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Silver Tears of the Moon

At the Setting of the Sun

"My lady, please take a seat!"

Astrea Malbrook looked at Elfred and smiled. "I am fine, Elfred," she assured him. "I know how to keep my balance."

"You are the only one here, it seems," one of the rowers murmured, giving her a quick look. This small lady did look like the only one who had ever crossed a river. The rest of them were clinging to the benches and if they had to rise, they stumbled like habitual drunkards. He wondered what they would do if they ever found themselves amidst an angry or at least restless river. The woman, though, clearly stood with her legs apart, shifting her weight slightly but consistently. She wouldn't fall down. And despite talking back when talked to, the eyes that stared at the river, welling up with tears, looked distant, turned inward, to some place inside her.

"Does your lady like looking at rivers?" Dunk asked, looking at her man.

"I don't know," Elfred replied. "We don't have a river as big as this one."

"No," Astrea agreed and there was something more to her voice than the words alone. "You don't."

Did they have anything quite "as"? For the first time in many years, she felt as if she belonged, with the river murmuring softly beneath her but the river demons lying in wait, ready to spring to swift life the moment rowers lowered their attention. "One can never be careful enough," Septa Angarel had said as Astrea had been growing. "We'll teach you to row, just in case," her siblings had promised and been good on their word. Her girls couldn't even swim because it was improper for a lady.

The castle rose into their view, sandstone and impressive. It was not particularly large but Astrea immediately appreciated its location. In times of war, it would be practically unassailable. Just for a moment, she looked at the shores and saw the sprawled small town. They'd go there to seek lodgings as soon as she was done with her work for today.

The girls and the young squire were now discussing animatedly the water gate and Astrea frowned. Something about this boy wasn't right. Sometimes, when he was excited, he was talking… well, he was talking like someone from Astrea's own circles. And there was this disturbing feeling whenever he lifted his chin up mutinously, this sudden thought that she knew him from somewhere.

The Water Gate loomed over them, huge and rusty, and then suddenly, her vision was filled with people and colours. She blinked. She had known that there would be a flood of men and women, of course, what with the King and court being here but actually experiencing it was another thing altogether. She was immediately reminded of her time at King's Landing, although this time, blessed be the Seven, the stench was not here.

The castle was only a few hundred yards away but with the throngs crowding every available square inch of land, it could be as easily as far as the Vale where she had come from. Behind her, Elsbet took a deep breath, impressed.

"Let us open the way, my lady," the hedge knight offered and she accepted because there was no way for her to do this, with her small frame. Soon enough, her view was limited to his broad shoulders… if she looked way up.

She was long used to seeing the world blocked by a taller person's body but the noise and moving mass of people were something that she wasn't accustomed with. Once or twice, she had to circle Ser Duncan just so she could look ahead and get back the feeling that she knew where they were going, that she wasn't carried away by the tide of men and women.

"No," she said sharply when Alyssa tried to do it, following her example.

"But Mother!" the girl objected. "You're doing it all the time!"

Still, she fell back and Astrea was the only one left to peek from behind and make her way forward from time to time. She could see expensive clothes, swishing cloaks, and colours that she recognized: the Tyrell rose, the Tully trout most of all, of course. The sight of the crowned skull made her gasp, as well as the man who wore it. She almost called him by his name, her heart trying to leap out. She had expected that she'd meet some people she knew but she had managed to push this thought behind. Now, she had to face those very probable chances and the thought that she'd have to admit her failure in front of each of the people she had disappointed almost made her turn right back. But she was no longer the girl who had only thought of love and dreamed of happiness. She did turn back but only to have a look at her children's faces. Her determination grew and she kept walking.

They were now so close that she could see the details of the crenellations. Then, she had to make a quick step back as the crowd moved, withdrew, hoarse male voices shouting for room. A mounted group came in through the main gate, circling close to them, and Astrea's eyes went straight to the dove-gray little mare, not particularly big but with those unmistakable signs that spoke a sand steed to the trained eye.

"South Star?" Elsbet gasped in disbelief behind her and indeed, the small mare looked so like Astrea's own late one that tears sprang to her eyes once again.

She was so engrossed in the mare that she didn't pay attention to the way people around her had fallen back, so she stood out clearly. She looked up from the mare to her rider and her breath caught. Saryl Lothston! With a bad premonition, she looked a little away and there he was. Maekar Targaryen. One of the most rigid people she had ever had the misfortune to meet. And also one that she had made a fool out of…

Perhaps he hadn't seen her. Perhaps he hadn't recognized her. She drew back, to no avail. He pointed his stallion near.

Of course he had recognized her.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, looking at her with all the dislike that she had expected, and more.

