Chapter Two: The Household
Rhaenys dozed in a malaise for almost two days before properly coming to consciousness. While she lay in a daze, she spent some time thinking. As a small child, there was almost nothing she could do to change the outcome of events that were obviously already in motion. Mama had been talking about a tourney for the last week, and had been packing for it for at least three days. She was sure, given her age, that this was the tourney that ruined everything.
The more that she turned it over in her head, the more sure she was that there was very little she could do there. She was likely not going to be in attendance at any of the events, given her tender age, and would likely be under close supervision at all times. Even if she could escape her babysitters, where would she go? How would she survive in a brutally harsh world as a small child? She would have a better chance in the slums outside the castle, where abandoned children survived like packs of feral dogs. Out in the wilderness, or in castles like Harrenhal where everyone knew each other, finding her would be easy, or she would be eaten by the first ravenous animal that came by.
Even in her old world, kids didn't survive well on their own. Even preternaturally intelligent ones. Coyotes could snatch small children playing on a porch. What kinds of creatures haunted the forests here? This world was practically inspired by Grimm's fairy tales, which explicitly warned children to stay out of the woods.
As for the consequences of the tourney, there was no way Rhaenys could keep Rhaegar and Lyanna from meeting, either. Instead, like a horrified onlooker, she could only watch as things unfolded from a distance.
Or do I?
The thought that finally brought Rhaenys out of her deep depression was that, perhaps, like others in her line, she could feign visions of the future. There were Targaryens that had dreams of the future, didn't they? Perhaps she could… perhaps she did have the same power. Who was to say that my ancestor hadn't had the same curse as I did? Rhaenys thought. That she hadn't been burdened with a knowledge of the future in a way that was somewhat different than simply dreaming of it? What if she was reborn here too?
The thought of a chance, no matter how slight, was enough to pull Rhaenys back to reality.
Again, she woke to Mama in the chair beside her. Mama was napping, her head cushioned on an embroidered pillow that looked as if placed for that particular purpose. Belatedly, she remembered that Mama was still sick herself - she hadn't yet recovered from baby Aegon's birth just a couple months ago. She looked peaceful now, though, so Rhaenys didn't wish to wake her.
She slipped out of bed, her nightgown trailing from being caught up in the sheets. On bare feet, she padded to the door and peeked out.
A gasp sounded from above her as the handmaiden assigned to assist Elia in caring for the children, hovering just outside the door, started. "Princess! You're awake!"
Rhaenys shushed her, holding a finger up to her lips. "Mama is sleeping," she whispered seriously. "She's very tired."
The handmaiden crouched down to eye level. She had dark hair, like Rhaenys, and her skin was darker than Mama's. Rhaenys thought that she must be one of the handmaidens that Mama brought with her from Dorne. "Are you feeling alright, Princess?" She said briskly, bringing the back of her hand to my forehead in the universal method of checking temperature. "You were feverish last night. His grace must have let you play too hard after you were sick before." Her tone held a distinct undertone of scorn. She didn't think much of Father, she could tell.
"I'm okay," Rhaenys whispered. "Hungry, though. Can you bring some food? Can there be cakes?"
The handmaiden, whose name Rhaenys recalled as being Lady Josalia, smiled. "Well, you must be feeling better if you're asking for cakes. Go back to bed, Princess, and I'll bring you up some food." The scarf covering her head was black lace, pinned into her curls with long pins tipped with beautiful moulded copper beads shaped like flying birds.
"The pins are so pretty," Rhaenys said, a calculated smile lighting up her face.
Josalia laughed, and touched one. "I'll put your hair up with one later," she promised.
"Oh, you don't have to give it to me," Rhaenys stuttered. "I just wanted to touch it. What kinds of birds are they?"
Josalia's smile turned truly fond, then. "You're very considerate, princess. They are symbols of my house. Cormorants."
Rhaenys' pink mouth formed an 'O'. "I see. Maybe we can play with them later, Lady Josalia?"
Josalia smiled again, and with a long finger, tapped Rhaenys on the nose. "If you go back to bed and stay there until the food comes, we can play with the cormorant pins. You can even have one of your own."
Rhaenys nodded, and crept back into bed.
A few hours later, one long, sharp pin was tucked behind Rhaenys' toy box - the first of many small treasures she carefully hid from her parents. Sharp treasures.
Before long, Rhaenys had been moved back into the nursery with her brother. The nursery was painted a sunny yellow, with fanciful scrolling along the edges of the of wallpaper strips that featured dragons spiraling up into the ceiling, where a great, colorful swarm of dragons flew to a Dornish sun. Mama told her that she had commissioned the ceiling when she was pregnant with Rhaenys.
Apparently her grandfather had hated it.
