Flashman and the Throne of Swords
Chapter 11
by Technomad
The next days were tense. We British stayed close to our embassy, and even took in some of the other people from our world who'd come to Westeros but whose governments had not established formal relations. There were some Yankee merchants (trust them to smell a profit; they could give a Scotchman a run for his money), a few Frenchies and Dutchmen, and even a Russian. With them, the embassy was crowded, but we made do as best we could. The Royal Marines were mainly moved back aboard HMS Penelope, so as to free up their barrack room for the guests.
Little Lady Arya Stark turned out to be a whippet-lean girl of about ten or so, armed with a light sword she had improbably named "Needle." She was a wild little creature, who resisted the well-meant attempts of the ladies of the embassy to get her into pinafores and other girls' clothes. Instead, she clung steadfastly to the sort of garb she'd come in: a nondescript short tunic very like what boys wore here, trousers, and soft boots. She could easily have passed for one of the urchins who swarmed through the streets of Flea Bottom, save for her northern accent and the fact that she was fairly clean. She was prone to eccentric behaviour; she would stalk and catch the feral cats that were ever-present in the castle, and would do things like going about blindfolded, or standing on one foot for long periods of time.
When Dick Burton found out that she'd been training in fencing, he was charmed, and took her directly under his wing.(1) One of his great loves was swordsmanship, and he was always eager to find new things to learn, and teach. My own swordsmanship is rather more limited, but raw necessity has made me, if I do say so, fairly handy with a blade. Even if I'd far prefer to feint, kick my opponent in the ballocks and run for the door, I can hold my own. As Ser Vardis Egen had found out, to his great cost. Never push Flashy into a corner, for he has more tricks than you can imagine!
Soon they were practicing together on a regular basis. Isabel Burton was overjoyed; I had long sensed that she regretted very much that she'd never borne a child of her own. Elspeth was quite amused to see the other mem-sahibs clucking to themselves about young Lady Stark's "unladylike" interest in fencing. Not to mention the stories she told about growing up at Winterfell, climbing trees and running all but wild every chance she could get away from the watch-dragon set to keep an eye on her and her sister.
"Unlike those ladies, my jo," Elspeth murmured to me, when we were recovering from a most splendid gallop in bed, "I've been in some strange places before coming here. Remember Madagascar? It was so good, knowing you were there to defend me…but what if you'd no' been there?" She looked at me, her big blue eyes as guileless as ever. "Westeros's no' as siccar as London, or even a station in India! Particularly with the situation as unsettled as it is! Harry, my love…" I suddenly had a sense of where she was going, and opened my mouth, only to have her gently shut it again, "could you see to it that I learn to shoot? And at least the basics of sword work?"
Put that way, and with the wicked things she was doing to me with her spare hand, I couldn't say no. The next day, I talked with Dick, and soon he had Elspeth out in the salle along with young Lady Stark. I noticed that Isabel soon joined in, and I could see that she'd put in time before, training with her husband. But then, Isabel Burton worshipped the water she thought Dick walked on, for some insane reason.
One of the few Britons who still roamed freely about Kings Landing was my dear old commander, John Charity Spring. Murderous madman though he was, he had never lacked courage, and he walked the streets as though nothing was wrong. His nasty quirks had not affected either his intelligence or his hearing, and he was a fountain of information. He had "business" connections all through Kings Landing, and those people were quite willing to tell him things. While I rather hoped he'd come to grief somewhere like Flea Bottom, so far he'd come strolling in every evening, unharmed and full of the day's gossip.
"Aye," he growled one evening, when he'd come in from a day's rambles, "things are at sixes-and-sevens. All the Stark retainers, and everybody who was too friendly with the Starks, are under lock and key as we speak, ex curia. The Lannister faction's riding mighty high. Word has it that Lord Eddard's facing treason charges." He snorted. "My own take is that Lord Eddard's about as likely to have turned on King Robert as I am to turn Turk! Falsi crimem!"(2)
Loath as I was to agree with anything Spring said, I had to admit that he'd put his finger on it. The few dealings I'd had with Ned Stark had given me the impression of a stiff, rather humorless chap, not my sort of companion, but one who was devoted to his family and his friends. And he and King Robert had been, however improbably, the firmest of friends. I'd seen Robert turn red and roar at the Queen in public when she dared to criticise the Hand over some decision he'd made. And Ned went cold and quiet, deadly cold and deadly quiet, when anybody spoke against the King in his hearing.
