!" The shimmering silks over the doorway lifted and in walked Chataya, skin gleaming like polished ebony in the low light, hair in fine braids dotted with glittering jewels. Ashara smiled, and Chataya came forward in a cloud of soft perfume to plant two kisses on her cheeks, then an open-mouthed kiss on her lips.
Ashara laughed as she felt the woman's tongue slip along her bottom lip, remembering their last meeting with a fond warmth, but stepped back before she could draw her in.
Chataya eyed her with a questioning half-smile. Ashara heaved a dramatic sigh.
"You've only gotten more lovely with age, you sorceress," she said as Chataya motioned her to a satin-lined couch. "I'm afraid, however, that I have grown rather virtuous in the North."
"Ah, I see." Chataya snapped her fingers, and a serving girl appeared out of nowhere to pour their wine. She was still looking Ashara over curiously.
"A virtuous and faithful wife now, are you? A loss to many of us, to be certain." A wistful note had crept into her voice, her accent still as flowing and free as Ashara remembered. "There is a certain beauty one can only gain from bearing babes."
Ashara laughed again.
"You would know, naturally. When can I meet this lovely daughter of yours?"
Chataya waved an airy hand.
"She is with patrons, I'm afraid. Poor timing today, though I imagine I will be seeing you often once more, yes? You will have time to meet her."
How strange it was, Ashara thought, to sit amidst Chataya's own finery, speaking of their children, when it felt as if it were yesterday that they had both been seven and ten, meeting for the first time in the manse of the Tyroshi merchant Ashara had seduced to learn the secrets of certain Golden Company schemes.
Chataya had been his concubine, and the two girls had developed an unspoken friendship of sorts that had cumulated in Ashara helping her take possession of all his King's Landing property when the Tyroshi was imprisoned (and thankfully only exiled) by Aerys.
At the time of Elia's wedding, Chataya had built only the bare bones of her brothel business, but she had insisted Ashara visit before she left for Dragonstone so that she might thank her properly. It had been a number of rather educational nights.
"Now then," Chataya said, settling back into the cushions. "I take it you have not come all this way to make a social call." She held up a roll of parchment.
"Here is the usual report I would have sent you."
Ashara slid the scroll up her sleeve. Since heading to Dragonstone with Elia, Ashara had paid Chataya to keep her informed about the general goings-on in King's Landing as well as any interesting court gossip her girls could garner from their patrons. If she remembered right, those patrons now included nobles all the way up to the king.
"My thanks."
"But I imagine you have more specific questions? Concerning a certain lord of the falcons and king's brother, perhaps? Come, darling, don't look so shocked. Not for nothing have I played spymaster to you all these years."
True enough.
"I had hoped you'd know a thing or two about the matter. My husband saw Lord Arryn as a father, as I am sure you know," she said carefully. "We are asking after Lord Arryn's last days. It seems that he and Stannis Baratheon had been visiting brothels?"
Chataya grinned, flashing brilliant teeth.
"Yes, yes they did. I welcomed them in myself."
"Oh!" Ashara's eyebrows shot up. She had not expected to find answers so quickly.
"Seeing as they clearly were not here to grant patronage, what was their purpose?"
"I daresay I have never seen two men look so…uncomfortable in my establishment. You are right about their intentions, of course, but they did wish to see one of my girls."
Chataya turned to call for a serving girl then.
"Go fetch Genny, dear, and tell her to bring the babe with her."
Ashara felt her jaw slacken.
"So. They were here to see this babe, I gather. The king's?" There could be no other reason for two of the most important men in the realm to show interest in a whore's child.
Chataya nodded.
"A blind man could see it," she said, returning to her wine. "The child's taken on all her sire's colouring. But tell me, in the meantime—what else have you learned? What rumours do you wish to confirm?"
Ashara narrowed her eyes in thought for a moment and decided that, while she did not know if she could trust Chataya with her life, but she could certainly trust her with this secret.
"Nothing is certain yet. We only suspect poison, and we are only starting. So far Jon Arryn's household has given us little information. Most strangely, his former squire has now disappeared into thin air." She told her of Ser Hugh then, describing his appearance, but Chataya had not heard of any young man disappearing.
"I will keep my ears alert for you."
