A.N.: While writing this chapter, I was listening to the LOTR soundtracks and to the Blue Planet II score by Hans Zimmer. Simply wonderful.
Okay, I really liked the girl playing the whore in the Volantene brothel where Tyrion was kidnapped by Ser Jorah - the one in the blue dress called "sceptical" by Tyrion. She was so refreshing and no-nonsense. So I decided to keep her.
Valyrian Steel
20
Dark Wings, Dark Words
Winter had come. The sea surrounding Dragonstone was black, churning with rage, violent waves crashing over fifty feet high in places, abusing the cliff-sides and drowning the little quay. The smallfolk nestled in the shelter of the great, eerie castle were relieved, huddled behind their solid walls: any whoever could not be sheltered beyond its walls found room inside the halls of Dragonstone. It suddenly became very busy inside the dank, malignant castle: The rigid silence in which Daenerys Targaryen seemed to prefer to hold her court was disturbed, and no-one apologised for it.
The King's men continued to labour in the obsidian mines. The first threat of men drowning, though, and the King forbade any men from digging. They would mine what they could in the finer weather, and wait out the storms in between, but their days of mining were becoming few and far between, and Jon knew that soon their opportunities to mine obsidian would run out. They would have to make do with what they had already mined from the earth - luckily, it was far more than he could ever have hoped. Enough to arm the entire North, at least with a spearhead or short knife each. That was all they needed. The real trouble was no longer just in mining the obsidian: it was in shipping it to White Harbour.
Only the Ironborn dared the sea during such storms as harassed the island, for which Jon was eternally grateful. They risked every storm to send the priceless, life-giving obsidian North. Sky and sea all but black, limned by lightning, thunder echoing through the carved halls that shimmered in places with the now-priceless obsidian, shadows flickering eerily as torches guttered and shadows seemed to become tangible, and every rumble of thunder made people anxious about Dragonmont. The volcano was still active, and whether it was the Queen's children or the volcano itself, vapour from the volcano settled like a wreath around Dragonstone castle, shrouding everything but the tallest towers and the eeriest gargoyles, and Drogon, who often perched atop the Stone Drum inside which slept his mother, his mistress.
The Queen was unaccustomed to storms. It was curious for her council to observe that the young woman known all her life as Stormborn…was spooked by thunder and lightning.
She disliked it: She claimed she dreaded for her dragons, who could not fly in such weather.
Her Hand laughed: Dragons did not fear foul weather. The dragons were not seen for days on end, and perhaps they had disappeared into the heat of the active Dragonmont…or perhaps they had flown somewhere to hunt. Either way, Daenerys Stormborn fretted through the storms, and her council allowed her to think they believed her anxiousness was for her children…not for the harrowing sense that the castle would come down on top of them with every clap of thunder.
Tensions within the castle - within the Chamber of the Painted Table at the top of the Stone Drum in which the Queen's council was arguing - were rising. The Queen's council argued through the storm, their voices often drowned out by the thunder; and the longer they argued and the louder the thunder, the more volatile and irrational Queen Daenerys became.
The Queen's council was in the midst of arguing over the wisest course of action when the first raven arrived, its feathers sticking at odd angles, half-drowned from the storm - but determined. It was fed raw steak and tended by a new maester who had arrived from Citadel just in time - before the first storm struck Dragonstone with a viciousness that was awing to behold. The Queen's council only paused its arguments to dine in the evenings, and the exotic delicacies Queen Daenerys' kitchens prepared did nothing to soothe the fractured nerves and splintering egos among her advisers as they sat quiet and agitated, and shrewd dark-grey eyes like the sea during the worst storms observed the tension between the Queen's court and kept to himself, murmuring quiet thanks to the Queen's cupbearers. They were the two pretty girls who had carried Queen Daenerys' standard when Jon had arrived at Dragonstone, and until the first storm Jon had only known them by sight.
He had been talking with Theon when the first clash of thunder was heard, and lightning speared across the black clouds in violent forks that seemed almost to split the sky in two. The two girls had screamed and bolted, grabbing onto Jon and Theon fearfully, wide-eyed and shivering with terror. The one with rich amber-coloured skin, wide eyes heavily lashed and dark reddish hair was Zafiyah; the other, with pale skin, high cheekbones, a rosebud mouth and high, slanting dark eyes and silky black hair was Qezza. Both girls were natives of Meereen and by their wide eyes and the gooseflesh on their arms - they still wore their native tokar with no sturdier outer garments - regretted accompanying their Queen so far from their home, even as the only two of Her Radiance's personally-chosen handmaids. They spoke a blend of bastard Valyrian and Ghiscari that Jon had never heard, and even Tyrion struggled with: Jon knew enough High Valyrian from Larra's obsession with epic poetry that he could greet and thank the girls for the wine they poured, and praise Qezza's singing as beautiful, though it made his stomach hurt, and he saw Theon's grim, faraway expression, as they both thought of Larra singing through summer snowstorms to soothe their frightened little siblings.
Qezza sang sweetly, her voice soothing and calm, and Jon wondered if she had felt the tension in the air and chosen to sing to lighten the mood, or whether she had been asked; either way, the Queen's court was just distracted enough by her sweet trilling that it was Jon who noticed the maester first.
