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PART FIVE
Names
... ... ...
The table at which the Small Council met in the Tower of the Hand was made from a single, solid slab of mahogany and so thoroughly polished that the grain of the wood was almost completely smoothed away. Visaera fully believed she would remember the texture for the rest of her days, no matter how hard she might try to forget it. The sensation was very possibly etched into her fingertips where she had been subtly and repeatedly tracing the same tiny piece of the peerless surface for the past five minutes.
When the Page came bearing a summons to the chamber, she had known there could only be one reason for it. Being correct in this certainty was, in a sense, a comfort - if only in that it meant there was nothing unexpected being thrown at her just yet.
"...this council has concluded—" Tywin Lannister announced from the head of the table, "—with the approval of His Grace, the King, that the festivities in celebration of the Prince's approaching nameday provide us with an optimal opportunity to further negotiations with the most prominent of the potential marriage prospects selected for you."
Visaera remained still and poised in her chair, her expression one of expertly composed calm.
"An economical conclusion to be sure," she agreed in subdued praise.
She had hoped she might be given a bit more time to figure out how to delay the pressure for marriage, though ideally she would find a way to put it off altogether. Doubtless Tywin, if not the king he served, suspected as such. Well, the accelerated timeline simply meant she would have to double her efforts toward finding a solution.
Quite deliberately she paused before posing her inquiry, lowering her eyes demurely to where her hands lay folded upon the gleaming dark wood, the topmost concealing where the other smoothed yet back and forth.
"Might I be allowed to hear the names of these prospects?"
"Certainly," Tywin answered, completely toneless as he proceeded to list them. "William Dustin, Kyle Royce, Harmon Yarwyck…"
Rapidly Visaera's mind worked, running over what she knew of the names proffered.
Dustin was vassel of House Stark up in the North. Royce - likewise a vassel, and a prominent one, of House Arryn of the Vale. Yarwyck...a far lesser vassel based somewhere near Silverhill, if she remembered correctly. In service to House Lannister. All three would see her well away from King's Landing certainly, but also from the Stormlands and any seat of potential power or influence she might have retained there. She had expected as much. But she had also expected much worse than isolation in one of three potential landlocked places.
One of them served a direct benefit to Tywin himself, while simultaneously ensuring that she was well within reach should her death become more beneficial than her life, but she doubted Aerys would agree to it. Her cousin was many unpleasant things, but his madness had not yet burned away the entirety of his cleverness. He would know better than to trust the Lannister lord with too much.
"...and Victarion Greyjoy."
The unseen motion of her fingertips ceased, her stomach curdling like so much sour milk.
Both of her homes had been coastal ones, regularly plagued by raiders and pirates from Myr across the sea, Tyrosh and the Stepstones to the southeast. Every raid brought with it damage and horror aplenty, but never more so than during the rare assaults from the Iron Islands.
The Ironborn were not simply pirates. They were a people whose entire way of life was based solely in the pillage and rape of other lands. She had fought during their last attempted invasion of Griffin's Roost. She had killed some of their men with her own hands, bled to defend the Breakwater Stair - still carried the unseemly scars.
And they wanted to give her to a fucking Greyjoy.
It was an insult, and it was intended that way. It was also a threat, and one far worse than the simple someday hint of a knife in the dark from Yarwyck.
Every single man in this room was well aware that the Islanders' treatment of women was better only compared to their treatment of outsiders, let alone outsiders that had spilled kraken blood. They might not be aware of that particular piece of the equation. In fact, she doubted it. But there was no doubt in her mind that they knew, on some level, that she would suffer far more in Pyke than she would anywhere else. Were she to reach it alive.
Not that any single of them would have owned up to it were she to call them out. Miserable, spiteful fucking cowards that they were.
The message was clear as glass. She would obey, she would walk the lines drawn for her, or they would hand her over to a short and agonizing future.
"All suitable lords or sons thereof," Tywin remarked, yet while his tone was mild to the point of boredom, and while she knew she would find no outward display of malice in his thin face or his pale, piercing eyes, she knew it to be there all the same.
She could feel the weight of the eyes boring into her - almost as though in anticipation of her response. Whether eagerly or in trepidation depended entirely upon the lord, not that she cared overmuch. She wasn't about to grant them the satisfaction of any strong reaction.
Lifting her head, she redirected her stare to the tapestry hung upon the wall she faced. Her eyes slid over the man seated directly across from her, taking in the rich brocade of his robes and hairless head at a glance before settling upon the intricate stitches depicting some great historic battle in painstaking detail.
If any of those present knew the exact parameters of her history with the Iron Islanders it would be him, but the Master of Whisperers didn't appear to have shared. She couldn't have said why she believed this besides having a general sense of it. Whatever real conviction she might have was murky at best. She was even less clear about his possible motives for keeping it silent rather than use it in service of his king. Unless he thought to utilize it at some later point.