"I fear that perhaps he has come to the same harm as Lord Arryn," said Ashara, and as she spoke she dipped her finger in wine and wrote 'Lys' and 'Lannister' on the walnut table. Chataya's eyes narrowed at the name of the poison.
"I know nothing of this," said Chataya, wiping at 'Lys'. "Only that it is most dear. This, however," and now she pointed at 'Lannister,'
"One of my girls heard of such rumours from a castle guard. It appears that Lord Arryn's widow made rather a spectacle of herself when her husband first passed, hurling accusations around the Red Keep. All thought she was mad."
Ashara frowned.
Had not Ser Brynden told them that Lysa Arryn's disposition was most changed from childhood? Had he not seemed concerned that she was unwell? Ashara had thought it was a mix of his unfamiliarity with his niece after so many years and her fear for her son, but perhaps there was more wrong with her mind than they knew.
"Mad you say? Truly mad…or mad in the way men describe women who wear their hearts on their faces?"
"Ah. That is the question, is it not? My girl told me the guard thought he had said too much as it was, and she couldn't get him to elaborate."
Ashara felt her frown deepen. What evidence did they have that it was the Lannisters who had carried out the poisoning? Only the word of a woman who was looking more and more untrustworthy by the moment and a bumbling Grand Maester who acted as if he had much to hide. And yet if not the Lannisters, who would have any reason to murder the Jon Arryn?
No matter how flimsy the reasons they had postured at Winterfell, the more she saw of Cersei Lannister, the more Ashara could imagine her poisoning the Hand just so her brother Jaime could have a chance at taking his place.
Before she could ask any more questions, a light voice came from the doorway, asking entry, and the curtain lifted to reveal a redheaded girl with a babe in her arms. Chataya motioned that she sit, and Ashara felt her heart drop leaden in her gut. She was pretty, to be sure, with an upturned nose dusted with freckles and thick, shiny hair that framed her heart-shaped face. Ashara was also sure that she was younger than Sansa.
"This is…" Chataya looked at her in question. Ashara pursed her lips.
"Lady Stark," she said, her throat dry. There was no point in giving some other name. There was no hiding a noblewoman visiting the Street of Silk in broad daylight, and nor was there much reason to try.
"Lady Stark. She is here to see your daughter. Just answer her questions as you did the two lords a few moons past."
"Oh. Right then." Her voice was timid and light as a bird.
Ashara breathed a steadying breath before turning to her.
"Your name is Genny?"
"Yes. Uh, milady."
"How—how old are you?"
"Sixteen."
Sixteen.
"And your little girl?"
"Barra, milady. She's just four moons."
Another steadying breath, then Ashara came to look at the little sleeping face wrapped in linens.
"She looks like him, does she not?" Genny asked, tentative. "His Grace? She has his nose, and his hair, and…well, you can't see it now, but when she's awake her eyes are the best blue. Just like his."
Oh, gods help her, Ashara wanted to throttle Robert Baratheon and hit his head repeatedly against a wall. The girl had been a virgin, no doubt, and worse of all was that she seemed half in love with him.
"She is very beautiful," Ashara forced out, plastering a smile on her face.
"Are you…are you the lady wife of the new Hand, milady?"
"I am."
"You will see him then? His Grace? Oh, would you tell him how beautiful she is?"
"I will," Ashara promised, though she knew she would likely break it. She had an inkling that all the brothels Jon Arryn and Stannis visited were places where the king had gotten children on whores. Much as she was tempted to visit every single one just so she could tell their names and faces to Robert, she knew it would hardly make a difference to anyone.
To sire children on girls barely older than one's own daughter then abandon them to their fates...she felt anger heat her face, for all that she had always understood not all men were like Oberyn. The callous treatment of human life—of one's own blood—left an acrid taste at the base of her tongue.
She had half a mind right now to pay whatever debts the girl still owed to Chataya and take her back to the Tower of the Hand, if for nothing else than to protect whatever innocence she had left. One look at the girl, however, told Ashara that she would try to find the king in the Red Keep, and Cersei Lannister would likely have her throat slit before sunset when she inevitably found out.
As if to prove her right, Genny bit her lip, hesitating, but finally decided to speak.