He was a small man, always seeming to be flinching apologetically. He had been summoned to Dragonstone by Tyrion: the Citadel was obligated to send a maester to every great house in Westeros. Perhaps it was the fate of the previous maester at Dragonstone, or perhaps it was the Queen's reputation that had Maester Mallor cringing every time he entered a room. Indeed, as he edged hesitantly into the candlelit dining chamber, his face was already pinched with a fretfulness that was agonising to witness. Jon had spoken with him several times, and knew it was more the Queen than the ghost of the previous maester that unnerved the maester; he was perfectly eloquent with Jon when they had discussed him helping Jon sift through the thousands of ancient Valyrian texts - a vast and priceless treasure-trove of rare and sometimes one-of-a-kind texts, books, scrolls, lithographs, papyri and exquisite codices, last relics of a lost culture.
Jon frowned softly at him; the Maester glanced fearfully across the chamber, where the Queen was sipping hibiscus wine, nibbling a variety of dainties made by Lady Olenna's personal pastry chef and glaring coldly at Qezza in her dainty, shimmering rose-pink tokar and pearls.
Maester Mallor locked eyes with Jon, gulped, and glanced around the hall before shuffling toward Jon as if he wished for nothing more than to be allowed to remain blended in with the wall behind him, unnoticed. Jon noticed his robe was a little damp, his chain glistening with rainwater, and the chill of rain seemed to emanate from him as he approached. As Jon sat up straighter, setting down his finely-etched glass of mulled wine - still rather full; these southern heretics insisted on adding lemon - his gaze flitted across the chamber, to Ellaria Sand. Somehow, even during yet another violent thunderstorm, she oozed decadent warmth and sensuality, reclined idly on a chaise with her youngest daughters cuddled to her, tenderly stroking her fingers through their inky dark hair. Little Dorea and Loreza, who both sighed with admiration at Long Claw. Their sharp dark eyes twinkled in the candlelight, and even as Loreza sucked her thumb, tucked against her mother's chest, she raised a dimpled hand to wave at Jon, whose stomach cramped with longing for the broad hearth in the nursery of Winterfell, all his brothers and sisters gathered around on a blustery dark afternoon, frightened and enthralled by Old Nan's stories as her knitting-needles clicked and clacked and the logs popped and Arya burrowed into his chest the same way Loreza did her mother's, and Larra rested her head on his shoulder, and he played with the ends of her long braid as he listened to the stories…
He shared a glance with Ellaria, who was curious, and beside her, the unbeautiful but powerful Obara Sand, eldest sister to Dorea and Loreza and as lethal, they said, as her father the Red Viper. She had arrived mere days ago with an elegant lady, Nymeria, another sister, with olive skin and impossibly sheer gowns that revealed spun-gold and jewels and the hilts of concealed daggers; a third Sand Snake, Tyene, blonde and blue-eyed, lounged with some Dothraki bloodriders, teasing and flirting as they played a game involving short knives. They ignored the maester, but Ellaria and Nymeria Sand both glanced from him to Jon as the anxious maester made his way to the King in the North, flinching every time his pale eyes darted fearfully to the end of the chamber and the haughty Queen simmering by the hearth carved to look like a dragon's open maw.
Only a Targaryen would feel so comfortable sat quite so close to a dragon's open mouth: Jon sat at the other end of the hall, away from the suffocating heat of the fire, too unused to warmth to enjoy it. The Sands, Jon knew, sat so far from the warmth of the flames only because they were so displeased with the Queen's bloodthirsty plans for dominating Westeros. Ellaria was more cautious, far wiser. The younger Sands were militant, but guarded: They were here on behalf of their uncle, the Prince of Dorne, his representatives like Ellaria herself - Ellaria's protection, and more eyes through which Prince Doran Martell could see. Each of the Sand Snakes focused on different details, Jon knew. Obara assessed the Dothraki horde and the Unsullied, including the uncut, training boys: Nymeria acted somewhat as an unofficial lady-in-waiting to Daenerys and had done since she sauntered into the throne room. Tyene…she walked on air, all false innocence, soft palms and sweetness - but as vicious, Jon guessed, as her eldest sister.
The Maester's robes whispered against the worn stone floor, his heavy chain clinking and rattling, and he winced as he gave a courteous bow and proffered a raven-scroll, Jon's heart heavy with dread. Was this the scroll he had been anticipating in his nightmares, Sansa's elegant hand hasty as she scrawled her last message to Jon as the hordes overran Winterfell… The scroll glistened in the light from the oil-lamp on the little table beside Jon; the parchment had been treated with wax to protect it from the rain.
The wax sealing the scroll was reddish-gold, the seal itself…a lion rearing on its hind legs.
Jon frowned and glanced up at Maester Mallor, who cringed and seemed to shrink with fear. He did not anticipate any correspondence from Queen Cersei: He left it to Sansa's wisdom and experience to deal with that particular threat, should it become more than just Sansa's anticipation of an attack from Cersei. He sighed, and unfurled the miniature scroll, and realised immediately the scroll had not been for him. Just that the maester felt most comfortable approaching him…
So Jon could relay the bad news…
The roses have been uprooted from the garden, pretty flowers, gnarled roots and strong stems alike.
