Silver Tears of the Moon
Longest Night and Gloomy Dawn
Astrea's first thought was to have their host put out of service but of course, his absence would be noticed much earlier than Lord Peake. Ultor shook his head, as if he was about to stop her, but the two Kingsguard would obey without thinking. And then, she noticed the man's white face. He was intimidated by the sheer audacity of a mere boy he thought a nobody. Aegon was on the right way here! She arranged her face in a terrifying scowl. "Yes," she said. "Let's see how one explains treason."
"I – I am no traitor." But the man quailed visibly. Looking at her brother, Astrea realized that their nephew was indeed right. Lord Butterwell was afraid of them, primal fear that robbed him of any ability to think rationally, consider the way he had them in his hands. She caught this chance and ran with it before he could really appraise the situation and the enormous advantage he had.
"Let His Grace decide this," she snapped. "And do not think I won't tell him what my opinion on the matter is! You're hosting a tourney of traitors, you're housing a pretender under your roof, you're spitting on all codes of honour to aggrandize said pretender by letting bribery take place under your roof to secure his victory…" She was counting on her fingers. "Do I need to go on?"
He paled even more, something that she had not thought possible. She pressed even further. "The King is not going to be pleased, I can assure you!"
He was staring at her with horrified eyes, paying no mind to anyone else. With the corner of her eye, Astrea noticed Ser Ronald circle around to go behind him, saw Ultor shake his head. As she wondered for how long she could keep Lord Butterwell here before he came to his senses – she had some of her grandmother's way with words, although she was far less talented than Dyanna, - she could hardly keep him engaged all night long!
"I can say we succeeded in our mission," Aegon announced and Ser Donnel's jaw dropped.
They had succeeded in their mission? What kind of mission was this? Managing to go straight into the enemy's hands? If so, Astrea quite agreed… if not, not so much. "We did, indeed," she said, finding out that she was feeling an emotion most unbecoming the moment. Curiosity. What did the boy have in mind? He's Dyanna's son, she thought with something like pride, and Maekar Targaryen's. Whatever his idea, it would be worth witnessing…
Aegon took his boot off. The sight of the ring made Astrea's breath catch – and Lord Butterwell almost fainted. "I am Aegon Targaryen," the boy announced. "And I will be your doom!"
With the corner of her eye, Astrea could see Ultor watching the boy's huge knight. It didn't take much effort to practically hear her brother's thoughts. Close this mouth! Close it already!
"The King is marching towards Whitewalls as we speak," she announced, "and Prince Maekar is with him. I suppose the land could use a little of the taste of Redgrass Field. How long do they have before they arrived, nephew?"
"No more than three days," the boy replied boldly. "I've already made them aware of the numbers and names of the guests…"
Lord Butterwell looked as if he were going to keel over and die. "Not stupid," Maekar had said about him, "but about as brave as a rabbit. When fear seizes him, wit runs away."
"Let's go to the sept," Astrea said. "We can talk there."
To Ser Donnel's greatest displeasure, he was charged with staying with the basket with Lord Peake until one of Astrea's women came to show him to the laundry room. One of the other guards would take care of the other basket. Astrea had the feeling that Aegon wouldn't take it well when he got to know that he was about to occupy it.
In the sept, she leaned against the altar of the Mother and wished, for about a millionth time in her life, to be taller than she was. But Lord Butterwell's look told her that at the moment, she was taller than the goddess herself. "I am no traitor!" he started, his voice shaking. "Your Grace, you must tell the King this! I knew your husband… your father…" he looked at Aegon, "when I was the Hand of the King. Even then, they were most excellent princes…"
Astrea listened as he tried to shift the blame onto Tom Heddle, his goodson, and was disgusted. Lord Frey appeared briefly, undoubtedly informed that there was a strange gathering in the sept. One look at the Queen and Lord Amrose who was holding his hands out entreatingly, and he announced that he was leaving immediately. He did not forget to wish Lord Butterwell happiness in his marriage! Butterwell shrank even further. Aegon seemed to grow taller. Astrea smiled.
And then, everything crashed around them. Ser Tommard Heddle barged in, barking at his guards to seize the Dornishwoman and – upon looking at the ring glinting proudly off Aegon's thumb and held in place only because the boy held the finger curled – included the boy in his order. Lord Butterwell tried to intervene and Astrea realized that he might indeed be as weak-willed as to have left everything in his goodson's hands because the men hesitated, unsure at which one to obey. In less than a few minutes, the man lay dead at Ser Duncan's feet and Lord Butterwell was assuring her that they needed to depart immediately…
"All of us?" she asked. "My women? All of my guards?"