"And would you tell him, too, that…that I've had no one else, I swear it, by the old gods and new. Chataya said I could have half a year, for the baby, and for hoping he'd come back. So you'll tell him I'm waiting, won't you? I don't want no jewels or nothing, just him. He was always good to me, truly."
Good to you. Ashara thought she was going to be ill. Instead, she ran her hand over little Barra's dark wisp of hair.
"I'll tell him," she said again, digging her nails into her palm. "You take care of yourself, child. You and the babe won't go lacking, I promise."
When Genny had gone upstairs once more, Ashara turned her bulging eyes on Chataya.
"Sixteen? No doubt the girl was fifteen when the king deflowered her! Really, Chataya, she's but a child!"
Chataya gave her a sideways look.
"A child? And how old were you when you lost your maidenhood?"
"I—"
"I was thirteen. I remember you telling me you were…"
"Fourteen," she said reluctantly. Had she truly been so young? At four and ten, she had felt as if she knew all the secrets of human pleasure.
"Still, this is hardly the same," Ashara said. "I was perfectly willing, and the boys I bedded were friends."
Chataya's eyes flashed, sharp like an obsidian blade.
"You'd imply that I forced her? You think I'd force any of my girls here?"
Ashara sighed. Of course she would not. Not after the way she had ended up with the Tyroshi.
"No, I apologise," she said, taking Chataya's hand. "It…'tis only the shock of how young she is, and already a mother. And look at the way her eyes went all soft. She's not cut out to be a whore."
Chataya sighed too.
"She came here a few years ago. Her father was selling her to pay his debts. I will admit, even then, I could see she'd be a pretty one, but all the girls who come to me this way I put to work in the kitchens or as handmaidens. If they have no wish to enter the trade, they are free to work off their debt to me and leave. Genny was the one who saw the king and wished to present herself in the room with the other girls. Well, that first time paid off nearly all her debt."
Ashara could not imagine how Robert Baratheon could have appealed to the girl given his current state, but perhaps a crown on the head did strange things to a young girls' mind. Had Sansa not been half-blinded by Joffrey's golden hair and princely title?
Or perhaps the no-doubt exorbitant price the king paid for bedding a virgin had made him appealing.
Sighing again, Ashara downed the rest of her wine.
"Well, you will be careful, will you not? The queen…I do not think her Lannister pride takes well to the king's actions."
Chataya's mouth thinned.
"I do hire guards, but if the Gold Cloaks set their sights on you, it is always a messy affair. I give them discounted rates to keep them happy, but they are greedy bastards, some of them."
"Oh? Have you had trouble?"
"Nothing outright. Yet. But there is an officer—Allar Deem, I believe—who's been cruel and rough with the girls. Not in play, mind you. This man seems to truly like causing harm. And permanent scars. I am not certain what to do should he come back."
Ashara found her temple throbbing and her stomach roiling. It appeared neither Renly nor Jaime Lannister, who was nominally responsible for the training of the Gold Cloaks, had any interest in actually doing good for the realm. There would always be men who violated even the basic morality of nature, and it seemed it would once again be Ned who weeded them out.
"I will speak with Ned," Ashara said, suddenly very tired. Chataya gave her an apologetic look.
"It would be much appreciated. After all, I do not have the coin or the connections that Lord Baelish does. I shall have to count on you, Lady Ash."
O~O~O~O~O
In the light of the lone candle by their bedside in the Tower of Hand, Ned listened as Ashara told him of all she'd learned at the brothel. Ned had not liked that she went, but he hardly had any reason to argue. It seemed Ash had known this madam for longer than she'd known him.
Any residual displeasure he'd had about her visit had been thoroughly replaced by the sinking dread as she had described the girl with the child. Robert's child. One of too many to count. And besides. Remembering that first child in the Vale, Ned did not think Robert tried to keep count anymore. How things had changed, yet how they stayed the same as they aged. Sometimes Robert felt a stranger to Ned, even as he could trace the actions he took now to the inclinations Ned had loved so as a boy.
"Fifteen!" Ashara said, sitting up and looking at him with wide eyes. "His daughter is thirteen. I cannot fathom how he could stomach the act."
Fifteen. Lyanna had been fifteen, too, when Rhaegar had gotten her with child; sixteen when Ned had felt her hand grow cold and stiff in his own. Unthinking, he said as much aloud. Ashara went very quiet.