A tongue-in-cheek salutation, and following it, a few simple, brutal sentences. Jon's heart sank, and he fought the instinct to glance up at Lady Olenna, and her eldest granddaughter Lady Alynore, who sat with an embroidery hoop, delicate, gentle and elegant in everything she did, with soft eyes that saw much more than people thought. Her young cousins, five of them, were with their septa in their chamber, according to Lady Alynore, frightened by the storm: They were convinced the castle was breaking apart, that they would be drowned - by the sea, or by molten magma from the exploding volcano.
"What is that?" The voice cut through the chamber like a whip-crack, and Qezza fell silent. The sudden absence of her lilting, gentle voice made the booms of thunder and the sharp explosions of lightning seem far louder; temporarily, Qezza had held the storm at bay.
The Queen had risen from her seat, the hibiscus-wine in her hand turned to liquid fire, illuminated by the flames behind her; her hair shimmered softly silver-gold around the edges, like the lightning briefly illuminated the ferocious clouds, and turned away from the firelight as she was, the Queen's expression was shadowed from his view. He didn't need to see her face to be able to read her body-language, or to hear the sharp snap of a trap in her voice. Demanding, unyielding… Jon sighed softly, and using the oil-lamp set the little scroll on fire.
He remembered two things: The care and grim concern with which Grenn and Maester Aemon had delivered the news to Jon about the Red Wedding while he recuperated from his time with Tormund's raiding party, shot full of arrows as he left behind the woman he loved…
And the way in which Sansa had been informed that their brother had been murdered and decapitated, his dead direwolf's head stitched to Robb's body, and that her mother's throat had been slit to the bone, her body thrown into the river. Joffrey had crowed, repeating Lord Walder Frey's raven-scroll: 'Roslin copped a fine fat trout. Her brothers gave her a pair of wolf pelts for her wedding.' Joffrey had spared Sansa no detail, luxuriating in Sansa's face slowly leaching of colour - disappointed and frustrated that Sansa had kept her composure long enough to withstand his torments, and finally break down and sob for days on end in the privacy of her new bridal chamber…
Jon stood, his movements heavy with anticipation, and made his way over to the Tyrells, Lady Olenna in a sturdy, engraved chair and Lady Alynore, fresh and delicate as any bloom in a rose-garden, reclined elegantly on richly embroidered woven floor-pillows nestled on furs and a rich Qartheen carpet at Lady Olenna's feet. Lady Alynore noticed his approach as her grandmother's rich clothing rustled, and lowered her embroidery-hoop: Lady Olenna's eyes were shrewd and wary as he approached.
He remembered how Sansa had been told: He knew how he had felt, how much he had appreciated the gentle but straightforward way in which Maester Aemon had told him about the worst atrocity of their generation - of many generations, and one no-one was ever going to forget.
He took a knee before Lady Olenna, to put them on a level. Lady Alynore sat up straighter, and a whisper of her perfume of jasmine and delicate flowering mint tickled his nose, making him think of an afternoon he had spent in the solar with Sansa, who had enjoyed going through the gifts Lord Manderly had sent them from White Harbour, including fresh citrus from the Reach, Qartheen silk-velvet and perfumes from King's Landing. For days the solar had stunk like a bouquet of flowers, so heady and pungent Jon's eyes had watered every time he walked into the room. Sansa had teased him for being accustomed to the musk of ice, leather, sweat and fur. For a moment the firelight turned Lady Alynore's soft golden-brown hair into fiery copper. Jon blinked, and his sister disappeared, replaced again by Lady Alynore.
Jon knew why he had been handed the raven-scroll; he was perhaps the only one in the chamber who could understand what Olenna and Alynore, and her little cousins, were about to endure. He alone could deliver the news with absolute empathy, born of his own experience.
"Lady Olenna… Lady Alynore… It is my regret to inform you that Highgarden has been sacked. Your larders have been plundered, your treasuries robbed…" Jon said, and paused for a heartbeat, before glancing from maiden to crone, telling them, "The Lannister armies were joined by the forces of House Tarly, and their allies… Every man, woman and child bearing the name Tyrell was put to the sword…"
He let his words sink in. How long would it take for the news to become a reality? How long before the two women could return to Highgarden, their pillaged home? Before the bodies decayed? Longer? Would their loved-ones be identifiable as their family? Had the Lannisters, at least, lit a funeral pyre? Or left noble ladies and children and old men to rot where they were cut down?
And what of the survivors?
An embittered crone; a dazed young woman; and five little girls.
"I am sorrier than I can say," Jon said grimly, and because he was the son of the unjustly executed Ned Stark, and brother to the murdered Young Wolf, Robb Stark, everyone in that hall knew he was in earnest. He was the only one who had any right to try and console the Tyrells. He gazed at Lady Olenna, who stared blankly at him, as if mildly affronted by his approach, rather than the news he had delivered so sombrely, and at Lady Alynore, whose eyes gleamed, and her hands shook as she lowered her embroidery hoop to her lap, her cheeks hollowed as her skin turned ashen. "If there is anything I can do for you, you have but to ask."
Jon was aware that he had taken a knee before Lady Olenna and her granddaughter. That he had offered his service to them. It was lost on no-one else, either, especially the Queen, who had spent days and long nights agonising over how to get him to do the same - to her.