"It will be expected that you spend no less than one day or evening with each prospect, dependant upon their arrival. We ask that you be prepared to do so."
For the space of a few seconds, she quite dearly wanted to rise from her seat, circle the table, and break the regal nose over which he looked down on her.
At least they were not insisting upon framing this as anything other than what it was by pretending this prescribed time was to aid her in assisting in the end selection. It was an auction; designed solely for her…suitors to examine and measure her against their needs, desires, and whatever promises stood to be exchanged. As if she were so much horseflesh. Though masking it with the surrounding celebrations was certainly much more subtle than the usual methods of selling a noblewoman to her new lord and master.
Visaera supposed she was meant to be grateful for this.
Returning her gaze to Tywin, she offered a smile of immaculate obeisance. "Of course My Lord Hand," she said sweetly, "I serve at my King's pleasure."
One of the men to her left shifted subtly, as though disturbed by the ease of her acceptance. Annoyance flared, hot and acrid in her belly in response. As if she could do aught else but sit there and take whatever was meted out to her.
"Is there anything further I should know?"
Pausing momentarily, Tywin regarded her, the long fingers of his left hand tapping at the scrolling designs carved into the arm of his chair. "Not as of this moment," was his terse reply, adding, almost as an afterthought: "My Lady."
Neither she nor any of the others present failed to notice the emphasis to the title, the barest slant of scorn, or interpret exactly what it meant.
Bastard. Unworthy.
Whatever her parentage, by order of their king she had been decreed a lady and was therefore owed a certain level of respect, even if only in surface approximation or appearance. But whatever his liege might say, the Hand of the King viewed her as no lady and made little pretense about it. Something he had would certainly have made plain in front of these most powerful men in the realm before today. Choosing to do so again with her there was a gesture of spite. Or else an attempt to bait her.
Keeping her countenance blankly pleasant, she rose from her seat, the room filled with the scrapes of heavy chairs sliding across stone as the men rose politely in echo.
One courtesy at least they would deign to give her.
"Good day then, My Lords."
Only once the door to the chamber had shut securely behind her did she lean heavily against the nearest wall. She closed her eyes tightly and breathed, willing the cold rough stone to ease the force of her temper else she either scream or tear her own hair out at the roots.
"My Lady...are you well?"
Blinking back the black spots from her self-imposed darkness, she turned to face Ser Barristan where he hovered behind her.
She could tell from the frown creasing his brow and the concern in his voice that this was the second or even third time he had addressed her. He had gone so far as to step away from his post outside the chamber door to where she stood, indicating that she must have appeared to do more by way of dramatic collapsing against the wall rather than simply leaning.
She remembered a passing, if derogatory, comment her half-brother Steffon had once made about the Kingsguard, calling them nursemaids rather than true guards. At the time she had been too young to hope to understand what might have spurred him to think it. Now - being older and having both witnessed and interacted with a few of them - she put it down to the products of either ignorance or jealousy. She would, however, concede that the Kingsguard she had thus far spoken to all appeared to be as concerned for the wellbeing as much as the safety of their charges, which she had not fully expected. Though not quite as unexpected as their showing it on her behalf.
Regardless of what Ser Arthur said, the rest of his order had neither directive nor obligation to her service. But she couldn't say she wasn't appreciative.
"I am, Ser Barristan," she assured the knight with a smile. "Merely overtired. I believe I shall return to my quarters to rest a while."
In spite of the moniker given to him for his feats in battle - Barristan the Bold - the man before her did not have the appearance one might have expected to match. His thinning brown hair was silvering at the temples. His face was careworn, from both time and weather, possessed of rather unremarkable features, making him neither handsome nor entirely unhandsome. Yet his answering smile - while mostly centered in his eyes - brought out something kind and almost fond.
She was no longer the little girl she had once been, eager to find some manner of fatherly figure in every man who spoke to her, but she imagined that girl would have been quick to see this soft-spoken older gentleman as such. To her knowledge he had never been in the same room with her mother, but childish daydreaming might have interpreted his slaying of the man that had abused Rhaelle as some manner of romantic justice. It would have made a pretty song, she thought, for all it was complete fabrication.
"Very good, My Lady."
Stoically inclining his head to her, Ser Barristan returned to his post.
While she promptly quit the Tower of the Hand, Visaera did not retreat immediately to her rooms, choosing instead to take the long route to the Holdfast via the winding, nigh endless southeast staircase.