"I had not even thought…but you are right, of course. Oh, I am so sorry to remind you of this past yet again."
She settled against the pillows once more, frowning and kissing his hand.
That first night in the city, after Ashara had made sure that only their Winterfell servants staffed the Tower of the Hand, they had talked over every member of the Small Council, trying to determine their intents and what they might know. When talk had turned to Varys, they had both been at a loss.
"I still have not a clue how he knew where to find Lyanna," Ashara had said, her brow scrunching, and Ned had felt that familiar knife wedge into his chest and carve at his heart, remembering how he had received Varys' note and map at Storm's End, and how he had led six of his best men to die at the Tower of Joy. And the blood—so much blood—that stung his nose as Lyanna clung to life to whisper her last words. He knew Ashara had wished to write him herself with Lyanna's whereabouts. He had always been glad that she had not, for if she did she surely would have carried Ser Arthur's death on her own conscience.
"It was whispered in the mad king's time that he uses magic to gain his knowledge," she continued then, "just as Brynden Rivers once did for another king Aerys." Ned had stared, surprised at her, and she had waved her hand.
"I do not believe it, naturally, but still, I cannot even guess at how he knows so much." Her voice dropped. "It is as if he has eyes in the sky and ears in the walls."
Yet surely he did not know about Jon. Ned had determined that much. If he had known, he would surely have used it to garner trust and strengthen his tenuous position when Robert took the throne. As it was, Ned had told Jon Arryn of Vary's great favour, and Jon and Robert had let the spider keep his position on the small council. No, the spider did not know of Jon then, and it was even less likely he had found out in the intervening years.
That was a relief, at least, though for the rest of that night Ned had been unable to pull his thoughts away from that nightmare of a day under the hot Dornish sun, and his dreams had been filled with bloody roses and Lyanna's voice ringing in his ears.
Now he shook his head.
"I do not remember Lyanna enough," he said, even as he shrank from the pain. Ashara kissed his hand again, then his shoulder, and Ned sighed and drew her close. They stared into the flickering darkness for a long while before he spoke again.
"I nearly forgot to tell you." Speaking of Lyanna had sparked his memory of an earlier conversation. "Renly came to me past noon this day, asking strange questions."
"Strange questions, huh?" She shifted onto her stomach and rested her chin on her hand. Unable to help himself, Ned reached out and ran his thumb along her cheek. She leaned into his palm.
"He showed me a portrait in a locket. Mace Tyrell's daughter. Perhaps a few years older than Sansa."
"Oh?"
"He asked if I thought she looked familiar. He asked if she looked like Lyanna."
Ashara frowned.
"And did she?"
"Not at all." The girl had been soft and pretty, with warm brown hair and shy eyes—thoroughly unlike his sister had been, striking and sharp with beauty and life.
Ashara's frown deepened.
"That seems rather out of nowhere, does it not? What did he say when you told him?"
"Nothing, really. Only shrugged and tucked the locket back in his doublet. I thought, perhaps, with how close he keeps the thing to his person, that he fancied himself in love with her and hopes she looks like a young Lyanna. He must know how closely he resembles Robert in his youth."
Ashara gave him a surprised look, then broke into laugh.
"What's funny?"
She was still laughing as she rose to kiss first his cheek, then his mouth.
"Oh, my dear husband, Renly is not in love with this Margaery Tyrell."
"How can you be so certain?" Ned asked, his vexation only deepening at her patronising smirk.
"Renly is…like my lord brother. If he's to be in love with a Tyrell it'd be one of Margaery's brothers."
Oh. Oh.
"Truly?"
"Yes."
"And you can just know?"
Ashara pursed her lips.
"Well, yes, usually. With Renly, absolutely, though it is...easier to tell with some people than with others."
Ned suddenly thought of all those who'd bedded his wife before he'd even set eyes on her. He supposed she would have to be adept at knowing which women might be open to a tryst and which men would have no interest in a woman, no matter how beautiful. Ned had never asked her for details, and she'd never told him a number, (for all that she liked to tease him at times), but now he wondered with a grimace just how many women had shared her bed. The fact that they were no men did not help his irritation. Gods, had this brothel owner Chataya been one of them?
Ned decided that he did not want to know and no longer wished to dwell on this subject.