Yet, Jon had not promised the Tyrells his kingdom; only his friendship.
The Tyrells were now, Jon knew, in the very same position Sansa had found herself when their father was arrested on false charges… Friendless prisoners of a vicious queen, utterly at her mercy - and her disposal, stripped from their home, the weight of tragedy thrust upon them…
Sansa had had no friends, no true protectors devoted to her.
She had fought like a vicious direwolf to reclaim their home. But she shouldn't have had to. Her experiences had made her wiser, yes, and brought out earlier in her lifetime the sternness and resolve and cleverness that had always been there, beneath the surface, under the pretty silks and ribbons she had preferred…
The Queen of Thorns stared at Jon. For the briefest of heartbeats, Jon saw true frailty in her crumpled face as grief settled in, carving the last light from her shadowed eyes. A heartbeat, no more, and stoic resolve settled over her lined face. Her tone was crisp as night frost when she asked, "You burned the scroll. What did Cersei write?"
"Nothing clever…" Jon said grimly, and the Queen of Thorns nodded once. She rose from her chair, Lady Alynore's wide pale-green eyes following her, damp and shocked, but her grandmother strode the length of the hall, her head held high, her black mourning veil and heavy black silk-brocade skirts whispering behind her. Jon watched her go, dignified and regal - until she reached the carved doors, where she paused, and Jon heard her laboured breathing over the crackle of the flames at the hearth and a brief pause in the deluge and thunder…she reached out a hand, steadying herself against the door, and Jon watched her composure falter, crumpling to the floor…not just with grief, he realised, and strode toward the elderly woman.
"Lady Olenna?" He reached the old lady first; her face was bone-white and beaded with sweat, and he managed to catch her before she hit the polished floor. She fell heavily in his arms, and Jon's stomach felt leaden as he realised he could not hear her breathing. Over his shoulder, he called, "Maester Mallor!"
Lady Olenna's age-paled eyes rolled, and Jon's insides unclenched as she groaned, sweat slipping down her face, and a shaky hand reached to her bosom, her face a picture of agony.
"Fetch a litter," Jon ordered some of the servants. A soft word from Missandei in bastard Valyrian, and the servants scampered away hurriedly. Lady Olenna groaned, grimacing, as she clutched at her chest. Shadows danced over them, obscuring her face, and Jon glanced up, scowling, to find half the court gathered around them, trying to see what was going on. Jon's scowl was enough: They stepped back. The maester approached, and Jon asked Lady Olenna quietly, "Lady Olenna…may I loosen your belt, and your wimple?"
The old woman nodded weakly, wheezing. She could barely breathe.
"What is wrong with her?" asked Lady Alynore quietly, sinking to her knees beside her grandmother in a froth of delicate skirts, her face beautiful and concerned. Jon shook his head. If he had to guess, he would say Lady Olenna's heart had broken.
"Move back…" Maester Mallor muttered impatiently, and for the first time, he took control of the room. His chain was heavy with healing links; his anxiousness melted away, replaced by quiet resolve and purpose.
"I have Grandmother's smelling salts," Lady Alynore said, her eyes still wide, and very damp now, her cheeks streaked with tears.
"I'm not sure they will help," Maester Mallor said, his tone solemn but kind, as Jon unlatched the elaborate metal belt designed like tangled branches laden with thorns, and Alynore loosened her grandmother's elaborate wimple. Four servants appeared, carrying a litter. "Lady Olenna's heart appears to be failing."
Lady Alynore turned to stare at the maester, as Jon and the servants helped settle the ill old lady onto the litter; she was carried out of the chamber, the maester muttering to himself. Jon offered his hand to Lady Alynore, in a pool of her diaphanous skirts on the polished floor. She gazed up at him, pale-green eyes glowing softly, glittering with tears, and her lower lip trembled as she exhaled shakily, reaching for his hand; Jon gently pulled her to her feet, where she stood faintly swaying, her expression bewildered, uncertain. Lady Olenna may have mastered the art of concealing her emotions, but her granddaughter had yet to discover the skill.
"Lady Tyrell?" Jon asked quietly. "Do you not wish to go with your grandmother?"
Lady Alynore seemed to struggle to focus on Jon, her eyes swimming, her lips pale. Eventually, she murmured distractedly, "Someone…must tell my cousins."
Jon sighed heavily, staring at the young woman. She was beautiful. Her grief only served to highlight just how exquisite and delicate she was. But she was so much more than that, too. Jon understood at a glance that Alynore Tyrell was the kind of girl men simultaneously wanted to protect and ravish, whose smiles they wanted to claim, to make her laugh and earn her favour, and take her to bed and keep her there.
And she would become a woman men respected, and wish to gain approval from. She reminded him of Larra and Sansa in the way people often saw the beauty, but rarely the steel beneath.
"Let them have this one last night not choking on their nightmares," Jon told Lady Alynore quietly. The little cousins had the rest of their lives to grieve, and regret: tonight, they should be allowed to dream peacefully.
"If I would ever have dreamed this is what I'd be left to…I would have died with my sisters in the Sept," Lady Alynore whispered, her eyes shimmering. Jon stared at her.
"You're stronger than such thoughts," he said quietly, all too aware that the others were angling to hear. "It may not feel like it now, but you are. I don't have to know you well to know that, Lady Tyrell."