But that wasn't all that Spring had heard. "Apparently there's been reports that King Joffrey's not truly the son of the late King. Filus non est pars patris!(3) Rumour has it that his real father is Ser Jaime!" At this, a chorus of shocked gasps went around the room. "Lord Stannis, the king's brother, believes it, and he's now claiming the throne for himself. If the claim's true, he is the nearest heir, since the story has it that Queen Cersei put horns on her husband's head to the point that none of her children are his!"
The expressions of pious shock that went around the room amused me. I knew perfectly well that incest was rife in the lower reaches of British society, and by no means unknown among their social betters. Of course, my pious countrymen would never have admitted that such things went on, but I had had more than enough experience prowling through the lower depths to be quite certain. In some areas of London, very few girls reached adulthood without being investigated by their fathers, uncles or older brothers. And the same held true for other European cities.(4)
Judging from what I had seen of her, Queen Cersei had despised her husband. Even if she hadn't gone as far as to seduce her own brother, I could easily imagine her going out of her way to make sure that the heirs to the throne were none of his blood. And I'd seldom, or never, seen a mating between a blonde and a darker-haired person where the resulting sprogs were not dark-haired. My own children, Harry Albert Victor (Havvy) and the others, were all of them as dark as I am, and I've passed myself off successfully as a Pathan and an Arab. For all of my suspicions about her faithfulness, Elspeth had apparently taken precautions to not get with child by anybody but her lawful-wedded husband.(5) She had a fine nose for scandal herself, and knew fully well that presenting me with a red-headed "Flashman" would cause talk.
"So what do you think 'King' Stannis' chances are?" That was Dick Burton. Trust him to get to the meat of the matter. While we officially supported King Joffrey, we might well be ordered to switch our support to Stannis, should he prove the stronger. Westerosi internal conflicts were none of our biznai. Thank God for that! Otherwise, I might have found myself leading a screaming charge into the teeth of an army of angry Northmen, along with Tyrion!
That reminded me that I hadn't thought about Tyrion since I'd been back. While most of the human race (save only Elspeth) could drop off the face of the globe and I'd not miss 'em until I noticed that the quality of service had gone down, I will admit that the dwarf had grown on me. Sharing imprisonment and peril had bound us together, rather like being in the same regiment might have. Dwarf or no, he was an uncommon plucky chap, excellent company and with a sidewise way of looking at the world that appealed to me.
I wondered if Tyrion had survived the battle that had impended when I'd managed to make my escape. From things he'd said, his father despised him as much as his sister did, and wouldn't have minded one bit if Tyrion was one of the casualties of the battle. Putting him in the forefront of the Lannister line, even with his wild clansmen behind him, sounded to me very like the gambit that chap in the Bible, David, had used to get his hands on that bint Bathsheba. Not that Tyrion had a luscious wife that his guv'nor lusted after…all the reports we had on Lord Tywin agreed that the man did not seem to like women. I'd have suspected that he was part of the Dick's hatband brigade, but apparently he'd never been seen showing any interest in men, either. Maybe he had the same sort of problem that James Brooke had?(6)
Reports from the north were that the fighting had been inconclusive. The Lannisters had won the battle that Tyrion had been in, but in another fight, Robb Stark had not only won, but had managed to capture Ser Jaime Lannister! I imagined this would send his father into a rage. While Lord Tywin detested his dwarf son, he thought the world of his handsome, debonair elder son, "Kingslayer" or no.
