Rosby and Stokeworth were sometimes called "the fertile sisters". Another saying went that "If King's Landing hadn't been built, Rosby and Stokeworth would have made somebody build it". The two small castles, surrounded by the best fields in the crownlands, had always been both extremely vulnerable and extremely desirable to enemies. House Rosby and House Stokeworth had in fact gone extinct in the male line many times over: it used to be common practice of conquerors to slaughter the men and marry (to put in mildly) the women. The last time it happened when the Hoares took the castles and gave them to some of their minor vassals.
Since Aegon's Conquest, however, things had changed drastically. Instead of being stuck in the middle of nowhere (the nearest big seat was Duskendale, but the Darklyns had never been very zealous in protecting their southern neighbors) and passed from one feudal lord to another, Rosby and Stokeworth were now sworn to the Iron Throne directly and flourished in their trade with King's Landing. The Reach was a land of plenty, sure enough, but it took a long time to transport the Tyrells' goods to the capital, hence the much higher prices demanded for them. The grain and fruit from "the fertile sisters", however, was near at hand.
The current Lord Rosby, Fernan, a vivacious young man of seven-and-twenty, got married five years earlier to Lady Ella Broome, the late Lady Tully's youngest sister, formerly offered as a prospective bride for Jaehaerys. They were a happy and cheerful young couple, enjoyed visiting the capital, and had made friends with most of Alysanne's ladies-in-waiting, Alarra in particular.
Alarra was to go to Rosby three days after the approval of The Royal Penance, and now she could barely sleep in anticipation of it. Fernan and Ella's place would be a welcome change after the enormous hive that was the Red Keep. The village of Rosby was bustling thanks to the crowds of tradesmen and farmers that came and went, but the castle was small and quiet: Fernan and Ella didn't want to expand it and destroy the fields and orchards that started literally right beyond the walls.
The Sunflowers were going with her – well, not entirely with her, they would be just following her retinue. Now that Hugh was in prison, waiting for the next caravan that would leave for the North, Alysanne, to Alarra's delight, strongly suggested the Sunflowers to merge with the now-leaderless Little Dragons and stay in King's Landing.
"They don't have a playwright anymore, but they do have a lot of excellent sets, costumes and machinery," she told Myribeth.
"Your Grace!" Myribeth exclaimed. "I am thankful for your generous offer, Your Grace, but – but – we are not used to staying at the same place for long... I fear we might lose money..."
"Even with Hugh to lead them, the Little Dragons were making money," Alysanne pointed out. "I think that under your leadership, they can do even better. You got your troupe through the winter and the Shivers, after all... With the coin you'll get from the Penance's staging, you'll have ample time to get used to the Dragons and figure out how to work with them."
"Er... Your Grace... Hugh was old, he had probably trained a successor."
"That he did," Alysanne said with rare venom in her voice. "His successor Gryll has the same attitude towards women. He has already slept with a few hopeful girls – whenever Hugh was feeling too ill or too tired to perform. He'll now be scrubbing the decks of a ship... If left to its own devices, the troupe will likely collapse in quarrels. But if they merge with the Sunflowers, you will be already in the position to manage them."
"Um..." Myribeth's brows furrowed.
It was clear to Alarra that the prospect was very tempting for her. Staying in the capital city and never venturing further than Rosby and Stokeworth sounded far better than taking to the road once more. Even though in Alarra's presence, the mummers tried not to reveal too much about their troubles, she could see that they were very worried about their future.
"If it pleases Your Grace, I would like to try," Myribeth finally said. "I... But I might still fail, I've never had to answer for a troupe that big..."
"There will be no punishment if you fail," Alysanne assured her.
At these words, Myribeth still looked highly doubtful. However, the thought of settling in King's Landing ultimately proved irresistible, and she nodded, straightening her shoulders:
"I will try, Your Grace."
Rosby would be the last trip the Sunflowers would make more or less in their old shape: after that, they would unite with the Dragons. However, Ellara, still a nervous wreck after her ordeal, started shaking uncontrollably whenever she stepped onstage. For once, Myribeth never scolded her, but rather, after a couple of rehearsals, sighed and said:
"Oh well. Ellara, you will only play the lute. You can manage that, right?"
