Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews, comments, etc.! This chapter we're gonna stick with Amarah since I couldn't resist taking the first opportunity to write about her adjusting to life in a brothel. There were just too many wonderful possibilities there. I'm not crazy about the whores on the show (ok, I just don't like Ros) so I'm going to rework things a bit to write in the girls from the books instead. Hope you enjoy!
As Amarah walked through the darkness of the passageway with Lord Varys, she studied him with a wary gaze. The Spider, a creature just as cunning as the man himself. She remembered Tyrion's words regarding the man when she had been a young girl learning the game of intrigue. Varys had been Tryion's first lesson to her. The mysterious eunuch knew a great many secrets, but didn't take to buying and selling them like others at court. He knew much, and he kept the secrets hidden, buried so no others could discover them unless he wished them too. Varys didn't want power. He wanted to stay in favor with those who held it while he took care to shield his own agenda. Amarah had never quite discovered what that agenda was, but not for a lack of trying. The man and his motivations were equally impossible to figure out, and that was why she felt so wary of him now. As hesitant as Amarah was to fully trust Jaime who had proved nothing but faithful in keeping her safe thus far, she was far more wary of trusting Varys the eunuch.
"Is there something you wish to say, my lady?" Varys suddenly asked in that unnerving half-whisper of his. The question startled her because he asked it without even glancing towards her to discover her intense study of him.
She stopped walking for a moment, forcing him to finally turn his gaze towards her. It seemed a useless gesture to capture his attention for she could tell his motivations no better now than when he had been staring ahead into the darkness. "Why are you helping me?" she finally asked with a gaze narrowed in suspicion.
"Ser Jaime did not offer much of a choice in the matter" he offered, lifting his pale hands in a helpless gesture.
Amarah wouldn't accept that reasoning too readily. "He can hardly pose much of a threat to you in his present condition" she pointed out. "Why did you agree to it?"
"You pose no true threat to the crown, my lady. So there seemed to be no harm in indulging Ser Jaime's wishes" he supplied in an unconcerned tone.
It raised Amarah's hackles a bit that the man was so sure of her motivations when she could not even begin to guess his. "Why do you think I prove so small a threat to the king who sits on the throne, Lord Varys? After all, my claim to it is much stronger than Joffrey's ever was."
"And yet despite his death, you still decline to claim it" the Spider answered her with a veiled smile. "If you had wanted power, Lady Amarah, you would have tried to establish yourself long ago as a possible ruler for the kingdoms. You are a charming enough woman when you wish to be. Doubtless you could have swayed the masses in your favor if you had put forth the effort, but you did not. You fled the capital given the first opportunity. Hardly the sign of a woman who wished to gain power for herself."
"You seem to know much about me" she replied to his speculation of her character in a tight voice. It was rather disconcerting knowing that this mysterious person understood her better than most others. Despite that, she still felt the absurd need to defend her lack of ambition. "Ruling the kingdoms is not some right I inherited at birth. It is a duty to be undertaken, and I don't possess the skills or desire to undertake it. The kingdoms would fare much better with a ruler who wished to govern over them."
Something strange flickered in Varys's eyes at her words, but the mysterious emotion was gone as swiftly as it had appeared. "A very noble thought" he told her with a gracious bow of his head. She was almost inclined to believe he was sincere in that compliment.
"Who do you serve, Varys?" she asked him then, curious what the reply would be.
He thought about her question for a moment as if mulling over a safe response. "I serve the king, of course, my lady" he finally spoke.
His words caused her to come to a realization that had escaped her weary mind the previous evening. Since Joffrey's death, Little Tommen was now king. Gods, he isn't fit for such a task she thought in pity when the boy's angelic face came to mind. "You serve Tommen then?" she asked for clarification to his statement.
Varys gave her another of those strangely veiled smiles. "Who else, my lady?"
Amarah noted in the back of her brain that his answer was hardly forthcoming. "There are many kings in this war, Lord Varys" she reminded him with a clever smile of her own.