"No matter his reasons, I mislike how close Renly seems with the Tyrells," he said instead, settling into his pillows with a sigh.
"Why? He is Robert's brother. Surely it is nothing nefarious."
"No, I do not mean that it is dangerous. I only mean…I mislike what it implies about the man Renly has become. Mace Tyrell feasted below the walls of Storm's End every day while the Baratheon men were reduced to eating grass and rats and worse. When I broke the siege, the maester told me they would have needed to resort to human flesh had not a smuggler come in with onions and salt fish."
Ned felt Ashara shudder, for he had never had reason to tell her of the horrors he saw at Storm's End. Each of the men—Stannis included—had skin the colour of bile, and many had deep shadows on their faces below where their cheekbones stuck out like diseased growths.
"I doubt I would have been able to hold the castle for half so long," Ned said quietly. "I do not know how it is that Stannis managed to avoid mutiny."
"No doubt through sheer force of will fired by hatred of the Tyrells, if rumours are to be believed," said Ashara. "Though I do take your point—what does it say about Renly, that he now holds Mace Tyrell so close?"
"He was young, but not so young as to forget that siege." Ned nodded. "Has he no heart at all? How does he stomach all the memories that must emerge?"
"Well…perhaps it is a good thing that he was able to forgive? Or perhaps…" Ashara gave him a sly smile then, teeth flashing in the candlelight. "Perhaps he really is in love with Loras Tyrell. He was a squire at Storms' End for many years, and I have heard say that they are close."
Ned had to laugh at Ashara's childish glee at the gossip.
"He will have to marry regardless," he told her. She looked unconvinced.
"Dev didn't have to marry. Robert has three children. Though…oh, poor Lord Stannis. No matter how this is cut, I doubt Robert would grant him Storm's End if Renly refuses to marry."
She narrowed her eyes then. "Why do you think they were so interested in those children, in any case?" she asked. "Stannis and Jon. Did Lord Arryn show interest in Robert's girl in the Vale?"
"Robert himself wished to bring her to court in those early years," Ned told her. "I think the queen was displeased and the matter was dropped. No doubt Jon made sure she and her mother lacked for nothing and that she had somewhat of a future to look forward to."
And Ned would do the same now, for all those children Ashara had located this day. How thin were Robert's own feelings and promises in these matters, but Ned felt an obligation to these women and their babes.
Still, it did not explain Stannis' puzzling presence on these trips to visit the mothers. From all that Ned knew of Robert's brother, he should strongly disapprove of Robert's appetites and wish nothing to do with the children he no doubt saw as smears on their house.
"That is strange," Ashara said when Ned had told her his thoughts. "Perhaps you ought to send him another raven asking when he intends to return to King's Landing."
"Perhaps, but I doubt he will respond to this new letter."
Ashara was right that, no doubt, Stannis was offended that Robert had named Ned Hand over him, and Ned's questions were not ones to commit to paper and send through raven. In fact, it seemed that, despite his recent elevation in rank, his letters held no weight. His note to Randyll Tarly near demanding answers about why Sam had suddenly gotten it in his head to join the Night's Watch had similarly gone unanswered.
Ned could not very well write to Jeor Mormont forbidding him to let Sam take his vows, and so his only option had been to send ravens to the Wall directly addressed to Sam, hoping that the boy respected Ned enough to reconsider once more.
Ashara pursed her lips.
"Honestly, must both Robert's brothers be so vexing? Stannis bunkers himself on Dragonstone and all Renly does is make clever remarks while shirking his duties."
"It is even stranger that it was not Renly who went to visit these bastards with Jon."
"If the rumours among castle servants are to be believed, whatever their intentions, Renly did not know of it. They say that anything one brother involves himself in will no doubt exclude the other. They often leave the council wishing to cut the other's throats with their eyes."
Ned gave her a half-smile.
"More information from your friend Chataya?"
She returned his smile.
"Naturally." Ashara stretched across the bed like a cat, her head half on Ned's chest, her hair still damp from washing and ticking Ned's nose.
"Ah, but I am tired of this. Let us talk no more of puzzling and unhelpful Baratheons. Perhaps you will find something worthwhile when you go to the armourer's."