Lady Alynore stared up at him, her pale-green eyes beguiling and tragic. "Do you know how many members of my family had to die for me to become Lady Tyrell?"
Jon sighed grimly. "All of them."
"Seventy-three," she whispered hoarsely, tears glimmering like diamonds as they dripped down her pale cheeks.
"I don't know what it means, to have a large family. I do know how it feels to find out my family has been butchered," Jon told her softly, and she flinched, but did not break eye-contact. "It never gets easier to bear…but you do get stronger. Strong enough to carry your grief, and keep going. That's all you can do, now. Keep going."
Lady Alynore's exquisite lips trembled, and she asked Jon thickly, "How?"
"You get out of bed every morning…and do what needs to be done, no matter what it costs you to keep going, how much pain you're in," Jon told her, and knew Lord Varys, Ellaria and Nymeria Sand and Theon had heard him. "And you're not alone. You have your cousins, your grandmother…"
"Little girls…and a broken old woman," Lady Alynore said hollowly.
A bolt of lightning illuminated the hall, casting eerie shadows; and for the briefest moment, Jon could have sworn he saw Larra in the vivid flicker of silver light, standing behind Lady Alynore's shoulder. Her smile was tragic, but her eyes glowed with warmth as they rested on Jon's face.
"The wisdom of the past, and a dream of a future you can build," Jon told Lady Alynore, remembering something Larra had once said of Valyrian poetry and architecture, lessons to learn by to rebuild an even more vibrant future than what had already been lost. "Without even the smallest glimmer of hope for a future, we're all fucked…" Lady Alynore's expression did not change because he had sworn in front of her. She wavered on her feet, though, her eyes sliding past him subtly, uncertain as she gazed into the chamber. Jon understood. Etiquette dictated she remain with her queen: Loyalty called her to her grandmother's sickbed. "It's alright, you need no-one's permission to go and grieve in private. I meant what I said…if you, or your cousins need anything, you have but to ask."
Lady Alynore raised her eyes to his face, and held his gaze for a long moment. Solemnity had fallen like a delicate veil over her exquisite features, her gentle resolve elegant, almost transcendent. "Thank you, Your Grace."
Jon watched her go, her skirts whispering over the polished floor as her hair glimmered in the candlelight, and the scent of jasmine lingered for a few moments as he frowned past the ancient, engraved doors, where the shadows had swallowed Lady Alynore.
Only the Queen's voice distracted him, and only because it was so cold and sharp it might have sliced through the Wall without obstruction.
"The armies of the Reach have been routed…their larders have been emptied…" she said scathingly. "Cersei has stolen the food for the winter, and crippled the strongest of my allies."
The Queen had turned to seethe at her Lord Hand. Whatever tensions they had briefly set aside for supper were now bubbling over with a ferocity that put the abating storm to shame.
Lord Tyrion's look of disturbed shame at the Lannisters' atrocities toward another great House disappeared in a blink as Jon turned to glance at him. Everyone did.
He lay reclined on a padded samite chaise piled with embroidered eiderdown pillows, his head nestled against his companion's supple breasts. With her dark-hair, teardrop tattoo and no-nonsense accent, Jon liked her. She was refreshing, and almost Northern in her attitudes. And she seemed to live by the words Lord Tyrion had advised Jon the first time they ever met: "Never forget what you are." She was Tyrion's whore, and everyone knew it.
But it was more than that, Jon knew, for he had spent enough evenings in Lord Tyrion's chambers with the Hand of the Queen and the young woman who looked after his every need. Her name was Tisseia, and she had been born and raised in slavery in Volantis. At thirteen, she had had the fortune to be sold to a popular whorehouse where the girls were protected against the worst kinds of abuse that often befell whores - especially bed-slaves.
Tisseia had survived because she had learned how to take care of a man's every need, before he had to think of them himself. Before they knew they were hungry, she had food plated for them; their wine-cup never emptied; she listened to their grumbles with a sweet smile and kind words of gentle reassurance; massaged aching bones; and, if Tyrion was to be believed, knew how to make a grown man whimper like a newborn babe as she suckled his cock and drew out his release for hours on end, tormenting and teasing him. After, she would tuck him against her pretty breasts and hum lullabies to gentle him to a deep and dreamless sleep.
That she could do such a thing for Tyrion, he had told Jon, had been worth the cost of her freedom.
Somewhere in the last few weeks, Tyrion had stopped calling Tisseia his whore in favour of referring to her as his companion with a touch of respectfulness that made the girl glow with appreciation and pride.
According to both Tyrion and Tisseia, when the Queen's fleet had made berth in the harbour of Volantis, the Triarchy that ruled the city had agreed between themselves to send the Dragon Queen on her way as soon as possible, without unleashing the sort of chaos that Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen were still recovering from. Thanks to the Queen's single-minded focus on reaching Westeros as soon as possible to begin her invasion, and the tributes arranged by the Triarchy bequeathed on Queen Daenerys - which would have made any khal in the history of the Dothraki spontaneously combust with fury and envy - the first daughter of Valyria came out of Daenerys Stormborn's brief visit unscathed. In fact, the Queen had remained on her flagship, her dragons wheeling and whirling over the city, terrorising everyone while her Hand interceded on her behalf with the Triarchy.