"But I only serve the true king of the iron throne, my lady" he assured her. Without waiting for her reply, he then turned the torch in his hand to light the passageway before them once again and continued on as she was forced to fall in step with his quicker pace.
"We must not tarry, my lady. I am expected back at court" he explained the reason for their haste. "This matter with Lord Tyrion has caused quite a stir in the royal house."
His words brought Amarah's mind back to the little lord who sat wasting away in a prison cell for the murder of a king that others should most likely be thanking him for, if indeed he had performed the task himself. She didn't even have to ask Varys who it was that had charged Tyrion with the murder. Cersei would take any excuse to rid the world of the little monster brother that she hated so. From the tales Tryion had told Amarah about his family, she doubted whether Twyin Lannister's affections for his dwarf son surpassed Cersei's by much.
"Is there any hope he can acquit himself of the queen's charges?" Amarah asked, even while dreading the likely reply to such a request.
"There is little hope of that I fear" Varys replied giving her an almost sympathetic look.
Looking away from her once more, he continued on to the end of the passage, and the tense silence of strangers settled between them. Once they came to what looked like a dead end, Varys reached out to touch a stone in the wall similar to what he had done in Jaime's bedchamber, and another door swung open that led into a deserted back alley. Dousing the torch he held by pushing the lit end into the sand, Varys quicly disposed of it and gestured for her to follow him into the sunlight. She took the time to raise the hood of her cloak to shield her face before heading into the light.
Their current silence extended through the remainder of their journey to the back entrance of what, Amarah assumed, must have been the brothel that Varys told her about. She had never been there of course. Princesses did not associate with whores, although it was perfectly acceptable for kings to do so. Amarah had never quite understood why that was.
She cautiously followed Varys's lead into a darkened stairwell at the back of the establishment, all the while fervently praying that she wouln't enter a room to find a host of soldiers waiting to cart her off to the queen. She had believed Jaime when he said he wanted to keep her safe, but she still didn't trust this spider. She would be ten kinds a fool to do so. Gripping tightly the little blade concealed in her small hand, Amarah was prepared for any unexpected surprises. She would most likely be no match for a band of trained soldiers, but she might be able to draw some blood in the process of attempting to escape.
To her immense relief, the only person standing in the small room they entered was a young dark skinned woman. She was very beautiful with eyes the color of sandalwood. Her most attractive feature to Amarah, however, was the fact that she was not a Lannister soldier. Giving Varys a skeptical gaze, she gradually accepted that he was indeed telling the truth about helping her. He seemed to sense her acceptance of his honest intentions with a shallow nod before turning to address the young woman who stood with them.
"Alayaya this is the young lady who will be left in your care" he told her before turning back to glance at Amarah. "Lady Amarah, if you are in need of anything, Alayaya will be able to accommodate you. Her mother Chataya has inherited the responsibilities of running this brothel in Lord Baelish's absence from the city. They have kindly agreed to house you here for the remainder of your stay in the capital."
After those brief words of introduction, the whispery eunuch quickly disappeared back down the stairwell through which they had entered the room. Amarah turned her gaze from where the eunuch had left to the quiet girl before her. Alayaya eyed her with an equally hesitant look, and they both stood in silence for a few moments evaluating each other. As Amarah's eyes scanned Alayaya's attire they landed on a gold medallion she wore about her neck. A medallion stamped with the lion seal of house Lannister.
Immediately tensing at the sight, Amarah tried to keep her voice even as she questioned the girl about her trinket. "Where did you get that medallion?"
The girl looked down to see what had caught Amarah's attention. When her eyes landed on the medallion, they darkened by the barest of degress. "It was a gift from Lord Tyrion in repayment of his father's treatment of me."
"Lord Tywin?" Amarah questioned consfused. What in the seven hells would Tywin Lannister want with a whore? She had always heard Tyrion complaining to her how his father had never approved of his fondness for the purchased ladies' affections.
"Yes, my lady" Alayaya replied with a look shadowed by hurt before turning around to let Amarah's horrified gaze rest on her exposed back. Her dark skin was covered with a multitude of stripes laid on her bare skin by a soldier's whip.