"Hm, perhaps," Ned said, though he dared not hope, not after so many dead ends. They had been almost a moon turn in King's Landing, and yet Ned felt they had close to nothing to show for their inquiries. The longer things dragged, the more time would obscure evidence and clues, and the more elusive the truth. And then, of course, there were the problems of the realm…
Ashara must have seen his grave expression, for she stretched again, then rolled her body atop his.
"Enough worrying. We are getting nowhere by thinking on it more."
Jewel eyes dancing with the candlelight, she slid her hand down to the ties of his trousers, arching a mischievous eyebrow when Ned jerked lightly in surprise. Her fingers were cool and soft, and Ned stiffened as they travelled down further, a strangled sound escaping his throat as she touched him.
His voice came hoarse as his mind suddenly went fuzzy.
"You—ah—I thought you said you were tired."
Her hand stopped.
"Are you tired? If you're tired, we can—"
"No…not tired."
She smirked then, and Ned could feel his blood come alive, rushing to where her hand held sweet contact with his skin.
"You know, my visit today reminded me of all the things Chataya taught me. I have much to thank her for." She dropped open-mouthed kisses down his stomach then, her tongue lapping over his skin, until she knelt between his legs and licked her lips.
A groan escaped his own as she untangled the ties of his trousers.
"It would seem…I have more to thank her for."
Ashara laughed, the sound throaty and sensual and divine.
"I think I'd like to hear just how thankful you are this night," she said and bent her head to him, glittering eyes not once leaving his.
000
"Your Grace, my lords, it's the hand's tourney that's the cause of all the trouble." Janos Slynt, the commander of the city watch, complained to the king's council the next morning, detailing the soaring number of atrocious crimes in the city of late. Varys pulled out a lace handkerchief to dab at the invisible sweat of his 'shock'.
Ned pinched the bridge of his nose.
"The king's tourney," he corrected, turning to Robert who, in a rare spell, had decided to attend a small council meeting this morn. "Your Grace, you did agree to change the name, did you not?"
Robert waved a hand.
"Oh, don't look like that, Ned. It hardly matters what it's called. Besides, your appointment as Hand is what makes me want to throw a tourney. Just take the honour and quit winging."
Ned scowled. There would not be such an insurgence of crime if Robert had abandoned this folly of a tourney, but Ned could hardly question the king's judgement before the other member of the council.
Robert turned back to Slynt.
"Isn't it your job to keep this sort of thing from happening? What's the point of having you around if you can't keep the peace?"
Slynt's eyes bulged and his face reddened to the colour of boiled shrimp. He sputtered when he spoke, tripping over his tongue.
"I can…I simply don't have enough men, Your Grace! Aegon the Dragon himself could not keep the peace without men!"
Renly narrowed his eyes and looked about the room, his eyes fixing on Jaime Lannister, who was also present on this rare occasion, lounging in his chair and examining a spot on his sleeve. He looked up as he felt Renly's gaze.
"Do not look at me," Lannister said lazily. "My only task is to make sure they know which end of the sword to use. And they do know, don't they, Slynt? How to use their swords?"
Littlefinger snickered, and Ned thought he heard Varys mutter 'ugh, how vile' under his breath.
"Oh, uh…yes, Ser Jamie," said Slynt, looking grateful to be saved from his stuttering. "Yes, yes they most surely do, every one."
"See?" Lannister shrugged. "If there aren't enough men, Lord Renly, that's your problem."
Ned was tempted to ask him the same question Robert had posed to Slynt. He refrained, but just barely. Renly did not seem to agree with Jamie Lannister on the parameters of his duties, however, so Ned sighed and asked,
"How many men do you need, Ser Janos?"
"As many as can be had, Lord Hand."
"Hire fifty new men. Lord Baelish will see to the funding." He felt himself scowl more deeply at Littlefinger's lazy lift of the brows. "You can apply some of that same magic you worked for the champion's purse."
Robert laughed.
"See, Ned, even you understand what Baelish is capable of with coin. Don't look so pinched and grave all the time! Only merchants and women worry about money as you do."
"As you say, Your Grace," Ned ground out. He turned back to Slynt.
"I shall give you twenty of my own men as well, to serve in the Watch until the crowds have left." He paused, remembering his conversations with his wife the night before. Had Ashara not spoken of potential decay in the moral fibre of the Watch men? Ned narrowed his eyes. This could be a chance to look for corruption without ruffling too many feathers.