After diplomatic negotiations were over and done with, Tyrion had sought out the sceptical, pretty whore he had met in the bowels of the Long Bridge so long ago. Only then had he learned her name; but he had always remembered her dark eyes and pale, square face and his own astonishment that he no longer had it in him to take her to her small chamber and enjoy the hours with her.
"He walked into the brothel and told me he owed me gold dragons and a good fucking, and he always pays his debts," Tisseia had told Jon, when they had told the story of their first - and second - meeting, dimpling with a sweet sort of irony. Jon liked her accent, and couldn't help but wonder if her straightforward nature and gentle but direct way of speaking was a Volantene trait she may have shared with his brother's Volantene wife. Jon knew only that her name had been Talisa Maegyr, and that she had bled to death, stabbed in the belly where Robb's child had flourished in her womb…
When Jon had asked if she knew of the noble family, Tisseia had replied that everyone in Volantis knew of the Maegyr family, of the Old Blood. Had the Triarchy known that Tyrion belonged to a family that had conspired to murder a daughter of the Old Blood of Volantis, he would have had a harder time talking his way out of Volantis: The Maegyr family was known to be vengeful - and creative. Everyone in the city knew Talisa Maegyr had fled Volantis for Westeros, and never returned. Tyrion had not illuminated the Triarchy on her fate.
Tisseia was a former-slave: Tyrion had bought her freedom.
And she had offered her services - paid to be whatever Tyrion needed her to be. And Jon had seen how…domestic the two were - reminding him of himself and Sansa in the solar, working together: Tisseia kept Tyrion's rooms in order, his desk uncluttered, ordered his correspondence and paperwork, arranged his daily schedule, somehow knew to massage his lower-back to soothe his aching legs, and coaxed him to bed before he could fall asleep at his desk. She was kind, patient and cheerful, with a clever mind and infallible intuition born of experience and survival as a bed-slave.
According to Tisseia, she had made the Queen bristle when she had asked why Tisseia would remain a whore by profession when her freedom had been bought.
Tisseia had asked what good freedom was without income.
One of the Queen's flaws was her impracticality. She was a visionary - she paid little attention to the minutiae that made an idea take hold and flourish. How former slaves fed themselves; how an economy was not buried into a depression it would take generations to recover when slavery was ended overnight…
Tyrion had been right, of course, the first day he ever met Tisseia: She truly was a sceptic, one of the few besides Jon who questioned Daenerys Targaryen, even if only in private.
Shrewd Tisseia remained unmoved by the Queen, unimpressed by wealth and power as any who had been abused by it. She was not a zealot; she questioned why Daenerys had promised to create a new world for Slavers' Bay…only to abandon it at the first sign of conflict.
Now, Tisseia's dark eyes watched Daenerys carefully even as her fingers sifted gently through Tyrion's dark golden curls, the picture of indolence. Jon had never known Tisseia before her freedom was bought: but he found it curious that she dressed more modestly than the Dornish, usually in a simple muslin slip with a heavy, flaring skirt - usually off-white or palest pink or sky-blue, embroidered with floral designs in the same colour - with colourful, richly embroidered shawls swathed around her body, belted with jewel-toned satin sashes, intricate gold filigree jewellery glinting at her throat and wrists. Her evening gown tonight had a plunging neckline, shimmering all over with intricate beadwork, and a diaphanous sash from her left shoulder to her right hip, belted with a narrow ribbon of velvet. She was dressed finely, but there was no removing the teardrop tattoo under her eye, or forgetting her nature. She assessed every situation as she assessed the men she took into her bed, weighing the dangers and the potential profit.
Jon watched Tisseia, watching the Queen: The former bed-slave's body language as the Queen glowered at her Hand was protective, as if she might curl herself around Tyrion, shrouding him in one of her richly-embroidered shawls to shield him from the Queen's wrath.
Tyrion seemed unperturbed, draining his finely-etched wine glass, and sighed, gazing up at Daenerys with eyes glazed from drink - but just as shrewd and dangerous as he had ever been.
Quietly, Tyrion retorted, "And you had us send the Unsullied to Casterly Rock to claim it. Forgive me, it may be the drink, but did I advise you to send the Dothraki and blockade the Rose Road and the Gold Road to prevent movement between King's Landing and the Rock? To protect the Reach?" His tone was glib; Tisseia was already dutifully refilling his glass. He squeezed her knee appreciatively, lolling against her chest. His eyes remained fixed on the Queen, challenge in his expression. "'No', you insisted, 'I shall take the Rock, as King's Landing was taken from me. Cersei shall know how it feels to have her home and all that made her what she is and ever shall be stripped from her'." He pulled a face at the Queen, letting his feelings be known. "Well. Now the Tyrells know exactly how it feels. Fascinating, really, when you think about it. Deliciously tragic irony."
"Irony?" Daenerys bit out, her lip curling as her eyes blazed.
"The Targaryens granted House Tyrell the seat of Highgarden and Wardship over the South…and they paid the price of their alliance with you with all Aegon and his sisters granted them," Tyrion mused. "Their home, their wealth, their status, their lands…their lives." His eyes raised to Daenerys' face, dark, grim and challenging. His tone, when he spoke again, was low, dangerous and chiding. "All because you would have your way."