The palace was built for summers with all its terraces and walks between structures open to the air and the sea breeze, the gardens intended for leisurely strolls and observation of the impressive array of flowering plants. Were one to look out over the expanse of the city, the red tile of the roofs seemed to collect even the faintest threads of sunlight to glow earthy terracotta red. It was far less comfortable in cooler weather, but Visaera didn't mind the cold, and the trek down the Serpentine Steps was plenty warming.
Fully intending to spend the rest of the day cloistered away in privacy, she detoured into the royal family's private library to gather a few books with which to occupy herself - one of which being a copy of The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, for purposes of research, since it appeared she had need of it sooner than expected.
She had the much more entertaining The Edge of the World propped open in her left hand as she exited the chamber, perusing the first few paragraphs. It wasn't exactly the wisest of choices to meander about with her nose buried in a book. And, sure enough, no sooner had she rounded the corner she found herself colliding headlong with something solid and distinctly metallic.
She staggered backward, legs tangling in the heavy fall of her skirts. Her stomach lurched, and she threw out an arm to grope for the wall, gasping a curse.
"Fucking hell—"
A hand caught her just above the elbow, holding fast to steady her. Long fingers splayed wide, gloved in soft leather.
Her chin jerked, dragging her eyes with it. She recognized the armor; the intricate etching in the white gold metal of the vambrace, the diamond scale shape of the mail layered over the heavy white sleeve of the gambeson. Identical to the uniform worn by every other Kingsguard, including the one she had spoken to not thirty minutes past. She could not have said why - something about his grip perhaps, or the way her skin prickled with awareness beneath it - and yet somehow she knew it to belong to Ser Arthur before she saw his face.
He wore an expression of mild surprise, evidently as startled by the collision as she herself had been. Though obviously not quite so physically. She suddenly remembered her decidedly less than polite outburst, and had to fight to suppress her cringe. If there was a man who could make one regret uncouth behavior, it was this one.
"Apologies," she blurted, flustered, "I was not watching where I walked. Obviously."
He held her securely while she regained her feet and settled the books securely in the crook of her other arm.
"Nor was I," he admitted with no small amount of chagrin.
He seemed weary, almost drawn, his eyes not quite as brilliant as they usually were. Had he been on guard all night? Probability said it was likely.
"May I escort you to…"
The words trailed off, clearly intending for her to conclude the statement, which she did more automatically than by conscious choice.
"Only my rooms," she explained. "But are you not needed elsewhere?"
It wasn't meant as a deterrent, and she hoped he didn't interpret it as such. Much to her own surprise, Visaera realized that she wouldn't have been resentful of the company before locking herself away. Judging by his trajectory, however, he had been heading in the opposite direction from herself, probably on his way back to White Sword Tower. If he had been standing watch all night, surely he wanted to retire until his next shift?
"Not just now."
Moving to put her on his right, he made a gesture toward the corridor from which he had just come.
Unwilling to argue with him, and having no reason to refuse, she stepped out of the threshold and allowed him to walk with her.
It was plain immediately that he had not extended the offer as a guard to a charge, but as a nobleman to a lady. For one thing, he walked abreast with her rather than several paces behind. And for another, he did not maintain the silence customary to his order when on duty, surprising her by speaking once more.
"You fight very well."
The sidelong glance she cut him was sharp, instantly defensive. Perhaps needlessly, after all he had been not only accepting of her challenge to cross swords with him, but complimentary. Even so, he wouldn't be the first to turn nasty after - whether in the training yard or in battle - or to tell her that she was a lady and shouldn't be meddling in matters not her business.
Though he wouldn't have been the first to recognize her as an equal either.
"For a woman?" she inquired coolly.
At this, Arthur angled his head to return her glance. "For anyone," he corrected, far more bluntly than she had ever heard him before. There was reproach in it, in the look, enough for her to understand that she had just insulted him.
Of course she had. It had been an unwarranted swipe he had done nothing to deserve.
"Forgive my quick judgment, Ser," she offered, the apology at once sincere and subdued, "I am unaccustomed to not being measured against my sex."
His expression gentled. "I gathered as much, and you have valid reason to expect such a response. Still, I hope you can believe that I am sincere."
Visaera considered his words, and what had brought them here.
She hadn't planned on lingering when she had happened upon him sparring with Ser Lewyn; she had only meant to investigate the source of what had been odd sounds for sparring to her ear…but once there, she hadn't been able to drag herself away.
The use of two swords was not a common talent. It was much more practical, and far more manageable, to wield a dagger in the less dominant hand to aid in deflection and as a secondary striking weapon. One sword took plenty of skill to handle. Wielding two - doing so effectively - was not a matter of simply doubling that skill. It took considerable strength, immaculate control, whip-quick reflexes, and a constant, unwavering vigilance. Any man who could master such a thing paid for that mastery with blood and with sweat, and proved twice as deadly as any other.
