Chapter 5:
Author's Notes: Hi again. Question. Does the lack of reviews mean people think this story sucks? If that's true I don't mind stopping it. Like I said I don't mind criticism and if this story really isn't worth reading I won't throw a fit about it. So you can tell me, don't be shy or anything. Here's another chapter then and hopefully people will tell me what they think? Even if it's one word. R&R please…oh and flashbacks/memories are in italics.
The morning light broke through the tent, rousing Spencer from her sleep. She sat up and looked around forgetting for a minute where she was. Her mind let her know soon enough though. Every thought and action invaded her senses. She could almost feel the cold night air again. Shaking her head to rid herself of those memories she stood to prepare for her day. She had been with this camp for at least seven days now. They had scared her at first. They still did. Anything was better than what she had been running from though even these wild and fierce people. Stepping outside, she looked around and headed towards her first chore of the day. Her life was harder now but she was thankful her mother had never raised them to be ungrateful or spoilt. Thinking of her memory brought fresh tears but she did not let them drop. There was nothing she could do now except bide her time and hope that she would see them again one day. She began washing the linen, concentrating on her task so that her mind would not torment her again.
Spencer began to move back inside when she heard the voice but was stopped by the strange tone of the voice inside.
"I do not like it," a woman was saying. "You should be the Hand."
"Gods forbid," a man's voice replied lazily. "It's not an honor I'd want. There's far too much work involved."
Spencer stepped closer to the window that looked into the room. The voices carried onto the balcony.
"Don't you see the danger this puts us in?" the woman said. "Robert loves the man like a brother."
"Robert can barely stomach his brothers. Not that I blame him. Stannis would be enough to give anyone indigestion."
"Don't play the fool. Stannis and Renly are one thing and Arthur Carlin is quite another. Robert will listen to Carlin. Damn them both. I should have insisted that he name you, but I was certain Stark would refuse him."
"We ought to count ourselves fortunate," the man said. "The king might as easily have named one of his brothers, or Littlefinger, gods help us. Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones and I'll sleep more easily at night."
They were talking about her father, Spencer realised. She had been prepared to slip away quietly once she realised the conversation was not meant for her ears but once her father was mentioned she could not move. A few more feet and she might be able to see who they were.
"We will have to watch him carefully," the woman said.
"I would sooner watch you," the man said. He sounded bored. "Come back here."
"Do you think the king will require proof once Carlin whispers in his ear?" the woman said. "I tell you, he loves me not."
"And whose fault is that, sweet sister?" the man sighed. "You should think less about the future and more about the pleasures at hand."
"Stop that!" the woman said. Spencer heard the sudden slap of flesh on flesh, then the man's laughter.
"All this talk is getting very tiresome, sister," the man said. "Come here and be quiet."
Spencer looked into the window. She had to know who was plotting against her father. As soon as she could she would tell him of this and persuade him to return them to Winterfell. This place was no place for any Stark. Her mother had been right.
Inside the room, a man and a woman were wrestling. They were both naked. Spencer could not tell who they were. The man's back was to her, and his body screened the woman from view as he pushed her up against a wall. There were soft, sounds. Spencer realised they were kissing. She watched, wide-eyed and frightened, her breath tight in her throat as she strained not to make a sound. The man had a hand down between her legs, and he must have been hurting her there, because the woman started to moan, low in her throat.
"Stop it," she said, "stop it, stop it. Oh, please…" But her voice was low and weak, and she did not push him away. Her hands buried themselves in his hair, his tangled golden hair, and pulled his face down to her breast.
Spencer saw her face. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open, moaning. Her golden hair swung from side to side as her head moved back and forth, but still she recognised the queen. The man in front of her, Spencer shook with shock, looked just like her.
"Spencer."
"Father? What…what are you doing here?"
"Gather your belongings. I have already woken your sister. You need to leave."
"Why? And where will you be?"
"Spencer! No more questions. Just obey me and pack."
"Spencer is father going to be safe?"
"I do not know Kyla. He would not have urged us to leave unless something had gone terribly wrong."
"Where is he? He should have come now."
Wrapping an arm around her sister in comfort Spencer answered quietly, "He will come. We just have to be patient."
"It seems as though now that the king has died, the queen is after the Hand, Arthur Carlin."
"I still do not see why we should be looking for two little girls. What can they do?"
"They can escape and inform their brother. Once he knows of the queen's intentions, he shall surely try and stop her. If he fails then it will be war."
"At least we shall have the opportunity of seeing Carlin hang on the gallows."
Spencer raised her arm to stop the gasp she knew would come from Kyla's mouth. Her own eyes were wide with shock as she realised they danger and the treachery that was now in the city.