Melara was given the Maiden's part instead (although sometimes, Alarra secretly wished she could play it again – the thrill of actually being among the mummers was something she missed, though she also did remember how frightened and unsure of herself she was), and Brennan was to play the Crone in her place, imitating a croaking elderly voice. Myribeth was yelling at him twice more frequently than usual, probably letting go of her anger at Hugh, and Alarra thought it was a miracle he never dropped the lamp from all the shudders he got from her shouting.
Anyway, despite all the problems, The Royal Penance got rehearsed with the revised cast, and tomorrow – Alarra smiled happily, tossing and turning in the bed in her excitement – they would all go to Rosby, and the play will be shown there. The Ladies Fair and the Seven Rays were still performing in King's Landing, but a week later they would go their separate ways, and the remainder of the Little Dragons, with Hugh and Gryll thrown out, were nevertheless continuing with The Brave Queen likewise (luckily for the show, Hugh didn't act any part in it and Gryll was only playing an easily-replaced mage of Asshai, and the female half of the cast played even better now, looking in considerably better spirits).
Alarra could only fall asleep shortly before dawn, and it seemed to her that hardly a minute had passed when Alysanne woke her up. (For all that there were dozens of ladies-in-waiting and servants at court, Alarra appreciated it that Alysanne always tried to spend every moment she could afford with her children, even doing the duties she could have easily passed to someone else).
"Time to get up, darling," she said, opening the window and letting the fresh morning air into the room.
For a split second, Alarra wanted to tell her that the sun was barely rising and wrap herself into a blanket again, until her brain caught up with what day it was. Rosby! Going to Rosby at last! She practically jumped out of the bed.
"There won't be too many people going with you," said Alysanne as Alarra hurriedly got dressed. She and Alaric had insisted on handling the preparations for the trip themselves. "Lady Mara will be your companion, and you'll have Ser Joffrey with thirty men."
Alarra appreciated the choice: Mara Manderly, a dreamy, quiet nineteen-year-old, was among the least demanding and least exuberant of the ladies of the court.
As for the guards, for the short trip to Rosby thirty men, led by Ser Joffrey Doggett of the Kingsguard, were more than enough. Alarra didn't think that even the most deranged robber would be foolish enough to attack her in the vicinity of King's Landing, less than an hour of Silverwing's flying time away from the Dragonpit.
Father, Aemon, and the entire retinue were already waiting at the gates of the Red Keep, and Alarra felt ashamed: even Aemon got up earlier than she did to see her off, and she had been so exhausted after the last days she was still groggy.
"Godspeed, sweet sister," Aemon said before breaking into a yawn, and she bit back a smile: apparently, she wasn't the only one who hadn't entirely woken up yet.
From the way he, and Alysanne, and Father hugged her, one could have thought she was going for a year to Essos. She was a bit awkward with that and somewhat relieved when the goodbyes were finally over. Father helped her onto her horse (a pretty white mare she called Snowdrop), and Alarra happily spurred her on. As much as a part of her longed to slumber a little more, she didn't want to ride in the wheelhouse like Mara Manderly: she couldn't even remember the last time she rode beyond the city gates, and she was determined to make the most of it and not spend the entire trip confined within four walls again.
They watched Alarra's retinue (followed, at a respectable distance, by the Sunflowers' brightly-painted cart) make its way down the street. Alarra was riding Snowdrop, and Ser Joffrey Doggett was by her side on his large reddish-brown warhorse, so the two blots of white and red could be discerned even from afar.
When Alaric had just arrived at court, Ser Joffrey was among the Kingsguard knights he did not trust. A former leader of the Warrior's Sons, who knew whether he would be so vigilant in his protection of the old gods' followers? Truly, what had Jaehaerys been thinking when he appointed him to the white cloaks? Pardoning a recent enemy was one thing. Alaric could understand that, though in no way did he always approve. But letting him stay by your side all day long?
After Alysanne suggested Ser Joffrey would be the one to accompany Alarra to Rosby, Alaric decided to settle the matter once and for all. He summoned the knight and talked to him himself, asking him if he was fine with people of the Northern faith in his care.
"My lord, when I accepted a place in the Kingsguard, it wasn't to save my own skin," Ser Joffrey said, bowing his head. "It was due to the justice and mercy alike shown by King Jaehaerys, and because his reign was blessed by the High Septon."
"But King Jaehaerys is dead."