Years hadn't been kind to him. He hadn't radiated friendliness even when she had known him before but now, there was new harshness to him. Astrea had little doubt that a good part of it had come from grief and bitterness but she didn't care. Not after he had stopped her from saying her last goodbyes. He had lost all vestiges of liveliness and zest for life that youth had once given him.

"I have a plea to the King," she said. She wasn't afraid that he'd try to thwart her – he was honourable, in his own way, so she didn't think twice before foregoing the option of asking for his help despite her resentment.

He raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? Could it be that the great man you wed has left you for another or left you a widow, perhaps?"

He was just reacting to her own hostility and his still seething resentment of the way she had dishonoured him. He didn't know. Astrea made a step back so she wouldn't need to look up to meet his eye. "Both," she said and felt a dark pleasure at the brief look of astonishment and shame crossing his face.

Maekar was clearly about to make a sharp retort when Saryl Lothston drew her mare near. "My lord," she said quietly but urgently. "We have to go. You have some pleas to attend to before supper. Please."

Hot blush crept up Astrea's cheeks. Saryl had been her own sister's charitable cause and now she had all but taken Dyanna's place next to Maekar while Dyanna, a far worthier lady in any respect, had been forgotten. She didn't need Saryl's intercession at all. She didn't want it.

Maekar hesitated and Astrea wondered if he'd heed his mistress. It didn't quite look this way. But then, his eyes fell on Alyssa and widened. Astrea knew what he was seeing.

"Go to my mother," he said, his voice softer now. "We'll talk later. The girls can go to my daughters, they'll love the company."

So you haven't forgotten her entirely, Astrea thought and smiled. "Thank you, Your Grace" she said simply.

Again, his eyes went to Alyssa's face. She stared back at him right back, the sun dancing in her black hair. He looked away and for a moment looked confused. Astrea frowned. He was looking at Ser Duncan.

A strange sound made her look up at the Lothston woman. Saryl looked suddenly amused. "Bring everyone to Her Grace's chambers," she told the man she had waved close. "Everyone."

"Tell her that I've asked her to receive them," Maekar added. "Immediately."

Astrea knew Ser Loran from her time at Summerhall and he had always been known for his courtesy. He showed it again now but it was clear that he felt uncomfortable with her. He kept giving Ser Duncan's squire strange looks all the way through the keep as well until Astrea finally felt as if she had entered the square in the middle of a mummer's play and she still couldn't seize the plot.

Finally, they went up a staircase winding up the left end of the keep, crossed a few halls and antechambers and entered one smaller, draped in blue and silver. "I'll go to Her Grace now," he said and Astrea hesitated. All her fears, all the accusations she had been giving herself for years surged back with force that she hadn't anticipated. Like her, Mariah Martell had been meant for a political marriage, for healing wounds. Unlike her, though, the old Queen had stayed true to her House's word. All of her sons had made the matches chosen for them. Astrea knew her, knew that she wouldn't find much understanding in her heart for a woman who had forsaken her duty for a fickle thing as love… leaving Mariah's own son to face the music because Astrea had been in Maekar and Dyanna's household then and they had been the ones responsible for her actions.

"Perhaps we should wait for a while," she said faintly.

All of a sudden, Ser Loran grinned and looked at their group with the same amusement as Saryl Lothston just a while ago. "Perhaps we shouldn't," he said. "The Queen will be happy to see you… or some of you anyway. Besides, the Hand said immediately."

He went to the inner door and knocked.

Baelor looked out the window for a second time in this many minutes and told himself that he was being stupid. With this throng, there was no way for Aegon to make his way into the keep before darkness if then. Not without telling them his name which Baelor felt sure he wouldn't do. In fact, it was more likely that he'd spend the night in front of the keeps, waiting to be admitted after sunrise. But Baelor couldn't help it. He was so desperate for something good. Something light. Something to distract him from the despair he had just been thrown in again.

A soft knock at the door startled him. A note from his mother. She desired his presence if he thought it possible. It still felt strange that now, he was the one who could give orders to her, instead of the other way round. He took this chance of distraction readily but as he walked down the halls, he found himself increasingly anxious. What else would this day bring him?

"You have called for me, Mother," he said immediately upon entering. Her two attendants rose and curtsied.

She looked at him with a smile – weak, as all her smiles tended to be those days. The huge bags under her eyes showed that she hadn't slept again. Over the course of a few weeks, she had turned into an old woman who could not get over her losses. Sometimes, she talked as if Baelor's father was still alive, although, glory to the Seven, she usually caught herself immediately. She wasn't mad. At least she wasn't mad. Just a pale, haunted apparition who had lost a part of herself.

"It wasn't anything this important," she said. "I thought perhaps you could sup with me instead of the great hall."

"It'll be my pleasure," he answered instantly, immensely relieved to be released from the obligation of showing the world a hopeful face to keep his subject's hope as well, as brief as this reprieve would be.