What interested Rhaenys more, however, was checking the wood paneling that lined the bottom three feet of the wall. Polished to a dark shine, the moulding at the edges of the panels were fitted so closely together that there seemed to be no gaps. But there was a faint current of air in this room that didn't seem to come from the windows. It was only noticeable on bare feet, but Rhaenys was sure there was a secret passageway leading from this room.
It made sense, too. Why wouldn't you install a secret passage from the nursery? It was an incredibly valuable place, where the next generation of the ruling family of Westeros was housed. A passageway that could be slipped into would be a perfect way to help further safeguard that. After all, the Red Keep was practically littered with secret passageways.
Once night fell and she and Aegon were finally left alone to sleep, she crept from her bed.
On hands and knees, she crept to every wooden panel in the room, pressing, picking at edges, and inspecting the floor for telltale scrape marks. She found nothing, except that her fingernails were still baby-soft and could not be used to pry anything open. Her fingertips ached.
Near the right corner of the room, though, in front of Aegon's crib, she could feel the slightest draft from underneath one of the floorboards. It didn't sound hollow, but perhaps air was escaping between floorboards where it was too tightly sealed against the wall.
She stared at the panel in front of it, cross-legged. Sitting directly in front of the panel, she could distinctly feel the tiniest breath of air from between the floorboards underneath the panel. She held a hand above it, letting it tickle her palm.
Nothing she tried worked. She pressed the panel, pressed the floorboards, and as a last ditch effort, tried to wedge one of her wedge-shaped blocks into one of the cracks.
Stubbornly, it didn't open.
Rhaenys flopped onto back and scrubbed the heel of her hands against her eyes. It had to open somehow.
From her new vantage point, though, she saw something odd. Just under Aegon's crib, there was a strange piece of moulding. It wasn't fit properly with the corner of the wall. The crib had obviously been anchored there to cover up the design flaw.
Or had it?
With her wedge-shaped block, Rhaenys managed to pry off the bit of moulding to reveal a sort of switch. It was an odd, lever-type switch that you pressed on one side or another. Cautiously, she pressed one side of the dusty switch.
Nothing happened.
Flat on her belly under Aegon's crib, she pressed the other side of the switch.
A soft grinding sound came from the wall, and the panel that had frustrated Rhaenys so much pushed inwards, about an inch.
She pressed the other side again, and it slid back into place, with a sucking, sealing sound like the closing of a refrigerator door.
The sky was just lightening, though, so Rhaenys knew that she didn't have time to explore. Carefully, she replaced the bit of moulding and tried to align it better than it had been. Creeping back into her now-cold blankets, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to catch as much sleep as she could before breakfast.
The next morning was a flurry of activity as the servants began to pack for the tourney. In that confusion, though, Rhaenys found that nobody was paying attention to her. This was priceless time, and she quickly slipped out of the areas reserved for her family and into the rest of the red keep. Rhaenys had been to most of the major areas before, but it was before she remembered, so she hadn't been keeping a map in her head.
Still, she vaguely remembered where the kitchens were, and the gardens, and the stables. She knew where the throne room was, too. She planned to avoid it.
The stairs were a bit of a journey for her, but she managed to make it down two levels before she plopped down for a break. Her tiny body wasn't really meant for a ton of walking yet, though she felt pretty energetic. The scent of delicious food cooking was her guide, though, so soon enough she hauled herself up and followed it.
If she had thought that their quarters were busy, the Red Keep kitchens put them to shame. Like a beehive, every person had a task and was running to do it, fearing the sharp lash of the Head Chef's tongue. It was a great domed room built of reddish stone, with a stone floor strewn with rushes. Rhaenys wondered why for only three seconds before she saw the great globs of oil that sizzled from the great roast at the center of the room absorb into the rushes. They seemed fresh, too, so she assumed that they were swept out and refreshed every night. The countertops and benches were rough wood and black iron, rubbed down to a polish that came not from a finish but from heavy use. Still, they looked fairly new.
Rhaenys stood just inside of the doorway, pressed against the stone archway in an effort not to be run over. She didn't realize how much people moved out of the way for her until suddenly they didn't.
"Move it, kid," a teenage boy said as he rushed past her hauling a bag of flour.
Rhaenys was suddenly aware of just how small she was, staring at the army of legs blurring past her. She crept along the wall like a spider trying to to be squished until she got to the ovens. Finally, the chef saw her, and swooped her up with one arm before she could string three words together.
"My lady, what are you doing here? You could get hurt," he scolded, setting her down on one of the long, roughly hewn benches. "The kitchen is not a playground!" He made a half turn, and shouted, "Morkas! Be careful with that knife! And I told you to chop the lamb into half-inch cubes, not quarter-inch cubes!"
The scullery maid in question, an older woman whose greying hair was pulled severely back, gave him a look that would have killed a whole murder of crows. "They won't cook evenly if they're that large, Oswald," she scolded. "Just because they promoted you to head chef doesn't mean that I don't run this kitchen."
