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Silver Tears of the Moon

Black Like Sin

In his joy and sadness provoked by Gaemon's birth, Baelor needed some time – over a month – to realize that there was something very wrong with Astrea. She had fulfilled her duty in just a year, providing the realm with a healthy heir to everyone's relief. Her recovery was smooth enough that the Grand Maester told Baelor that he could resume his relations with her in mere five weeks after the birth. The rumours about her suffocated babe faded, for no one would now tolerate to have the woman who had just given the realm hope and promise for the future badly spoken of. The presents for mother and child from all over the realm and abroad kept piling in her chambers.

And… piling. Unopened. Because Astrea showed no interest in finding out what they were. Sometimes, she allowed her ladies to open them and other times, she did not even hear the question, her eyes staring right ahead, at the far wall that was always one and the same because she could not muster the will to leave her bed even to take a bath. Why, she often lacked the will to raise her arms to be towel-bathed in bed! She constantly fretted over Gaemon's safety but she rarely touched him, except for feeds which left her weeping and with aching nipples. She wept constantly or almost constantly, over such a thing as pouring some wine over herself when her hand could not withstand the weight of her goblet and equally abundantly, for the boys that she had lost and that she wanted these boys and not Gaemon. Even the girls were scared of her and avoided her and this was what opened Baelor's eyes to the fact that what was going on was something very bad indeed.

"I was hoping that it was not so," his mother said when he finally sought her out. "It happens to many women after giving birth but it usually disappears soon enough. I hoped it would with Astrea as well."

"Well, it hasn't this far," Baelor snapped, angry that he had not been appraised. "So it isn't supposed to last this long?" He had had similar experiences with Jenna but it had always been after yet another miscarriage. After both of their children's births, she had been ecstatic – and he had been as well.

"Sometimes, it does," Mariah said tiredly. "It lasted over a year for me after Maekar's birth but I was in a bad place anyway – the war with Dorne, the too early birth and the fear that he might not survive…" She paused to give him time to realize that it had been hard for Astrea as well. "Give her time, Baelor. Be gentle with her. This is the only advice I can give you. Try to renew her interest in the things that used to interest her before."

But Astrea was incapable of feeling proper interest even in her children. Still, Baelor did his best but even the mentioning of her school and that he was now gathering the architects who could start with the building could not move her.

"Should I abandon this project?" he wondered. It was not his project, it would only create frictions with the Citadel and if Astrea was no longer interested, what was the sense?

"No," Maekar replied shortly and at seeing his brother's uncomprehending eyes sighed. "The cat is already out of the bag," he said. "Astrea didn't hide her intentions and you kept developing them. Even if you stop the project now, the Citadel will keep being wary of you. A son in the Citadel, remember?" he added dryly before Baelor could ask him how he knew this much about the Citadel. "There are those who are thrilled with her idea, by the way," he finished.

Baelor was genuinely surprised. "There are?" he asked and belatedly realized that his idea of the Citadel as a monolithic block was, in fact, quite naïve. Even the maesters he had known as young had come from all fractions in the Citadel. For the first time, Baelor wondered how his father had worked his way to have so differing views sent to him.

Spies in the Citadel. He was not a learned man like Aerys but he wondered who, exactly, did his brother, Brynden and of course, Shiera kept correspondence with. He had seen all of them in Astrea's company lately, in fact…

"Of course you have," Maekar said when Baelor shared this revelation. "Your queen isn't stupid. And this isn't a bad idea, this school of hers. Not bad at all."

"So, you don't think it's a whim?" Baelor asked. "Something that she'd grow bored with?"

Maekar looked surprised. "Of course not," he said and gave him a long, considering look. "What? You mean that you think so?"

"I said no such thing," Baelor protested and looked away. To his relief, his brother didn't press the issue further and instead spoke of other things.

Astrea, though, was far less convinced than him. "Of course he thinks so," she said bitterly when Baelor told her about this conversation. "He hates me. He always has. He thinks me a stupid child who shamed him and Dyanna – that was why he didn't even give me the chance to say goodbye!"