Mariah smiled again, just as briefly and painfully as before. "Thank you," she said to her ladies. "You may go now. If I have need of you, I'll call."

The two women left; watching at their retreat, Baelor was reminded that once again, he had encountered only women that he remembered from the time he could memorize something at all.

"Mother," he said when the door closed. "Have you dismissed your younger attendants? I don't think I have seen them in months."

"You must have."

"Must I?"

She hesitated and a bleak expression crossed her eyes for a moment, one that Baelor wished to have turned away from. "Perhaps I haven't summoned them as much as I used to," she said. "I'll remedy that."

All of a sudden, Baelor understood. Young girls, younger women all thought his mother a broken woman, they pitied her and she hated pity as much as he did. And perhaps they only reminded her that it was time for her to go. That she didn't belong to court anymore. Not after her king had died. Mariah herself thought so and they couldn't have failed to grasp it. The very young daughters of prominent Houses, especially those who had come to her service after the plague, probably couldn't even imagine that forty years ago, the old Queen could have put them all to shame. That she had been charming. Beloved. Arresting. At one time.

"You'd better do it," Baelor said. "You can't keep surrounding yourself only with people you feel comfortable with."

But wasn't he doing the same? He was doing his duties but in his little time to himself, he was given to his grief and despair. Perhaps he had started… loving them, after a fashion. That thought chilled him.

Yes, they both needed to come out of their semi-reclusion, as filled with efforts the alternative was. His mother couldn't keep pushing younger women away because their families would soon take insult; and he had to come out of his grief, instead of waiting for it to go away. Because he suspected it wouldn't.

Still, he had lost another hope today. Surely it could wait by tomorrow? Mariah held out a hand, gaunt and veined, and he took it.

"I'm glad to be here," he said and when after a while, the supper was served – just a few meals, all of them his favourites from childhood, he knew that she had come to know about today somehow. That was the reason she had called him here, away from prying eyes. She was giving him the gift of being himself when brought this low and he was profoundly grateful. He was pleased to be sitting here, with her, as the sun slowly went down, darkness started creeping in ever so insidiously, and a servant came in to light the lamps.

As the men went out, a low conversation at the other side of the door caught Baelor's attention. A serving maid was arguing with a man and neither was giving up. His mother didn't look interested but when the pair couldn't reach an agreement, he went to the door.

"Her Grace said that she and the King were not to be disturbed," the woman insisted.

"She'll change her mind once she sees her visitors. And the Prince said immediately."

"The Prince?" Baelor asked, opening the door. "Which one?"

The question became unnecessary as soon as he saw the man. He was in Maekar's service. Suddenly getting an inkling as to what might be going on, he said, "Let them come here. My mother and I will be pleased to see them."

We'll be glad to even see their lice, he went on in his head – the first humorous thought crossing his mind in a long, long time.

A little later, he barely had the time to realize that no louse could have possibly survived on the gleaming cauldron that was Aegon's head. But even if they had, it wouldn't have mattered to Mariah who clasped him to her and squeezed as if she was never going to let him go. Ser Duncan shifted his weight. Dyanna's sister watched, looking surprised, of all things. When she felt Baelor's eyes on her, she quickly dropped into a curtsey.

That was Astrea Dayne, wasn't it? Could he be wrong, after all? He was good at remembering faces. He had recognized her as soon as she had arrived at court at Dyanna's side despite having only seen her as a child years earlier. A look at the younger girl who was also sinking into a curtsey made him trust his memory. She was the very image of Dyanna when she had been that age.

"You may rise," he said and the young woman and the girls did. Ser Duncan followed – vaguely amused, Baelor realized that Aegon must have tried to teach him a courtly bow. "What leads you to my court, my lady?" he asked, waving her to a seat.

Again, she looked at Aegon and again she looked amazed. Why was that? "Leave him with his grandmother," he said. "She hasn't seen him in a while."

"His… grandmother?" the elder girl squealed.

Suddenly, Baelor knew what the answer was. They had simply lied to each other, keeping their identities in secret, so they didn't know how they were related. Dyanna would have loved that, he thought. His goodsister's sense of humour had sometimes teetered on the edge of absurdity and this situation was one such case.

"That's Prince Aegon," he told the girl. "Your cousin. His lady mother was your mother's sister. His father is my own brother."

Astrea Dayne quickly looked down but there was a flash of hatred in her eyes at the mention of Maekar that surprised him. It had been her who had put his brother in an untenable position. He hadn't done anything to her… as far as Baelor knew.

"So," he said again, "why are you here?"

She told him and by the guarded look in her eyes and the things that she kept silent about he felt another small stab of disappointment. Until now, he hadn't even realized that a small part of him had believed that at least someone had gotten a happy ending.