"Let us find another one. We have searched, drank and whored enough here. If we do not we could be punished for our lack of steel to find the Carlin girls."
"Not even their creatures have been seen. Nevertheless we should move on."
"Spencer please,"
"Kyla you have to. I promise I'll come to you as soon as I can. Someone needs to warn Glen and the rest of Winterfell. If they catch both of us then Father…" she hesitated, "Father would have died for nothing so you need to go."
"Promise me you will return to Winterfell. Promise me."
"I promise Kyla. Now go and be brave for me. I shall see you soon."
Spencer rubbed furiously at her temple willing the thoughts to vanish at least for an hour, instead of tormenting her as they usually did. She focused even more into her washing not realising that she was being watched, and willed the tears and frustration to leave her in peace.
Brown eyes surveyed the camp once more. The siege of Calos had not lasted as long as she had once thought. Her bloodriders had been quick and ruthless, as she had taught them, leaving no risks or traitorous thoughts in the minds of their prisoners. They would need to move soon. She still wanted the element of surprise to be with her before Robert heard of her coming. Her khal benefited from this. It gave them rest and time to heal while no one could alert anyone of their presence. Those cities she had conquered supplied her men and slaves strengthening her army each step. Soon she would cross the river to the Western cities and reclaim her throne.
"My lady," the handmaid whispered urgently, "your brother…"
Ashley looked down the length of the long roofless, hall and there he was, striding towards her. From the lurch in his step, she could tell at once that Nicholas had found his wine…and something that passed for courage. He was wearing his scarlet silks, soiled and travel-stained. His cloak and gloves were black velvet, faded from the sun. His boots were dry and cracked, his dark hair matted and tangled. A longsword swung from his belt in a leather scabbard. The Dothkari eyed his sword as he passed; Ashley heard curses and threats and angry mutterings rising all around her, like a tide. The music died away in a nervous stammering of drums. Ashley glanced anxiously up at the high bench. Khal Drogo was saying something to the other khals beside him. Khal Jommo grinned, and Khal Ogo began to guffaw loudly.
The sound of laughter made Nicholas lift his eyes. "Khal Drogo," he said thickly, his voice almost polite. "I'm here for the feast." He staggered away from Ser Jorah, making to join the three khals on the high bench.
Khal Drogo rose, spat out a dozen words in Dothkari, faster than Ashley could understand, and pointed. "Khal Drogo says your place is not on the high bench," Ser Jorah translated for her brother. "Khal Drogo says your place is there."
Nicholas glanced where the khal was pointing. At the back of the long hall, in a corner by the wall, deep in shadow so better men would not have to look on them, sat the lowest of the low; raw unblooded boys, old men with clouded eyes and stiff joints, the dim-witted and the maimed. Far from the meat and farther from honour. "That is no place for a king," her brother declared.
"Is place," Khal Drogo answered, in the Common Tongue that Ashley had taught him, "for Sorefoot King." He clapped his hands together. "A cart! Bring cart for Khal Rhaggat!"
Five thousand Dothraki began to laugh and shout. Ser Jorah shouted something in his ear but Ashley could not hear what he said through the noise. Her brother shouted back and the two men grappled until Mormont knocked Nicholas bodily to the floor.
Her brother drew his sword.
Ashley gave a wordless cry of terror. She knew what a drawn sword meant here, even if her brother did not.
Her voice made Nicholas turn his head, and he saw her for the first time. "There she is," he said smiling. He stalked forward toward her, slashing at the air as if to cut a path through a wall of enemies, though no one tried to bar his way.
"The blade…you must not," she begged him. "Please Nicholas. It is forbidden. Put down the sword and come share my cushions. There's drink, food…is it the dragon's eggs you want? You can have them, only throw away the sword."
"Do as she tells you, fool," Ser Jorah shouted, "before you get us all killed."
Nicholas laughed. "They can't kill us. They can't shed blood here in the sacred city…but I can." He laid the point of his sword between Ashley's breasts and slid it downward, over the curve of her belly. "I want what I came for," he told her. "I want the crown he promised me. He bought you, but he never paid for you. Tell him I want what I bargained for, or I'm taking you back. You and the eggs both. He can keep his bloody foal. I'll cut the bastard out and leave it for him." The sword point pushed through her silks and pricked at her navel. Nicholas was weeping, she saw; weeping and laughing, both at the same time, this man who had once been her brother.
Khal Drogo spoke a few brusque sentences in Dothraki, and she knew he had heard her quiet words. "What did he say?" the man who had been her brother asked her, flinching.