"Say goodbye to whom?" Baelor asked. "Dyanna? He did not let you see Dyanna one last time?"

But Astrea did not hear him. She started weeping again, leaving Baelor to wonder how his intention to cheer her up had led to such grievous results. He left her chambers, calling for the maesters but even as he did so, he remembered their last conversation before Gaemon's birth, when she had not been lost to herself yet. "Maesters did not deem women's ailments as worthy of being studied excessively," she had said and he knew that this state of hers was a women's ailment as well. One that simply happened to new mothers sometimes. Simply happened and was accepted, not studied and treated.

"I want this school functioning as soon as possible," he told the Small Council the very next day and if anyone had any doubts that this was a whim of his, no one said so.

"It will be my honour to send the best minds of the Citadel to organize this," the Grand Maester said and while Baelor did not outright refuse him, he delayed the unpleasant clarification saying that the Queen would discuss it with everyone concerned when the building was ready, and immediately after felt that he was hiding behind his wife's skirts… The feeling was not a good one.

"I think you should start it without waiting for Astrea to get better," Aerys said just a few hours later. "I think this school of hers will be a great gift to learning and… all else."

All else? The Crown's own position? Or Aerys' own thirst for knowledge? He would be pleased if he did not have to rely on ravens to carry his message to the maesters at the Citadel, undoubtedly…

"It will be a gift to her." Shiera's eyes glittered with hunger that belied the docility in her voice. Her thirst for knowledge was no smaller than Aerys'.

Brynden did not say a thing but nodded. Baelor already knew that Maekar had granted many dragons for this project of Astrea's and was stunned at this unprecedented accord in the ranks of his family. An achievement worthy of queen, indeed! Not that his own queen would appreciate it right now.

"I'm sorry," she said when he told her about the reactions her enterprise had started. "I should have known it wouldn't work. You should have wed someone who knew her place, you know. Someone who would be pleased to be a lady wife and never bring troubles with her ideas. Like your lady of the riverlands."

It took him a moment to realize that she meant Flora. He had rarely thought about his onetime mistress but now, he felt content that she had found her place. Just not with him. Which made him wonder when he had accepted Astrea's place in his life and Astrea herself, just as she was. When he had seen the reasoning behind her plans? When she had given him a family of his own once again? What an irony! Just when he had accepted her with all the things that she did, she had changed. Just two months ago, she would have felt that he was proud of her, that he was complimenting her. It's the ailment talking, not Astrea, Baelor tried to comfort himself but if she did not get better soon, there would be little difference.

"The whispers have already started," Brynden told him just a week later. "That the Queen is trying to displace the Citadel and reduce the maesters to having to beg their food by the side of the road."

This was so ludicrous that Baelor laughed. But worry stayed with him like a finely-tipped lance. Finely-tipped and poison-soaked… He could do little to dispel the rumours unless Astrea took the matters in her own hands but she was still unable to show herself in public, declare her true intentions and start working on them.

When he had wrapped this cloak around her shoulders, he had promised to protect her and he could not. His daily ride lasted for over three hours today, leaving both him and his steed foaming at the mouth. As he crossed the Red Keep to Maegor's Holdfast under a half-moon that clouds revealed and concealed like a blinking eye, he saw Daeron and Aurelia Dayne in each other's arms in the same garden where he had heard them talk in the night of Gaemon's birth. This was too much for him and he decided that he needed to have a serious conversation with his nephew in the morning – first thing in the morning before Daeron could see the bottom of his cup again – but he forgot all about this when at the door of Astrea's antechamber, he saw Fireball's supposed son, the not-quite-handsome Ser Glendon Flowers lose his balance and fall against a maester who was just entering with a salver with herbs and potions that fell straight on the floor. The boy started apologizing profusely but Baelor had seen his eyes. This lad who trailed Astrea like a shadow was anything but clumsy. And he had spent his entire life socializing with brigands of all sorts.

And he did not want to let Astrea have these potions and ointments.

No, she needed to get better. As soon as possible.