Daenerys
The cell they had given her in Oldtown was not a dark and dank cell a prisoner would expect. Daenerys had not expected that. Why would Lord Hightower go to such great lengths to provide for her comfort in captivity after taking her as a prisoner? He does not mean to kill me, she realised then. He would never dare to murder the blood of the Dragon. I am his princess, his liege's sister. She would be ransomed soon enough. Why else have her staying here in these nice chambers like a guest instead of throwing her in the dungeons like everyone else who'd fought in the battle beneath her dragon.
Hers had been a lonely sojourn though, and for most of it she had been hurt and angry. Her brother would get her ransomed, Dany thought, or he will free her by other means. She had been telling herself that ever since she had fallen from her dragon into the sea. She was less certain now as to whether or not help was coming.
She still clung to the hope that someone would come after her. Ser Gerold might come seeking her; he was the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, sworn to defend her life with his own. And her goodfather might yet gather the remnants of her forces and raise new levies to come free her as she was betrothed to his son and heir and their lives were now bound to her own. Even if he didn't Aegon and Rhaegal would come for her and her nephew had a large force with him. Her brother, the King might dispatch others for her sake. And Ser Jorah... Dany pictured him riding for her after breaking down the gates. He claimed to love me, surely he would come for me.
But she knew her Mormont knight was lost long before she was. Ser Jorah had been given command of the Royal fleet and had lost it in the first battle of Oldtown to the Hightowers. Dany thought he was most likely a hostage sharing a holding cell in the basement of the Hightower with other prisoners in his company. She hoped that was the case otherwise the knight would've been most likely perished in the sea with the fleet and Dany didn't want to think of him being dead.
Memories of her own battle held hostage of her mind. Clouds seen from above. Horses small as ants thundering through the grass. And fires, fires everywhere with the lava flowing through the streets in a bright red glow that shimmered like the setting sun. Will I ever see such sights again? The nightmares of the day still troubled her in her sleep. On Drogon's back she felt safe. Up in the sky the woes of the world had not touched her. But that thought had come crashing down to the earth when the sorcerer had emerged. She had been flying free in the air until then, but then the sea her enveloped her and Drogon like a ball of water and swished her and swirled her within its grasp. Dany tried hard to get away from the watery depths. Even Drogon didn't like that. She had felt the black dragon's rage and desperation as it tried to claw its way outside to freedom. Then she heard the crack of thunder and she was falling, falling, falling... until she hit the sea. Only then she had remembered the vision she had once had, back when Quaithe showed her of certain things. She remembered dreaming that she was falling from Drogon after flying so high and it had come true. Dany had almost forgotten about them, but now it had come to happen.
Had it not for Lord Hightower's men she would've drowned. They found her half drowned in the sea and took her away alone. She did not even know what happened to Drogon. The last she had seen of him he was falling down with her and she knew naught of what happened to him after that. He was alive though, she told herself. A dragon cannot be killed. Her thoughts then turned to Viserion in Winterfell and Andrew Stark. Jaehaerys had lost her Viserion to the hands of the Dragonslayer, and so could she. And the violent sea... Dragons hated water and Drogon did not like the watery prison Leyton Hightower had them encased in.
Dany had expected to be brought before Lord Hightower's high seat in front of the leaded glass which threw a rainbow light across the Great Hall of the Hightower which directly overlooked the Starry Sept. Instead, the knights delivered her to the floor above the Great Hall, and the custody of Ser Baelor and his brother, Ser Garth Greysteel. "Princess," Ser Baelor had said when they brought her before him, "by the order of Leyton Hightower, Lord of the Hightower, Defender of Oldtown and Beacon of the South, I hereby take you as a prisoner. You shall have all the honours as befit your status though. A chamber has been prepared for you. My brother will escort you there, to await my Lord father's pleasure."
Your Lord father's displeasure, you mean. "What happened to my dragon? Where is Ser Gerold?" Dany had been parted from the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard in the battle, and everyone had refused to say what had happened to him. "That is not for me to say," was all Ser Baelor had to say before giving the nod to his brother to take her to her confinement.
Ser Garth took her arm and marched her up the steps, up and up until her breath grew short. The High Tower stood at more than seven hundred feet high, more taller than even the Wall, and her cell was nearly at the top. Daenerys Targaryen was no stranger to Oldtown and the High Tower upon the Battle Isle. She had seen the city first when she was still a girl, come to see the Reach and all the noble families and their castles when her betrothal had been announced. The sight of the city and the High Tower towering over everything around it had taken her breath away. The city was clean and neat unlike King's Landing and the sky and sea was blue, and I was full of hope. Ser Jorah had been with her then, her gruff old bear.