"I shall summon you later to discuss how I want my men appointed, Ser Janos," he said, looking to Robert, who shrugged his assent.
"Very noble of you, Lord Hand," said Renly, a curious smirk on his face. "Though I suppose Ser Jamie is not wrong. The Gold Cloaks do fall under my jurisdiction as master of laws. I shall lend some of the Baratheon men from Storm's End to the Watch as well. Do remember to call on me when you summon Ser Janos."
Janos Slynt's face had twisted into that of a man who would benefit greatly from a dose of oatmeal and fibrous greens, but he bowed stiffly and took his leave without argument.
Ned refrained from looking up towards the lofted ceiling. He hoped that had been the right call to make. If it had not been, hopefully Ashara had heard enough to help him remedy his mistake.
O~O~O~O~O
High amidst the rafters of the small council chamber was a lattice screen, and tucked away behind that screen, Ashara sat with her two older daughters in a chapel dedicated to the Mother, jewelled sunbeams from the stained-glass skylight scattered around them. She narrowed her eyes in approval as she watched the scene below. So, Ned had remembered her words from the night before.
"Do both of you understand why your father did not just hand his men over to Janos Slynt," she asked, sitting back from the lattice screen.
"He intends to put the Winterfell men in officers' positions,"answered Arya, still peering down at the council below. "You told him there could be corruption in the Watch, so he is using this opportunity to start weeding out the rotton ones."
"Excellent. And why has Lord Renly only spoken up now about offering Baratheon men?"
Arya hesitated, pursing her lips.
"Perhaps he does not wish to look bad before the king?"
"Perhaps, but from what you've seen of the king, do you really think he would care about this small detail?"
"Oh…well, I guess not."
"Maybe it is not about the king," Sansa said. "It could be that Lord Renly wants the smallfolk to sing his praises alongside Father's when they hear his men are also keeping the city safe."
"Good girl, though, that is not all. What else, Sansa?"
"I think…while he seems easy and carefree, Lord Renly cares about his own power and influence as much as his reputation. Father having Winterfell men in the Watch would increase his control over the city, and Lord Renly wants to be sure his own influence is not decreased."
Ashara smiled, gratified that her attempts at teaching her children had not gone to waste. They were sitting in the small chapel built by some long-ago Targaryen queen for the very purpose of listening in on small council meetings. Alysanne might have been the last queen to attend meetings in the open, but that did not mean her successors had not availed themselves of the state of the realm and offered counsel to their husbands.
The chamber was not precisely hidden, but one needed to know where to look to find the door, and even then, the space looked like a perfectly regular chapel to the unsuspecting eye. The secrets of the little chapel had been passed from each Targaryen queen to her successor, and Rhaella, perhaps fearing that she would not outlive her husband, had shown Elia where to find it shortly after her wedding to Rhaegar.
Elia had told her ladies of the room's existence, but it had taken Ashara a few hours of wandering this area of the Red Keep and prodding around the room to figure out its workings. The dust had nearly turned her hair grey. It was clear that Cersei Lannister had not known of the chapel's existence, and Ashara had no intention of informing her any time soon. The poor girl who married Joffrey—perhaps. If she could not convince Robert to name Stannis Hand and let them go back home.
Talk in the council chambers had turned to Stannis as well, and Ashara returned to her seat beside the girls.
"…any notion when Stannis intends to end his visit to Dragonstone and resume his seat on the council?" Ned was asking. Robert's booming laughter exploded in the air, and Sansa pulled away from the lattice wincing.
"The gods only know, Stranger take the little shit. Left in the middle of the night, just like Jon's widow. But good riddance, I say. If he were here he'd be chewing my ear off about this tourney worse than you, Ned."
Renly snickered. "Remember the time he proposed to outlaw brothels?"
The king laughed again, shaking his head.
"Truly, what a horror it must be to live in his mind. Did he wish to outlaw eating, shitting and breathing while he was at it?"
This time, even Ashara winced. Madly, she wondered if this was Stannis' misguided attempt to curb Robert's salacious and certainly embarrassing appetites. How this family managed to come so far without implosion seemed more and more baffling by the day.