It had grown so silent in the hall that she could hear the bells in Khal Drogo's hair, chiming softly with each step he took. His bloodriders followed him, like three copper shadows. Ashley had gone cold all over. "He says you shall have a splendid golden crown that men shall tremble to behold."
Nicholas smiled and lowered his sword. That was the saddest thing, the thing that tore at her afterward…the way he smiled. "That was all I wanted," he said. "What was promised."
Khal Drogo unfastened his belt. He shouted a command, cook slaves pulled a heavy iron stew pot from the firepit, dumped the stew onto the ground, and returned the pot to the flames while his bloodriders leapt forward and restrained Nicholas. Even then he did not understand. He screamed his outrage and struggled against the Dothkari men. Drogo tossed in the pure gold belt, with ornaments as large as a man's hand, into the pot and watched without expression as the medallion turned red and began to lose their shape. Ashley could see fires dancing in the onyx of his eyes. A slave handed him a pair of thick horse hair mittens, and he pulled them on, never so much as looking at the man.
Nicholas began to scream the high, wordless scream of the coward facing death. He kicked and twisted, whimpered like a dog and wept like a child, but the Dothkari held him tight between them. Ser Jorah made his way to Ashley. "Turn away, my princess, I beg you."
"No." She folded her arms across the swell of her belly, protectively.
At last Nicholas looked at her. "Sister, please…Ashley, tell them…make them…sweet sister…"
When the gold was half-melted and starting to run, Drogo reached into the flames, snatched out the pot. "Crown!" he roared. "Here. A crown for a Cart King!" And upended the pot over the head of the man who had been her brother.
The sound of Nicholas Targaryen made when that hideous iron helmet covered his face was like nothing human. His feet hammered a frantic beat against the dirt floor, slowed, stopped. Thick globs of molten gold dripped down onto his chest setting the scarlet silk to smoldering…yet no drop of blood was spilled.
He was no dragon, Ashley thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon.
"The khal lives," Irri answered quietly…yet Ashley saw a darkness in her eyes when she said the words, and no sooner had she spoken then she rushed away to fetch water.
She turned to Doreah. "Tell me."
"I…I shall bring Ser Jorah," the Lysene girl said bowing her head and fleeing the tent,
Jhiqui would have run as well, but Ashley caught her by the wrist and held her captive. "What is it? I must know. Drogo…and my child." Why had she not remembered the child until now? "My son…Rhaego…where is he? I want him."
Her handmaid lowered her eyes. "The boy…he did not live Khaleesi" Her voice was a frightened whisper.
Ashley prayed and whispered and told him stories. Yet Drogo did not feel, or speak, or rise.
Inside the tent Ashley found a cushion, soft silk stuffed with feathers. She clutched it to her breasts as she walked back out to Drogo, to her sun-and-stars. If I look back I am lost. It hurt even to walk, and she wanted to sleep, to sleep and not dream.
She knelt, kissed Drogo on the lips, and pressed the cushion down across his face.
When the fire died at last and the ground became cool enough to walk, Ser Jorah Mormont found her amidst the ashes, surrounded by blackened logs and bits of glowing ember and the burnt bones of man and woman and stallion. She was naked, covered with soot, her clothes turned to ash, her beautiful hair all crisped away…yet she was unhurt.
The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin. When it saw Jorah, it raised its head and looked at him with eyes as red as coals.
Wordless the knight fell to his knees. The men of her khas came up behind him. Jhogo was the first to lay his arakh at her feet. "Blood of my blood," he murmured, pushing his face to the smoking earth. The others followed and soon the entire khal came before, ready to serve.
As Ashley Targaryen rose to her feet, her black hissed, pale smoke venting from its mouth and nostrils. The other two pulled away from her breasts and added their voices to the call, translucent wings unfolding and stirring the air, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.
Ashley drifted back into the presence as she continued to look out to her khal. Her gaze landed by the stream where a golden head was faced down. Her breath quickened. It cannot be. She turned, face emotionless to Ser Jorah. "I am heading further down the stream," she spoke as she stood from her seat. She signaled to her handmaids that their services were not needed as she walked away from the high bench. The closer she was to the girl, the more her heart beat quickened. She was glad she had left the dragons behind with Ser Jorah and Jhogo. Her tensed limbs would heighten their tension and scare the girl. She slowed as she approached the girl who seemed far away from there, her hands working methodically through the silks she was working on. The girl stopped suddenly as she felt a presence near her. She raised her head to view the person who had come to her. Ashley gazed into blue eyes for the first time outside of her dreams.
Okay so some scenes in this chapter were…uh..inappropriate? but that's how the books are written and I really don't want to deviate from the tone set in them because the characters lose a lot if I do that. Hope it hasn't put anyone off:)