Chef Oswald rolled his eyes. "It does in fact mean that you don't run this kitchen, grandma," he insisted.
"If I was actually your grandmother, then you would have to listen to me, you ungrateful asshole," Marka hissed. Still, she started to chop the meat into larger cubes.
Rhaenys wasn't about to let a prime opportunity for ribbing slide past, though. "What does asshole mean?" she asked, a shit-eating grin on her face. It sounded like a curse word, and she was woefully unaware of those in Westerosi yet.
Oswald looked panicked for a moment, then turned back to her. "How many lemon cakes can I give you to never say that word again?"
Oh, this man understood how kids work.
Rhaenys tapped her chin thoughtfully. "This many sounds good." She held up five fingers. Genuinely, she couldn't count that high yet in Westerosi. "Is it a very bad word?"
Oswald eyed her with a considering look, his heavy reddish-brown brows drawing together over his eyes. "Very bad," he said slowly. "What are you doing down here, Princess?"
Rhaenys shrugged. "I was bored," she said, swinging her feet. "And I was tired of the nursery. They packed all my toys!" She considered her stomach for a moment. "And I was hungry!" she added, as if she just thought of it now.
Oswald relaxed minutely, and smiled at her. "Well, Princess, unfortunately you can't play here."
A plate of lemon cakes appeared almost like magic as one of the boys dropped it next to Rhaenys on the table. She took one, nibbling. "Can I watch, though?" She widened her eyes as far as was reasonable, for maximum effect.
And just like that, all suspicion melted away. "If you stay right here, Princess, or wherever I put you, you can watch."
He turned around again, and melted into the buzzing throng of the kitchen. She did hear a shout, though - "Jogar, go let the Princess' nannies know where she is. They're probably looking for her."
A skinny boy with a shock of truly red hair scrambled down the hallway in the direction of the Royal Family's quarters.
With the sweet and tart flavor of lemon cakes melting in her mouth, Rhaenys settled in to watch the barely controlled chaos.
Food was just beginning to be packed into woven picnic baskets when Lady Josalia finally came to get her. "My lady, you frightened me!" she scolded, brushing crumbs from Rhaenys' face and dress. Rhaenys was a little bit offended. There weren't that many crumbs. "You shouldn't wander off on your own until you're a little bit bigger. You could get lost!"
"Not if you show me how to get around," Rhaenys said with a (admittedly crumb-y) smile. "Then I'll never get lost!" So I can get away with this much, she thought. In the books, children seemed to run around the keep without much supervision, so it was only her age and size limiting her. If she proved that she could find her way around without getting into too much trouble, she expected that her freedom would expand accordingly.
Chef Oswald shouted his way back through the throng to them. "Sorry I didn't send her back up sooner," he apologized. "But with the trip coming up, I couldn't spare anyone more than a page."
Lady Josalia's lips thinned. "Well, Oswald, it's hardly my problem if you don't have enough help around here."
The big man didn't look angry at her snipe, though. Just smaller somehow. Rhaenys glanced back and forth between them.
"Look, Josie, I…"
"Not here," Josalia hissed, glancing at the room around them. She gathered Rhaenys up in her arms and turned to leave, then purposefully pushed past Oswald with a whisper. "Two hours. You know where."
Rhaenys hid her face in Josalia's shoulder to keep from shrieking. So they were a thing. As they went up the stairs, she pulled back to look up at the handmaiden's face. "So, do you like Oswald?" she asked matter-of-factly. God, I love being a child sometimes.
It was hard for skin as tanned as Josalia's to turn red, but somehow she managed. "Where did you get that idea, my lady?" she said.
Rhaenys gave her a disbelieving look. "I'm three, not stupid," she said frankly.
Lady Josalia burst out in an uncomfortable laugh. "I guess we weren't very discreet, were we," she said with a sigh.
Rhaenys stared up at her, expectantly. "Sooooooooo?" She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Do you like-like him?"
Josalia rolled her eyes. "I like him well enough. He keeps trying to marry me, though."
Rhaenys was wide-eyed. "Are you going to?" she asked.
"I don't think I'll ever marry," Josalia said gently. "I don't really want to be married. I have two older brothers and three older sisters, so there's no need for me to marry, really."
"But Oswald wants to marry you," Rhaenys said, nodding her head wisely. "So that's why you're fighting?"
"Yes. He thinks I won't marry him because he's lowborn," she said conspiratorially. "But I wouldn't marry him if he were the king. I like my independence." She tossed her hair back. "And besides, he's a northerner. If I married him, he'd probably try to control me."
"Have you talked to him about it?" Rhaenys said. "How do you know he would do that?"