"Why would Tywin Lannister want to hurt a whore?" Amarah couldn't stop the question that fell from her lips at the sight.
Alayaya turned around once again to meet Amarah's horrified gaze with a weary smile. "Because they thought I was Lord Tyrion's whore."
Amarah shook her dark head in disappointment at the Lannisters' predictable cruelty. "If it comforts you at all, Alayaya, they would most assuredly do worse to me if they knew I was in the city."
"Which is why I agreed to help you my lady" she replied with a kind smile. "Come now" she said adopting a more serious expression "we have work to do. If you play the part of a whore you must look one as well."
Amarah wasn't certain she liked the sound of that, but complied the young woman's instructions as she followed her to the canopied bed that dominated the large room. It was draped in luxurious silks from top to bottom and covered with rich furs. On top of the rich firs, lay a dress made of whisper thin silk. Amarah assumed the offering was for her. Turning her questioning gaze to the girl before her, she saw Alayaya gesture for her to remove her clothes confirming her suspicions that she was meant to wear that tiny slip of a dress.
As Alayaya helped her remove the roughspun wool, Amarah couldn't help but ask how far this charade extended. "You don't expect me to entertain men in this bedchamber do you?"
The girl behind her laughed at the question, her laugh falling on Amarah's ears like pleasant music. It had been too long since she had laughed herself. "Of course not, my lady" Alayaya answered with amusement present in her reply. "But if any of our customers catch a glimpse of you, they must not think anything amiss. That is why you must look like the rest of us."
Amarah sighed in relief at her assurance. She thought she heard Alayaya chuckle at the soft sound but couldn't be sure. Once her dress and shift were removed, Alayaya moved to take the silk dress from the bed and returned to slip the soft creation over Amarah's head. Once the dress was in place, Amarah noted that her thin night dress from the previous evening had felt like a more substantial covering to her generous figure. At the thought of last night, an brief image of Jaime bent over her, feasting on her skin, flashed through her mind causing a heated flush to cover her skin. Shaking off the pleasant memory, Amarah turned to see what Alayaya would require of her next.
The girl waved her to a dressing table with an ornate stool before it. Amarah took the seat indicated as Alayaya moved behind her to swiftly undo the hasty braid Amarah had woven into her hair that morning. Once Amarah's hair lay in curly waves down her back, Alayaya began working it into an elaborate style. It took several minutes of twisting and pulling before Alayaya was satisfied with the results. After Amarah's hair was finished, Alayaya moved to take a stick of khol from the table and softly traced the edge and corners of Amarah's eyes. Once that was done, she took some rouge as well and used that on Amarah's cheeks and lips.
Alayaya looked at her with a critical eye once the transformation was complete, and her sandalwood eyes lit with amusement. "I hope none of the customers do catch a glance of you my lady, for it would be most difficult to explain why they would be denied the pleasure of your company."
Amarah smiled in response to the girl's amusement and turned to look at herself in the glass. "Gods be good" she murmured as she gazed at her reflection. Her grey eyes stood out even more now with the dark khol surrounding them, and her usually pale pink lips were stained a brazen shade of red. "I do look like a whore."
She turned back to regard Alayaya then with a mischievous smile. "How much of a profit do you think I could turn?"
"Oh a tidy sum to be sure" the girl answered with a matching smile of mischief. "Have you ever been with a man, my lady?"
At the unexpected question, Amarah's face lit with heat as she remembered Jaime's touch. Alayaya misinterpreted Amarah's blush for confirmation of her request. "Was he a handsome man, my lady?"
"Oh he was very handsome" Amarah answered with a faint smile thinking of Jaime's golden beauty. "He was gentle as well though."
Alayaya's playful grin turned a bit softer at Amarah's words. "Gentleness is a rare thing in a man my lady."
Her words brought to mind a tale Aunt Catelyn had told Amarah of a proud boast made by the Lion of Lannister, and she gave into an amused smile at the thought. "Well, there are no men like him after all."
Next chapter we catch up with the man in question. Then we might just have a visit with a certain little lord:) Stay tuned! There's so much more to come:) Thanks so much for reading! Please review!