But now coming back to Oldtown, all her joy had turned to ashes. Her dragon had fallen from the sky, Ser Jorah was lost and she was a prisoner.
Dany eyed every door they passed, wondering if she could see who else from her army might be locked within. When her own door had been closed and barred, Dany took a look at her new home. Her cell was well furnished, and had all that she needed for comfort. There was even a featherbed for her to sleep in, and a table filled with plates of fruits and a silver pitcher of wine. From her windows she could see the sea and the flowing Honeywine, and the Citadel and the city walls beyond.
That night she had tried to sleep to forget her grief and defeat but there was no peace to be had even in her sleep. Her dreams and nightmares were never far from her. She dreamt of the battle, of Ser Gerold Hightower smiling at her and Ser Jorah telling her that he loved her and Drogon falling down from the sky.
The bitter memory made her sad and angry at the same. Dany clung to that, feeding the flame within her heart. Anger was better than tears, better than grief, better than guilt. It was sorcery and dark magic which brought her fall. Hundreds had died because of that, slain by the vile spells and unnatural events. She would not forget it and when she was free of here and back on Drogon once again she would pay Oldtown back in kind for their treachery.
Dany expected Lord Leyton to come to her that day as she had expected him every day since her imprisonment, but the doors opened only for the servants who brought her meals. "When might I see Lord Leyton?" she asked them again that day, as she always did, when they brought her midday meal, but none of them would answer. "I am not hungry," Dany said. Her men would be eating half cooked stew and oaten biscuits in the dungeons and she would share their same fate. "Take this away and bring me Lord Hightower." But they left the food, and her father did not come. After a while, hunger weakened her resolve, so she sat and ate.
Once the food was gone, there was nothing else for Dany to do. She paced around her tower. The hours passed slowly. She curled up in the window seat and looked at the city below. The Honeywine glimmered nicely under the morning sun and dozens of cobbled streets bent this way and that, and all the people who walked down were no bigger than ants from her spot high up in the Hightower. Dany's eyes followed the river, tapping time upon her leg as she gazed up at the beautiful city that sprawled beneath, trying not to think about how dangerous and deadly it had looked during the battle. She ignored the pounding in her head, and her bothersome thoughts. The city looked so peaceful that one would never think it had seen any battle.
Finally, when the world grew dark again she crawled back onto the featherbed. There was little she could do but sleep. She wondered if this was what her life was going to be reduced to. To be locked up the cell waiting for someone who might never come. No, Dany told herself. If I look back I am lost. She might live for years locked up in the Hightower as the time turned from summers to winters, but that was not the life she had been born to. She would get out of here. She would ride Drogon again and go back to King's Landing to her brother and her family.
When Lord Leyton came to see her, she would force him to leave her. He did not come the next day, though. Nor the day after. The princess was left alone to deal with her loneliness. From her window seat, she could only glance down at the sea and city. That's all she could do from her prison.
No visitors were permitted her beyond the servants. They brought her meals, changed her bed, but none would speak with her. When she required more wine or food she only had to tell them and they would fetch it.
Yet none of them had a word for her, nor would they deign to tell her what was happening in the world outside her polished cage. "What do you know of the war?" she asked one of the servants one day. "Where is Andrew Stark? Has there been any word from my brother or nephew?" The man only turned his back on her and walked away. "Have you gone deaf?" Dany snapped at him. "Come back here and answer me. I command it. Your princess commands it." The only reply was the sound of a door closing.
"What has become of Ser Gerold?" she tried, another day. "Was he captured? Is he a prisoner here?" The last she had seen of the the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard had been on the battlefield fighting against the foes. Dany remembered how Ser Gerold had led the charge valiantly into the flames even when all seemed lost.
When commands wouldn't work she turned towards meek requests. "Please," Dany said, a few days later, "please take pity on me and tell me when Lord Hightower means to come and see me. When will I be released from here?" But that had only earned silence as well.
Days came and went, one after the other, so many that Dany lost count of how long she had been imprisoned. She found herself spending more and more time abed, until she reached the point where she did not rise at all except to eat.
Then came a day when Ser Garth Greysteel himself came with the servants when they brought her midday meal. "Princess Daenerys," he said in a soft voice. "Up and dress. My Lord father has called for you." He stood beside the bed with a hand on his sword. He was talking to her, Dany realised. It was good to see his face, and hear his hard voice. "Lord Leyton will see me?"