Lady Josalia stopped on the stairwell and looked at Rhaenys, then, the same way that Oswald had looked at her earlier. "It's the culture here, Princess," she said, finally.
Rhaenys cocked her head to the side. "So?"
"I suppose we haven't had a full conversation about it," she mused, pulling her eyes away to look past Rhaenys out one of the slitted windows. She refocused back to Rhaenys, then, and tapped her on the nose. "Aren't you a little matchmaker, then."
Rhaenys blushed much easier than Josalia did.
Only two days into their trip, and Rhaenys was done with the wheelhouse. She had been motion-sick for the entire time, and it was somehow both stuffy and hot even with the windows open. Staying in there for longer than an hour was starting to make her stomach clench and her head pound. "Mama, can I ride outside with Ser Jamie," she begged, for what felt like the thousandth time. "Just for a little while?"
Mama gently wiped away some of the sweat from the back of my neck with her handkerchief. "It's too hard for you, little wren."
"I don't care," Rhaenys insisted. "I just want to see outside." It hurts in here. The creaking of the wheelhouse didn't do much for her comfort either. Every moment in here felt as if the walls could collapse in on her at any moment.
Mama sighed. "Don't you want to play with your toys?" she wheedled.
If Rhaenys had been a normal nearly four-year-old, she might have been talked out of riding with that temptation. Playing with her mother happened more rarely, lately, due to Aegon. Mother wasn't allowing any wet nurses to nurse him, so she had been very tired.
The next lurch of the carriage disabused her of that notion. "Please, Mama?"
Mama sighed, and leaned out the carriage window. "Ser Jamie, Rhaenys wants to ride with you again."
"Of course, your grace," Jamie said with a smile, waving for the carriage to stop.
Rhaenys fairly bounded out of the carriage, barreling straight up to Ser Jamie's tall white horse. One of the footmen picked her up and handed her to him, where she was settled against his white breastplate.
"Are you sure you want to ride with me, your grace? It will be more comfortable in the wheelhouse," Jamie said, as the caravan started up again.
Rhaenys shook her head. "The wheelhouse makes me sick," she said imperiously. "And you can't see anything."
"There isn't much to see, your grace," Jamie disagreed.
"Not true!" Rhaenys pointed off to the side. "There are squirrels there, and fields with people working." She took a deep breath. "And it smells really different from home."
Jamie choked off a laugh. "Quite different than the sea, your grace."
They rode in companionable silence for the next thirty minutes, breaking it only when Rhaenys decided to ask what something - a tree, an animal - was called. Finally, though, Rhaenys got the courage to ask the question she'd been trying to ask for two days. "Ser Jamie, can you keep a secret?" she asked.
"Of course, your grace," Jamie said easily.
Rhaenys bit her lip. She'd thought long and hard about who to talk about her "dreams" with. Though she loved Father, she knew that revealing she had dreams of "prophecy" would probably only end in him hyperfocusing on "the prince that was promised". She'd heard him arguing with Mama about it a few times. It was all he wanted to talk about these days. And… it hurt her to think about it, but it was entirely likely that he would allow everything to pass as it did in her dreams, if it meant the prophecy would be fulfilled. His actions in the book showed as much.
She would probably tell Mama at some point, but she also knew that Grandfather wouldn't allow them to leave for Dorne. Likely, leaving for Dorne might push him to do something crazier than expected. She'd asked a couple days before if they could go visit Dorne, and the shadow in Mama's eyes had lined up with what she remembered from the books. And until the tourney happened, she didn't even know if what she "remembered" from her past life was truly going to come to pass.
But Jamie, perhaps she could trust. He was straightforward enough to believe her, and honorable enough to not try and "use" her gift. More importantly, he occupied a unique space. His father was the Lord of the Westerlands. He was on the Kingsguard. Though he didn't act like it, there was a lot of power he could wield if he chose to.
"I've been having really weird dreams," Rhaenys started, choosing her words carefully. "And I don't understand them, I think."
Ser Jamie's voice came from above her. "What sort of dreams, my lady?"
"Um… well, about things that haven't happened? Like, that something bad is going to happen at the tournament," Rhaenys said in a small voice.
"I'm sure it's just nervousness, my lady," Jamie said, glancing down at the top of her curly head. "Tourneys are quite safe."
"Not that kind of bad, Ser Jamie," Rhaenys bit her lip. "Um… like I said, I don't really understand. Something about a crown of blue flowers. And, um, Mama is crying a lot. That's bad, isn't it?"
Jamie sighed. "Don't worry, my lady. We won't let Princess Elia cry."
"Okay," she said, and focused on the rolling motion of the trotting horse. Rhaenys had expected that nobody would believe her, at first. That was why, with the first few people she told, she planned to seed a few things that, if her memory of the story was correct, would happen. Once they happened, though, hopefully that would change.