He looked astounded and then, as if he were about to cry there in the faint candlelight. "Your Grace, this is not possible! They can look after themselves! Save yourself and your nephew! Peake has more friends among the guests than I do!"
"Go!" Ultor urged. "We'll take care of your ladies. Go to…" He had been about to say Harrenhall but checked himself in time. "Just go!"
Astrea knew that this was the best way of action. Kill the chief traitor, this Lord Peake. Run with Lord Butterwell before he changed sides again. Take Aegon to safety. All of her guards, all of her women should be ready to suffer for her, die for her if need be.
Still, it did not feel right. She had brought them here. She was responsible for them. Unbidden, memories of Princess Daenerys' pools came to her mind. She had been too old to play with the children when they had all been admitted but she had loved watching them. In the year of the Blackfyre Rebellion, she had spent many an hour watching them, and sometimes she could not tell Dyanna's Daeron and Ultor's Aurelia from the smallfolk children.
"I am not going anywhere," she said. "And, my lord, neither are you. The only ones who are going to leave before dawn are my nephew and Lord Peake."
Just as she had expected, everyone started objecting.
By now, people preferred to pose their questions to him through Maekar. It was a sorry state of affairs that his sullen brother would be considered the better conversationalist. Baelor could see how his reputation of beloved leader was falling apart quickly but he could not find it in himself to care.
"What is going to stop him from threatening to throw her from these white walls of his as soon as he sees us approach?" he asked more than once.
"The fact that he's a coward," Maekar would reply invariably, infuriatingly calm as he checked his weapons. "And besides, it won't come to this. She and Ultor would think of something."
"What?" Baelor always asked and never failed to notice the brief pause before his brother's reply, the one that betrayed unease far greater than Maekar would like to show.
"I don't know. But they can look after themselves."
They were less than half a day away from Whitewalls when great pandemonium brought Baelor out of his tent. He blinked when he saw the line going towards him: one of the Kingsguard that were supposed to stand guard before the entrance, a man with a gleaming scabbard that did not fit his tatters at all drag another one forward. This one looked unconscious. A bald street urchin, dirty for ten, closed the procession. "What's going on here?" he asked with a pang of foreboding.
The haggard man looked up and Baelor recognized him. Ser Ronald!
Upon seeing him, the knight grinned like a madman. "I am delivering a package from the Queen, Your Grace!" he announced in a booming voice. "That was what she said, that the traitor would be delivered to you!"
Baelor narrowed his eyes, looking for any head injuries that could explain the behavior. "Too much time with her and Ultor," Maekar said, making the diagnosis effortlessly. "And let's not forget my son."
Aegon? The urchin! Of course! Now, Baelor looked down and realized that he was not surprised to see that the unconscious man was Lord Peake, his personal preferred villain ever since he had been a child. "Come in," he said and gave Peake a look of disgust. "Someone takes him to a tent under guard. Don't untie him just yet. And you two can come in and explain it all."
He had the most peculiar feeling that both Aegon and Ser Ronnel had dearly hoped that he would just forget about them – for real?
When they did explain, he could well understand their hope. "You just abandoned her there?" he asked, incredulous. "Is this what you perceive as your duty to protect her?"
"This is what I perceive as my duty to obey her," Ser Ronald replied. Tiredness made him unusually cross. "You did not tell me that I should grab and subdue her according to my ideas of her safety, Your Grace. What should I have done?"
"Stay with her!"
"She did not want me to. She believes that with Lord Butterwell under her sway, she could prevent the rebellion from taking place."
"Then she is a fool," Baelor said coldly. "What did her brother say?"
He fully expected to hear that Lord Dayne had been won out for this intention that could never work. Sure, the man looked reasonable but with sisters like his, who could say? And he had engaged in mad enterprises in his early youth.
"He was furious," was Ser Ronald's brief reply.
"I still say it should have been Her Grace who left and not I," Aegon put in. "And in a basket, of all things!"
Ser Ronald drew a hand through his hair, clearly agitated. "We've already told you, there was no way for anyone to leave the castle unnoticed. No one could say which guards faithful to Tommard Heddle were at the gates…"
"Speak no more," Maekar interrupted and gave his son a stern look. "You too," he added, just when Aegon was about to start talking. "So, the Queen thinks she and Lord Ambrose can influence the rest of them into surrender?"
Madness! To Baelor's horror, even Ser Ronald nodded. "Perhaps they can," he said. "It was Peake that they listened to and he's in our hands now."