Ser Garth nodded. "He will. First you must wash, and eat. We have arranged a bath for you."
She must look a ragged thing having still dressed in the linen clothes on her back that had been on her for weeks now. Ser Garth waited without whilst the princess bathed and brushed her hair and ate sparingly of the cheese and fruit they'd brought her. She drank a little wine to settle her stomach. I am frightened, she realised, for the first time in my life.
By the time she was ready, dusk had fallen. Dany had thought that Garth Greysteel would escort her to the Great Hall to hear Lord Leyton's judgment. Instead he delivered her to the solar of Leyton Hightower, where they found the Lord of Oldtown seated behind a table, with a large tome open in front. He seemed to be reading when she arrived. Lord Leyton looked older than she had last seen him. His face was pale and he looked tired. "Lord Hightower," she said to announce her arrival.
Lord Leyton raised his head to look at her, then turned towards his son. "A strange and proud folk, the Valyrians," he muttered, as he closed the large leathered tome. "Men say there are still treasures and other mystical artifacts to be found in Valyria if anyone ever ventures so far as to brave the smoking sea."
Lord Leyton smiled wanly at his son. "Leave us, Garth."
Garth Greysteel gave a curt nod and took his leave.
"I hope you were treated well," Lord Leyton said when the two of them were alone.
"Well for a prisoner," Dany said. "I didn't lack for anything but freedom." Why is he talking about this again? Does he mean to boast of how lenient he was to her.
"That's what being a prisoner means, princess," Leyton Hightower said. "I told my servants to leave some books to keep you occupied."
"Books," Dany scoffed. "What am I supposed to do with them?"
"Read. Sometimes it is best to study about history as there is always something new to learn from it. How well do you know your history, Princess Daenerys?"
"Well enough to know what I want to know."
"But not what you need to know. Often it is those things you must learn for your own sake." He studied her face for a long moment. "You remind me of someone I once knew in the past."
Dany did not ask him who that was. "I hope it's not one of the dishonourable traitors you have in mind."
"Traitors?" Lord Leyton said. "That is in the way you see it."
"Traitors are traitors no matter how you see it," Dany said. "Where is Ser Gerold? And what has happened to my dragon?"
Lord Leyton simply smiled. "I am not required to answer any of your questions, princess. I can think of no reason why I should answer you. You were here to do us all great harm. I should have rather treated you that way and you should be grateful that I didn't."
"So why didn't you?"
"I am not your brother," Lord Leyton said. "And you don't have to worry about the Lord Commander. He is mine own uncle. I shall never harm my family."
"You would have harmed him in battle after you rose in rebellion against the King. Did you offer the same clemency to Ser Jorah? He was your daughter's husband as well, was he not?"
"He was," Lord Leyton confirmed. "Until he lost her for me. Still I treated Jorah as well as I did anyone. What do you think I am supposed to do with you?"
"Give me back to my brother."
"You know I couldn't do that."
That made her anger rise. "Then why did you ask for my opinion?"
Lord Leyton did not answer. "Tell me how did you win the battle? I have never seen any man do what you did. Are you a sorcerer? Where did you learn to do that? I would never have taken you for a wizard."
"There are many things that you don't know about, princess," Lord Leyton said.
"You think I cannot discover the truth on my own?"
"You are welcome to try. You will still stay ignorant to it as you have always had stayed ignorant to the truth." Leyton Hightower sighed.
"I am the Mother of Dragons. I know more about things than you think." She had not meant to be so blunt with him, not when he had made clear that she was still a prisoner but the words came spilling out.
"I know. I know. You hatched dragons from stones. Something that has not happened in this world for a long time, not since the last dragon died," Leyton Hightower said. "Who am I against that? I am too meek and weak and old, too lenient to my enemies and too cautious to act. Still I see things much more clearly than you do, princess." He opened the leather cover of the tome he was reading and took a nice clean piece of parchment and slid it across the table to her. "Do you know any of them, my lady?"
Dany took the delicate parchment in hand. Upon it was a drawing painted in the vivid Myrish style, of a lovely young woman with purple eyes and a cascade of hair dark as midnight that fell past her waist holding a little boy who had her hair and her warm and hearty smile. Dany took a long look at the picture then looked up at Lord Leyton Hightower and shook her head.
"That is my granddaughter with her only son. The man who your family is fighting."