"I have done a lot over the years, but I have never given a vow I wasn't intending to honor, Lord Stark, I'd rather die than do that. I'm sworn not to Jaehaerys, but to the king that sits the Iron Throne... well, Queen Alysanne speaks for him while he is still young... so Her Grace has commanded me to protect your daughter, and I will do so with my life."
Ser Joffrey looked him straight in the eye. His look was fierce and proud, but Alaric could detect no dishonesty in it. He was still doubtful, though. There had been too much bad blood between the Targaryens and the Faith Militant.
"You must understand that it feels rather unusual to me, entrusting a girl who devotedly follows the old gods to someone who famously used to oppose any faith except that of the Seven."
"May I speak freely, my lord?" Ser Joffrey asked. His mouth curved into a shadow of a smile.
"You may," Alaric was ready for a speech on how abominable the old gods were and how hard it was to accept their followers' presence at court, but he didn't prepare himself for what the knight actually said:
"It all felt rather unusual to us, when the Queen who devotedly follows the new gods married someone who famously used to oppose any faith except that of the weirwood trees."
Alaric stared at him. The Kingsguard knights rarely said much to him beyond the ordinary respectful platitudes, all of them still clinging to the memory of Jaehaerys and preferring to treat him as a courtier rather than one of the royals (which, if one was completely honest, was the truth), and he hadn't yet had a chance to learn their opinions of his own self.
"I don't take Ice and chop people's heads off when they follow the Seven," he pointed out.
"We didn't know that for sure," Ser Joffrey replied. "We haven't had many northmen at court before your wedding to Her Grace," the gray-haired knight sighed. "Most of us here, south of the Neck, have lived through many changes, some of them exceptionally bad, and we are wary of new ones."
"I don't make any changes just for changes' sake, ser."
"That's what everyone says, Lord Stark. Yet Maegor killed thousands of my sworn brothers. Jaehaerys had the Faith Militant disbanded for good – well, thanks to him I was able to make peace with that, but the Warrior's Sons had been my whole life and world since I was twenty. When I heard that Her Grace will be marrying you..."
"You were afraid I might close the septs altogether and start planting godswoods all over the place," Alaric said dryly.
"Yes," said Ser Joffrey. "I am glad I was mistaken."
"I might have been a bit more militant, if I had planned to stay here for good," Alaric admitted. "But I hope to only stay around until King Aemon reaches his majority, and then Queen Alysanne and I shall go to Winterfell."
That thought warmed his heart, as always. He imagined his dear Winterfell, the mighty walls, the library, the crypts, and the hot springs. Alysanne, wrapped in a fur cloak, would walk around the castle and the streets of the winter town, and her cheeks would be red in the cold wind. They would go riding in the fields, and visit White Harbor with its bustling market and the greyish sea, and the Wall, where Alysanne would warm her dainty hands at the fires and listen to the black brothers' stories, and the Neck, with Greywater Watch and its dark, mossy walls which were in truth among the strongest castle walls Alaric had seen... Alysanne's laughter would ring in the halls of Winterfell, and she would sit by his side in the library when they read together.
"It looks like you lack neither bravery nor honesty, Ser Joffrey," he said aloud, tearing himself away with difficulty from the sweet visions of the future. "I pray I'm not mistaken in you. Do protect Lady Alarra."
"I will, Lord Stark," Ser Joffrey bowed, his voice earnest and respectful, and Alaric felt that from now on, he had at least one ally among the white cloaks.
Lord Rogar and his men had long departed for Dorne, Alarra had left for her well-earned break in Rosby, The Royal Penance's versions were being performed in various streets of the city (judging by the fact that no mummer had yet shown up to complain, disheartened and covered in egg yolk, they were at least moderately successful), and Heloise and Ermesande Baratheon were gradually getting their interest in life back under the tutelage of Septa Lyra, who regularly took them to care for the children at the city's orphanage.
That meant that there was some time to develop the laws against those like Hugh of the Little Dragons.
"Like with the so-called lord's right, these are laws waiting to be made," Alysanne told the small council when she gathered them for that purpose.
"But how can we check if they are obeyed?" Florence Fossoway asked. "At least with the first night, it can be seen whether the bride slept with her own husband, but we can't watch everybody all the time."
"There's no choice except for me to go on progresses and hold women's courts, as always. That way I can watch – if not every single person in the kingdoms, then at least the tendencies among people."