"Delivered to the King by his new wife," Maekar said seriously. "This far, everything has gone the way she wanted it to, hasn't it? I think it may continue this way."
"And if it doesn't?" Baelor snapped. "You have no idea! There are two girls at home who might learn that their mother is no more because of…"
He cut short, belatedly realizing what he had said.
Maekar's face had gone white. "You're right," he said coldly. "I have no idea indeed. My girls' mother died before they were old enough to realize what being no more means."
So that was how Baelor marched for Whitewalls – with demons in his mind, at odds with his brother, and with a Kingsguard who would look at his new Queen with certain fear from now on. With Ser Ronald's experience with the Daynes, Aegon included, the only creatures from Starfall that he wouldn't look with alarm upon are probably the cats, Baelor thought before remembering that during the Conquest of Dorne, Starfall had been one of the most active places of resistance and of course, punishments and attempts of control. The local cats might have been rebels as well. He could only hope that the Whitewalls ones were not.
When Astrea saw what they had done to the boy, she wished she had given up to her ignoble impulses and kicked Lord Peake mightily. Ser Glendon's face was unrecognizable! Broken teeth, blood woozing from him eye, and this smell that made Astrea gag. The smell of roasted pig. Roasted human, in this case. She wished that he put his helmet on already because the sight of him almost made him weep, and also rave with anger. These cowards had dared do such a thing under a roof where she was present? So brazenly! She also felt guilty. Could she have tried to intervene on the boy's behalf, even with the risk to reveal that her mental capacity was far from insufficient? She smiled.
"Go and win," she said as her ladies cleaned his face – young Glendon would not have the Whitewalls maester and would only let Ser Duncan and Ser Kyle near. But he had let Astrea and her attendants come in as well. Not that he could have stopped them. "And then, you will have a place among my household knights. Who knows, you may rise to my sworn shield."
His healthy eye widened and the wounded one blinked rapidly, blood flowing faster. "A knight of a queen," he said softly. "I am still dreaming. What queen would make such a proposal to someone… someone like me?"
His boldness and self-confidence had slipped, revealing the raw hunger behind. She smiled. "This one. I am not what many expect to see in a queen either. Are you ready?"
He laughed shakily. "I can hardly become any readier."
He's going to lose, Astrea thought and looked at Ultor for help. Surely he could offer to be the boy's champion? Or she could order this to Ser Donnel. But when she mentioned it, all three of them stared at her in equal horror.
"There are some things a man should do on his own," the boy announced and his chin went up higher. Astrea could see his fear.
Like fall in the mud? she wondered but it was the Blackfyre boy who did the falling. As Ser Glendon was being helped to dismount, she felt the eyes of many on her. He had ridden with her favour and those who knew the truth about the dragon egg were no doubt started to wonder if their queen was capable of doing some thinking, after all. She could feel the general air of disheartening following Lord Peake's failure to be found and Lord Frey's departure. Good!
All of a sudden, an alarm sounded and Astrea looked up, enraged. What else could happen? Things had just started getting so very good!
"An army! An army!" the guards started shouting.
"I told you so," Astrea said to Lord Butterwell, who undoubtedly would have grown paler if he could have, and then she wondered whose hands she would fall into this time.
"The dragon! The three-headed dragon!" men shouted; Astrea was so relieved that her knees might have gone week, had she not been sitting.
"This is your chance to do make your fate easier," she told Lord Butterwell urgently. Who knew when one or more of these traitors would decide to make a last valiant stand?
He fell to his knees. "I appeal to your wisdom and generosity, Your Grace!" he cried and this was the signal for everyone but Daemon to lose heart. She actually felt sorry for the boy, especially when he made no move to threaten her, even in his despair. Bittersteel has much to answer for, she thought in fury because she knew that there was no way for Baelor to let the boy go.
From the wall that no one stopped her from climbing, she saw the boy being surrounded, dragged from the saddle, led away. "He was dreaming of glory," she murmured, surprised to feel the tears in her eyes. "But it was never going to be glorious, would it have? Even if Baelor had indulged him. He would have finished him far easier than young Glendon defeated him."
"There was no glory at the Redgrass Field either," Ultor replied. "Only fools who were never there could conjure it. There was only necessity."
Astrea sighed and started the way back down, walking past a line of discouraged, stricken men to greet her lord husband. With some surprise, she realized that she had almost started running upon going through the gates, and upon seeing his face, slackened with relief, she felt that she had missed him more than she had known.