For a moment, Daenerys did not answer. Then she sneered, bristling, "I wonder that your loyalties are not divided between me and the Rock."
"Even Aegon knew that attacking Casterly Rock was a strategic nightmare, and back then, the dragon truly had three heads," Tyrion said derisively.
"I have three dragons."
"And one rider between them with a fixation on vengeance rather than on military strategy," Tyrion said, his voice withering. He sipped his wine. "I advised you to protect the Reach. An army marches on its stomach: My brother Jaime has been a soldier all his life and he is now commander of Cersei's armies, you can be sure the attack on Highgarden was his idea. While the Unsullied dealt with a shadow force at the Rock, Jaime took his real army to where the Unsullied weren't…as Robb Stark did to him at Whispering Wood."
His smile was soft, ironic, and he glanced at Jon with a hint of respect in his eyes. Their brothers, on opposing sides of a war.
Daenerys' voice was cold. "You sound impressed."
"My brother always learned his lessons. In his own time - but he learned them, and he learned them well," Tyrion said, sipping his wine. "And because you refused to listen, he has shown us both up."
"I advise you to guard your words cautiously, Lord Hand."
"Lest I say something to provoke your wrath?" Tyrion smirked. His eyes turned sharp. "Cut off a man's tongue, you are not condemning him, only confirming that you are afraid to hear what he has to say. I'd wager I would be less than one of Lady Olenna's little dainties to one of your children. Besides, they know it was I who freed them when their mama chained them up in the dark… They like me." He grinned unabashedly. "I do wonder…how long it would have been, before the Pit of the Great Pyramid became the next Dragonpit, tens of thousands of smallfolk dead in the fight to kill Targaryen dragons to break their rider's power…" He finally set his wine-glass down, sitting up straighter and frowning solemnly at Daenerys. "You cannot win this war if you react to every setback with fire and blood, if you insist on seeking vengeance and punishing your enemies…because Cersei will use that to distract you to your own self-destruction, as she has a dozen times before with her enemies unwise enough to let emotion get in the way of tactic."
"Your father arranged the Red Wedding; that was not your sister's victory," Daenerys said curtly.
"Oh, I'm not talking about the War of the Five Kings. Cersei has been playing this game for decades; she delights in toying with her adversaries before she destroys them utterly. It is only now that she is finally playing on the great stage on her own terms, for no-one but herself," Tyrion said, waving a hand impatiently. He sighed, frowning darkly, "One way or another, Cersei always gets what she wants. If you believe nothing, believe her brother she has despised and abused since he had the misfortune to kill their mother during his birth. I am one of only two people in this world Cersei has not managed to murder when she set her mind on it - despite her best efforts."
"Who is the other?" Daenerys asked, her tone cool and aloof. "Perhaps I would do better to have him advise me than the Queen's abhorred little brother."
"She is rather busy at present, ruling the North in preparation for war, and what is predicted to be the worst winter in generations," Tyrion answered tartly. "She doesn't have time for your conquest." He turned to Jon, who lingered, watching cautiously - just as the others were. "Tell me, Your Grace…does Lady Stark sigh with relief behind the high walls of Winterfell, out of my sweet sister's reach?"
Jon stared at Lord Tyrion, and remembered one of his last conversations with Sansa before he had left Winterfell. "No. Sansa knows exactly what Queen Cersei is capable of: She warned me that the Queen has found a way to murder anyone who's ever stood against her," Jon said grimly, and Tyrion nodded, his expression an odd mixture of smugness and grim acceptance. "She knows Cersei blames her for her son's death; any break in the snowstorms will be Cersei's first opportunity to assassinate Sansa."
"But Lady Stark does not obsess over it?" Tyrion pressed.
"She's too busy, preparing Winterfell, ruling the North in my stead," Jon said honestly. "Cersei is in the back of her mind, always."
"And the desire for vengeance?"
"Likely buried deep; but to live freely, in her own home once again, surrounded by her people - that is victory in itself over Cersei," Jon said, and Tyrion smiled warmly. "Besides, there is too much else to worry about that is of more immediate concern."
The Queen asked icily, "Such as?"
"Food. Warmth," Jon answered bluntly, staring accusingly at the Queen, not forgetting the fishing, the glasshouses, the Winter's Town he had led construction of in the shelter of the castle. "Consolidating the strength of the North by reuniting our bannermen."
"How Robert used to rage about the Northmen," Tyrion chuckled, clicking his tongue, his expression almost fond. "He couldn't gentle them any more than he could a dragon, even with your father's influence."
"They're stubborn as ironstone," Jon smiled appreciatively.
"And you are premier among them," Tyrion said richly, his smile wondrous and taunting at the same time, as if they were sharing a private joke. "A bastard sworn to the Night's Watch. Why?"
"They chose me," Jon said simply. "Some say I earned the crown, for all the mistakes I made."
"And you made mistakes?"
"Aye," Jon admitted. "Or they appear to others to be mistakes; or I believe they are, but others disagree."
"Sparing little Lord Umber and Lady Karstark, for instance," spoke up Lord Varys, for the first time since Lady Olenna had been carried out.
"You heard about that?"
"Other than the obvious, their being children innocent of their father's crimes, why spare them the injustice of having their homes ripped from them, bequeathing their lands and titles on other bannermen loyal to you?" Tyrion asked.