"We're counting on slimeballs like Hugh being too cowardly to defy a written law," Alaric added.
"Won't such a law also count against whores?" asked Grand Maester Elysar. "'Sleeping with someone for a fee' is what a whore does. Your Grace, you are well-loved, but I won't advise you to start a war on brothels. This would test the people's love for you far too seriously."
"Besides," said Septon Barth, "there are girls who willingly sleep with men who offer them a job. What about them?"
"These laws will make sure they don't only do this because the men offer them a job," Alysanne said firmly.
"The decision might not be popular, Your Grace," Manfryd Redwyne argued. "Many girls from the smallfolk had found work this way."
"Is it supposed to be a good thing?" Alysanne stood up. She had half a mind to ban Redwyne from the council meetings unless anything related to ships and shipbuilding was being discussed. "Girls – and lads, for that matter, because I have a suspicion lads are being exploited this way as well – should get work based on what they actually can and can't do. With brothels..." she pondered for a while. There were girls, she knew from her women's courts' sessions, who deliberately went to serve at brothels, preferring to sell their beauty rather than mar it by hard work elsewhere. For all her dislike of such establishments, she saw that one couldn't disregard them. "With brothels, at least, it's clear from the start what the work involves."
"What punishment should there be for those who break the new law, Your Grace?" asked Rodrik Arryn. "For rape, we have gelding, or the Wall, or both, but with this... I mean, I'm not making any excuses, but people treat it far more lightly than outright attacks. We've only landed Hugh in prison because he was deceiving the girls and because of that poor thing who killed herself, and even he isn't going to the Wall."
"Because with his health, the Wall would be a near-instant death sentence," Alaric said. "I don't see why the younger men shouldn't be forced to take the black."
"Alaric, Lord Arryn, regrettably, has a point," Alysanne told him. "First, forcing others to sleep with you in order to give them work is far more widespread than obvious, at-knifepoint rape. The Night's Watch needs men, but it might just get too many that it won't be able to support. And second, like I said, I fear that the situation isn't limited to men as criminals and girls as victims."
"The guilty women might join the septry or the silent sisters," Septon Barth offered.
"But there's a huge difference between fending for yourself in the almost-ever-frozen far North and getting several years of all-paid education in the warm and sunny Oldtown, after which you are going to be a respected figure! Women usually go to prison or exile or face execution for the crimes that might earn the Wall for men."
"Besides," Alaric added, "the Wall's for everyone, but Oldtown is only for those who keep the new gods. What are we going to do with Northern women who commit that crime? Many people in the North would rather die than change their faith, and I think death in this case would be a bit excessive."
"I suggest exile," said Rodrik Arryn. "The richer the criminal, the further the exile. I assure you, for a peasant from Sweetsister it's already a stress when he goes to Gulltown on business, and a permanent move would be extremely frightening."
"Maybe demotion to a lower and dirtier job too, if there were many victims," said Septon Barth. "The way we'll deal with Hugh."
"Agreed," said Alysanne. "Ofttimes, humiliation is an even worse nightmare than the prison or the Wall. The Night's Watch is, after all, respected and legendary and everything, and where's the honor in scrubbing the floors of stables?"
She dictated the first part of the new law to Grand Maester Elysar. Any man or woman who coerces others into carnal relations in exchange for work offers, unless said offer is for working at a brothel, Alysanne added that particular bit very reluctantly, is guilty of bringing dishonor to people and shall be repaid in kind.
She detailed the distance of the resulting exile and added that, if two or more victims were discovered, the perpetrator should be given a lowly job of cleaning the streets or stables or a ship.
"The trouble now is how to avoid slander," said the Grand Maester. "At first, I'm sure, we'll only get the genuine characters, but then many people would figure out it's a lovely way to send someone you don't like into an exile."
"The accusers should bring the case before their lord," Alysanne said sadly. "Unless there are definite proofs – like, letters, or witnesses who saw the offer being made – the lord or lady of the land should be the judge of who is truthful."
"And rarely can the guilty party reveal themselves as utterly as Hugh did," Septon Barth murmured.
Alysanne didn't reply. She knew he was right, but though she thought hard of any solution to the problem of possible slander, she couldn't find any way besides trusting in the lords and ladies' perceptiveness.
Well, let's hope the existence of the law would at least make things more difficult for scumbags like Hugh and Gryll.