Dany was taken back for a moment. She had never seen Andrew Stark and had been very active in her fight against him. For some reason she had always thought of the rebel King as some dark, dreary outlaw, but he didn't look so different from any other child in this picture with a smile that would melt many a woman's heart. And if that was Andrew Stark then the woman holding him must surely be his mother the Queen Ashara Dayne. Even in King's Landing Dany has heard the tales of Lady Ashara's legendary beauty. And she was as lovely as the tales told of her.
"I-I didn't know them," Dany admitted. "I haven't seen them or any pictures of them before."
"As it happens, you don't know a lot of things. Your brother was insistent on burning their memory off the world after he murdered them in cold blood in Starfall. He could not even stand to look at the faces of those who fought and won against his tyranny, nor did he want to hear their names ever said in his kingdom again. So he tried to bury their memory. Once I had hung a large portrait of this picture here in my solar but then your brother had it ripped down and taken away. Now this is all I have left."
"Rhaegar?" Dany asked shocked.
"No," Lord Leyton said. "Viserys. He was worse than Rhaegar in his manner."
That was too much. She could not stand to hear this old man talk of her brothers like that. "Mind your words, my lord," Dany said. "You are playing at treason. Those are my brothers you are talking about."
A spasm of anger rippled across Leyton Hightower's face. "You are in no place to threaten me, princess and I have kept my tongue tied up for too long. I could cut your head off and send it off to my grandson as a gift for your trouble."
"You could, but you wouldn't. And then my brother will raze Oldtown to avenge me. You would never dare make enemy of the King and enrage him like that."
"Like he razed Starfall?" Lord Hightower said coolly. "I dare more than you dream . . . but leave that for the nonce. I already made an enemy of your brother when I raised the direwolf banner atop my Hightower. What would your brother do? Kill me like he did my granddaughter's husband for defying him? At least he wouldn't have to be a craven about it like he was with Eddard Stark. I am only an old man and he don't have to stab me in the back under the shade of the peace banner should he want me dead. Even I don't doubt he lack the strength to defeat an old man by fighting proper. Or does he?"
"That isn't so," she heard herself say. "You are lying. Eddard Stark was a traitor and he got a traitor's death."
"If you say so. He was only the first of the many. I wonder what treason does that woman and her child commited to deserve such a fate that your brother had given them."
Dany had no answer to that. She looked down at the picture once again and she couldn't think why anyone would want them dead, least of all her brother. "Whatever my brother did he did it for his kingdom," Dany answered hotly, "for the honour of our house."
"Every child in the Seven Kingdoms knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first and he wasn't the last. I once heard it said that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land."
Dany has not heard that anywhere. Surely the gods would have landed her coin on greatness, she thought. She was destined for it after all, Rhaegar said that again and again. "You don't know what you are talking about."
"You don't know the truth," said the old man. "You know only the best of your brother, not his worst. Rhaegar is your father's son as much as Viserys was. Starfall is proof of that."
My father's son. And what would that make her? Her father's daughter. Who was she if she wasn't her father's daughter? "I have no need to hear this now," Dany said. She had no desire to hear more of these... these lies. All these talks of madness and taint and treachery was making her head spin. It was Eddard Stark and his son who committed treason against her brother and whatever Rhaegar had done in return was rightfully done.
"Some truths are hard to hear, yes," Lord Leyton said. "There are gods in this world to judge us for all our actions, my lady. Your father was judged by the hands of his own son for his mistakes and he will be but the first of many. You and your family wanted war. You got your wish."
"And what of me?" Dany asked. "What is supposed to happen with me?"
"That is not for me to decide," Lord Leyton said. "When the war was over I will present you in front of the King to be judged."
She didn't have to ask him which King he was talking about. The old man thinks they could still win the war. Even without her and Drogon, House Targaryen still had a dragon in Aegon and Rhaegal and fielded a great army. They would be coming to save her and she might sit to judge for all the things she'd lost in the war, for Drogon and her Ser Jorah. Soon she would be back at King's Landing with her family. And all these talks of madness would fade away once I am free of here. Until then though she was like to remember that.
She pondered on the words she had with Lord Leyton as she returned to her cell. That night it was those words which kept her awake. And when she finally did sleep she dreamt of vile things and evil beings made of flame and shadow. Am I going mad? Dany thought. Do I have the taint? No, she told herself. Then she remembered her visions and warnings once again. The flame and shadow and the sound of steel scraping on stone. She wondered what that meant. Her vision of her falling from Drogon had come true and Dany wondered if this was something that was going to happen next. She did not know and she did not want to know. All Dany wanted was to sleep peacefully once again and she turned away in her bed and slipped off to sleep hoping that nothing more would come haunt her.