Finally, an announcement came from the King, that there would be a public event where "the traitor, Eddard Stark, lately Lord of the North and King's Hand to our beloved father, King Robert, whom the Seven assoil, shall confess his crimes and receive the King's justice and mercy." Put that way, that did not sound reassuring, or good for Lord Eddard. Queen Cersei, through the agency of that pestilential brat she'd popped out, was riding very high in the saddle, and she detested the ground the Starks walked on. Spring's comment of "Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui,"(7) was not really necessary. Even though we'd been forced by necessity to come out, to tend to business we couldn't afford to let go by the boards, or to attend court, all of us could feel the tension in the air.
I noticed some things. Firstly, that Lady Sansa had not been mentioned at all. She'd been affianced to Joffrey before he ascended to the throne, and, particularly since her elder brother was now officially a rebel and her father, apparently, a traitor, she had the strongest blood claim to the North. While much of the North was a thinly-populated wilderness, it was still by far the biggest of the Seven Kingdoms, and holding it was crucial. What had happened to Lady Sansa?
Lady Arya was no help at all. Apparently, she and her sister had been estranged for some time. "That lying cow got my wolf driven away! She lied to the King and Queen and got my wolf driven away! And that worthless Joffrey got Mycah killed over nothing!" She sniffled for a minute, before giving us a ferocious glare. "I got him back, though! I disarmed him with a stick, then I threw his rotten old 'Lion's Tooth' sword in the river! And he never recovered it!"
Lady Sansa was, from all of our reports on her, a sweet, biddable girl, every mother's dream of the ideal daughter. Lady Arya, on the other hand, would probably have been far happier had she been a boy; she regaled us with tales of her "dancing" (read: fencing) master, a Braavosi named Syrio Forel.
When she came to the part about how she'd escaped from the Lannister soldiers who'd been sent to scoop her up in the wake of her father's arrest, Dick Burton's eyes went wide with admiration, and the ladies present were all piping their eyes. All alone, with nothing but a wooden sword, this Forel cove had cast defiance into the teeth of six fully-armed soldiers led by a knight in full armour, and then held them off long enough for Lady Arya to run and hide and get herself out of danger.
"Oh, I wish I'd known he was here! How I should have loved to compare techniques!" That was Dick Burton. Myself, I was just as glad to have avoided that confrontation. Six fully-armed soldiers is more than enough to convince Flash that he needs to be elsewhere.
Soon afterwards, we found that we'd been summoned "to witness the justice and mercy of the King." We all got into our finest Court clothes, those of us with gongs wearing them proudly on our chests, our wives sporting the latest fashions from Paris. Even those among the distaff set who'd taken to wearing the more comfortable Westerosi fashions in private made sure to look as though they'd just stepped out of the court of the Emperor Napoleon III. The latest Godey's Lady's Book (8) had come in on the last ship from Europe, and had been seized and pored over eagerly by every woman in the Embassy.
As befit his rank of ambassador, Dick took the lead, with Isabel on his arm, looking utterly radiant. Elspeth and I came right behind, and I have to say, Elspeth looked a proper peach. She was wearing a Parisian confection that set off her blonde good looks extremely well; when she had worn it at a formal reception earlier, King Robert and most of the knights about court had hardly been able to take their eyes off her, and if I am any judge, Queen Cersei had felt completely upstaged and spent the evening doing a slow burn. Serves her jolly well right for thinking she could hold a candle to my Elspeth, says I.
Along with the other foreign dignitaries, including Jalabhar Xho in his finest feathers, a delegation from the city-state of Braavos whom I suspected of being more in the pay of the Iron Bank than the government of Braavos, and various other exotic folk, we waited developments, drawn up in formation on a balcony with a good view of the main square of Kings Landing. The spires of the Great Sept gleamed in the sun, and the breeze was off the sea. Off in the distance, I could see HMS Penelope, a reassuring sight when in partibus infidelium,(9) as Spring would say.
Lord Eddard appeared, looking much the worse for wear, between a pair of burly guards. The crowd went quiet as he confessed to various treasons. Dick Burton and I shared skeptical glances. The confession he was making sounded both forced and unconvincing, and unlike the man we'd dealt with in our diplomatic capacities. From the murmurs we could hear, we weren't the only ones having a hard time believing it.