She squinted down at the chamber. Oh, her poor husband. Ned's face was the colour of hearth soot, and it grew darker at Renly's next words.
"If truth be told, I ofttimes wonder how Stannis ever got that ugly daughter of his. He goes to his marriage bed like a man marching to a battlefield, with a grim look in his eyes and a determination to do his duty."
Sansa gasped.
"That's his own niece he speaks of! Did she not have greyscale as a child? How…how can he be so cruel?"
Perhaps Ned had been right about Renly. There was something cold and bloodless in him that Ashara did not like.
Robert did not laugh this time, instead narrowing his eyes at Renly, and Ashara saw Littlefinger cough to hide his leer.
"Say what we will about Stannis, but our brother is stubborn as a rock in a latrine and held Storm's End for me. His duty saved your life, Renly, don't you forget it. I daresay we would have lost the war if not for him. What say you, Ned?"
"I…I am grateful he did not capitulate despite the hardship, Your Grace," Ned said carefully. Robert clapped him hard on the back, the chambers descending into a thick, reminiscent silence.
Finally, Robert hoisted himself to his feet. The rest of the men followed suit.
"Well, enough for today, at least for me. Keep up the good work, Ned. Ah, I knew you would be just as good at this as Jon was. I knew it!"
Later, in the Tower of the Hand, Ashara helped Ned into his doublet with the direwolf sigil.
"You're going to melt in this," she said, smearing peppermint oils inside the collar and arm holes, hoping it would provide some relief. Ned sighed and wiped the cold towel over his face once more.
"I want this armourer to know who I am. Perhaps it will make him more forthcoming."
"Would be nice to have some direct answers for once. Arya's already waiting in the stables." They had decided that taking Arya along to find a good honing steel for her sword would be a suitable cover for Ned's visit to the armorer. Besides, Arya was most observant, and Ashara had convinced Ned that two pairs of eyes were better than one.
She had just sent Ned off with his longsword and his cloak pinned officiously beneath his neck and was pacing her own solar, trying to make sense of all the clues they knew for certain, when Corynne rushed in, cheeks pink from her run up the steps.
"Milady…there's…there's…"
"Breath, Corynne."
She obeyed.
"Right…breathe. Begging your pardon, milady, but the queen's summoning you."
Ashara resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. She had no desire to put up with Cersei Lannister's antics this day.
"Hnnng, what does she want?" she asked, perhaps a little callously, and made her way to their chambers for a change of clothes.
"A ship's coming into Blackwater Bay. A ship with Martell banners on its sail. Two of the seamen have come ashore with letters for the king. It's Prince Oberyn, milady, come to visit court."
I've a new one-shot in this universe. If you're curious about the Elia/Paten Dalt relationship I've hinted at, please see the story titled "To Pluck the Moon from the Sky" in my profile :)
Lol, sorry for writing yet another chapter in which people do nothing but talk. I want to say that I actually do have a plan for big canon divergence, but there is all this plot and emotional set-up I have to do beforehand. Bear with me. Or don't lol I'm sorry if I'm wasting your time. Just don't read anymore if you feel that I am.
By the way, brownie points if you can name the podcast I've literally lifted all these small council insights from.
Now, the little chapel looking into the small council chamber was inspired by the Hall of the 500 in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. (If you've visited, it's the huge, really tall room with the Vasari frescos covering the da Vinci ones.)
If you look closely at one of the walls in the chamber, you'll see a grate that leads to a private chapel in the private rooms of the duchess. It's said that Cosimo the First build this so that his wife Eleanor of Toledo could do precisely what Ashara described the Targ queens doing
On another note, guys…no matter how you cut it, sexual exploitation is terrible. Sure, Chataya says she doesn't force young girls into prostitution, but I'd say she's providing quite a bit of financial incentive for them to do it. And I honestly think sex work should be decriminalised, but there is a huge difference between becoming a sex worker because that is what you enjoy and becoming one because of necessity and coercion.
And yes, I know slavery is technically outlawed in Westeros, but I imagine a sort of debt servitude is not. If you had debts or needed money, you could probably sell yourself or your child into indentured servitude for some years. "Fun" fact, this was the way nearly all servants did things in China up until 1911, even though technical "slavery" hadn't existed for thousands of years.