"At the Wall, there was a maester, do you remember, Lord Tyrion? Maester Aemon. He was ancient, and kind, and wise… When I was voted Lord Commander of the Night's Watch by a single vote - his vote - I asked why he had chosen to make me Lord Commander…" Jon sighed. He missed the ancient man, who reminded him of Maester Luwin - how Jon wished Larra could have known Maester Aemon. She had adored Luwin; she would have cherished Aemon. "He said I acted mercifully toward enemies I respected, made allies of them, fought for them… Maester Aemon voted me in as Lord Commander because he believed that a good leader should always choose mercy when faced with the inevitable."
"And your first act as Lord Commander was to allow the wildlings south of the Wall, when the Wall has held them at bay for a thousand generations," Lord Varys said, and Jon stared at him. He knew Varys had been working to get the measure of Jon for weeks.
"The Wall wasn't built to keep Men out," Jon told him sternly. "The Free Folk would have been condemned to join the Night King's army if I hadn't opened the gates to them, old men, children, fearsome warriors and young mothers alike."
"So it was purely practical, not because you have an affinity for them?" Tyrion asked.
Jon sighed heavily, red hair and firelight flickering on steaming water whispering through his mind. "I'll always have respect for the Free Folk. I spent too long among them…some of their ways of being have become mine. The True North is in me, now. I know what it is to be free…and I will defend that freedom with my life." The Queen stiffened. Her council darted covert looks to her, even as they bowed their heads respectfully toward Jon, who cleared his throat, uncomfortable under their gazes after his admission, his memories of the cave… "I bid you all a good evening, my lords…my ladies…"
Whatever argument bubbled up between the Queen and her advisers, Jon didn't hear it. He strode through the glimmering halls of Dragonstone until he came upon Sea Dragon Tower, and the chambers claimed by the Tyrells.
Their guardsmen, knights sworn to their protection, stood at attention in the antechamber, the torchlight shimmering off their rich velvet-covered armour. The armour was a clever deception - they looked unprotected, but were sworn to House Tyrell and deeply protective of their ladies.
He did not ask for admittance beyond the sturdy engraved door: Just asked after any news of Lady Olenna.
In turn, the guards asked Jon to confirm the rumours. Highgarden had been sacked.
And Daenerys Targaryen was blaming those who had advised her against her desired strategy.
Jon slipped into bed, exhausted, but hours later woke, finding it impossible to sleep with his mind turning over Robb's fate, and his wife's, and even Lady Catelyn's, and that of all his father's loyal bannermen… He wondered at the fate of those who served House Tyrell, and remembered what Lady Alynore had said…that seventy-three people had had to die for her to become the new Lady Tyrell, heiress of Highgarden and Lady of the Reach.
In a few hours, the little bouquet of Tyrell roses would wake…and their lives would be altered irrevocably.
Sam's father had betrayed his liege lord and joined the Lannister forces. Jon wasn't certain how he felt about that - or what Sam would have thought about it. Jon knew his father was a bully: but Sam's mother had to be wonderful, to have raised such a son as Sam.
Jon dreaded the Queen's retaliation.
For too long, her advisers had been arguing against unleashing her dragons upon Westeros.
He also couldn't help but let the niggling anxiety creep in, that the raven-scroll hadn't brought Sansa's last words from the North… Every morning he woke, dreading its arrival. Every night, he went to sleep, filled with relief that it hadn't. Over and over again, he went through the same process - the anguish, and the relief.
With the storms becoming more frequent and more violent, Jon knew their chances of mining more obsidian were dwindling by the day; the time would come far too soon for him to return to Winterfell, with all the dragonglass they had managed to mine.
They'd fight with what they had.
And when they fell to the Night King, he wondered whether the Queen would blame him for not warning her of the danger.
A.N.: Going back to the beginning, I think Daenerys was fundamentally a decent person trying to figure out her role in a brutal world; her motives just got very mixed up. She wanted the Iron Throne, something her brother raised her to believe in wholeheartedly was their birth-right and the solution to all their hardships; the Unsullied were her way to getting the Iron Throne - she became the Breaker of Chains almost by accident and things spiralled…she became obsessed with her own mythology… She got carried away, and continues to overlook some pretty significant flaws. If you're going to end slavery somewhere, that should be your life's goal, not a stop-along-the-way as 'practice' for when you invade somewhere else and usurp leadership… I have…issues with Daenerys' rhetoric vs her actions.
Also, I wanted to introduce/keep characters around so I could mirror some of the things that have happened earlier in the series - and also to give Daenerys' decisions more weight because of the ramifications to those around her. I do believe she will become a cruel dictator by her arc's end in the books, but it will be more gradual - the signs have always been there (Viserys' murder; Dorea's entombment; feeding Meereenese noblemen to her dragons) so I wanted to maintain the attitude she had since she returned to Meereen threatening to burn navies and cities and had to be talked down by Tyrion...also showing that Tyrion and her other advisers are not in control of Daenerys' decisions or actions, because I'm sick of people blaming Tyrion or Jon for what she did, as if they were accountable for her decisions!
Next chapter…I think Littlefinger tries to stir up trouble. I'm not ready for Arya's return just yet.