Over on his battlement, King Joffrey stood, the crown glinting on his golden hair. "Bring me his head!" This was unexpected. Word had been that in return for his confession, Lord Eddard would be sent to the Wall in the North, to join the Night's Watch. This was a sentence of lifetime exile and deprivation of lands, family and property, but it beat death all hollow. It was what was used to dispose of many criminals or accused criminals.
Ser Ilyn Payne, the tongueless executioner, had been awaiting the signal. He raised a big sword, and Lord Eddard's head rolled on the steps of the Great Sept. That startled a lot of people, and I could see they weren't happy about it. Like churches in Europe, septs were considered to be polluted by blood spilled on the premises. I imagine the High Septon would have a few words to say about this.
Or maybe not. I felt a chill as I realised that once again, I'd been precipitated into a situation where my life was at the mercy of a mad monarch. I don't know if there's some sort of world's record for that, but if so, I imagine I'm well in the running for it. And to think that, if I only had my own way about things, I'd never stir from safe, peaceable London! It's hell sometimes, having a reputation for insane courage and love of derring-do.
After some words from King Joffrey, we were dismissed, and hurried back to our relatively-safe embassy tower. When we got there, we had more news to digest. The servants were in a tizzy.
"Ser Richard, please, forgive us! We weren't watching her closely, and now, we can't find her!" This got Dick's attention instantly.
"What do you mean? Who is missing?" he snapped. He drew himself up to his full height, his black eyes burning. If he'd been looking at me that way, I'd have almost certainly run for my life. However, the servants had had years of experience dealing with their unpredictable lords, and stood their ground.
"Lady Arya! She was up on the battlements of the tower, watching, and when she saw her father, she squirmed away from us! Before we could get at her, she was down the stairs and gone! She's faster than we are, and a lot more agile on these stairs!" That, at least, was almost certainly truth. The servants were not young, for the most part, and many of them were unsteady on the steep stairs.
"Well, find her! She can't have gone far!" With that command, we spread out, searching the whole embassy. Lady Arya's quarters were suggestive, in that she'd taken that sword she'd had when she turned up, along with a backpack, some spending money she'd been given, and a nondescript cloak. Once she was out of the front door, where our guards had had no orders to keep her in, she could slip into any crowd and disappear. Dick was furious, while Isabel and Elspeth mourned her loss and feared for her safety. Me, I had had enough to do with her to fear for the safety of any fool stupid enough to dare to interfere with her, and I had a pretty good idea of where she'd gone. Her mother and brother were to the North, and that was where she would almost certainly go.
[1] Richard Burton was one of the foremost experts on swordsmanship in nineteenth-century Europe. He wrote a book on the subject, The Book of the Sword, that is still read today.
[2] Falsi crimen: A false accusation.
[3] Filus non est pars patris: The son is no part of the father-in other words, he is illegitimate.
[4] This is known through various reports made by people who investigated conditions in the slums.
[5] Birth control, while frowned upon, was far from unknown in Victorian times, and was often resorted to by women who wished to keep their fertility within reasonable bounds while enjoying conjugal relations. Advertisements for birth control, and abortifacents, were commonly seen, even though they had to be phrased in coded language for fear of the laws and mores of the time.
[6] See Flashman's Lady. Flashman had met Rajah James Brooke, the English Rajah of Sarawak, in the 1840s, and had been puzzled by his lack of reaction to the bare-breasted local women. There were rumours to the effect that the wound that had forced Brooke's resignation from the armies of the East India Company had involved permanent injury to his genitals; it is known that he had no children of his own.
[7] Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui: Be careful what you say, when, and to whom. Excellent advice for anybody, particularly in such parlous circumstances as Flashman finds himself in.
[8] Godey's Lady's Book was a periodical of the time, covering the latest fashions.
[9] In partibus infidelium: In the lands of the infidels.
END