Watching him had been like watching the Warrior's own acolyte - an artist working with forged steel and the power of his own body. She had found herself utterly enthralled. And perhaps the incredible display had lit a fire in her blood, for when she should have exercised caution and steered well clear, she had found herself doing the exact opposite.
Challenging him to begin with had been reckless. She understood that now as she had understood it in the moment, though she hadn't been able to bring herself to regret her decision. Visitors to the capitol would bring with them gossip, and gossip spread like so much rot across dampened bread. The truth of her inappropriate behavior would not stay silent forever, and she supposed she had decided she would have some control over at least part of the path of that gossip.
At first she had expected him to refuse her, either out of some noble concern for her feminine delicacy or the belief that he had better things to do than entertain the whim of some foolish girl. His acquiescence had honestly shocked her. As had his choice not to incapacitate her the instant he'd had the opening.
"You could have ended it almost immediately," she said when they came to the central stairwell leading up to the second floor, cocking a brow at him. "Or are you going to pretend otherwise?"
With a modest tilt of his chin, he admitted: "I could have, but it would have defeated the point."
He had a beautiful voice, she thought. Not as deep as some, but smooth, cultured, rich wine and silk with just the barest hint of pleasing gravel.
"What point is that?" she countered, curious.
"The same as yours, I'd imagine. I wanted to take your measure, learn how good you are."
Visaera shot him another glance, this one of surprise. Certainly she had used the opportunity to learn something about him, but it hadn't occurred to her that he might seek to do so in kind. That he might deem it worth his while to engage her even in spite of being the better fighter by a significant margin.
"As I said," he added then, "you are a formidable opponent. Had I not so much reach on you, or were I less experienced, you would have given me quite a fight. Combat comes naturally to you, and it's clear you have both solid instincts and a powerful will."
It was one thing for him to call her formidable in the throes of movement and adrenaline - one thing for her to believe it - another entirely to hear him repeat it now, with further articulation on what exactly made him think it. Had he been too complimentary, too flowery, she would have written it off as empty flattery.
Maybe it was flattery, in a sense, but it was in no way empty. And coming from him, from a man who fought with dual swords as though born with them in his hands...
"Perhaps a shade too powerful if you choose to stand firm when you should retreat."
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the teasing smile lift the corners of his mouth, softening the stoic lines of his face.
Well, she certainly couldn't argue with that.
She should not have let him get so close to her. It had been a spark of pride as much as animal instinct to block rather than run, and it had cost her the bout.
Ser Arthur was not as big a man as some of his order, lacking the bulk and barrel chest of Ser Oswell, for instance. But there was no contesting that he was built for power. It had taken all she had to block his swing and hold. Her hands still ached from it after three days, and he had not been giving his all. She had stood a better chance at a distance, but then she usually did, small as she was. Letting him pin her like that had been the crucial mistake.
"And what was your takeaway?"
She stilled just inside the open archway between one stairwell and the next, and something about the way he stopped in turn to stand alongside her brought a vivid recollection of that final, uneven clash of strength.
He had never been so close to her - close enough to see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, to catch the hint of lavender from his clothes' last washing mixed with the tang of metal, the heady scents of skin and sweat. The way he had used his body to trap her, forcing her to choose between a number of impossible choices, had been no different than had it been any other fight with any other man, and yet...she distinctly remembered experiencing the vivid certainty that something about it was different.
Visaera had been fighting since she was all of eight, but never in her life had she been so vividly aware of being a woman facing down a man. Not when it had been spat at her by opponent after opponent as a grievous insult. Not during all the instances when her comparative weakness was rubbed in her face, so many times at the edge of a very real blade. Not even the night when an enemy hissed promises to violate her in every way a woman could be into her ear.
Initially she had thought that perhaps this itself had been the difference. That her sex had not been used as some form of weapon against her. But it wasn't that - she had fought and sparred plenty of times before without being slandered or threatened. It was something else entirely. Something which she had neither the freedom nor the luxury to examine further.
Lifting her face to meet his eyes, she answered as honestly as she knew how. "That I should do what I can to avoid any situation where I would be forced to fight you in earnest."
She turned to the stairs, filling her unoccupied hand with her skirts and lifting the hem to free her feet. At no point had he offered to carry her books for her - seeming to know that she would have refused - and didn't now, but she thought she noticed him hanging back a pace while they ascended the winding stairs, prepared to catch her should she have need of the assistance.
She could have chosen to be insulted, but she wasn't. Simply because he was deferring to her as a lady in this moment, to the fact that skirts did, in fact, hinder her, did not suddenly eradicate his understanding that she was capable on her own. He was simply being courteous, as he had been raised to be.
They had reached the gallery overlooking the central courtyard within the upper levels of the Holdfast, which marked a separation between the royal apartments and the rest of the tower. Open to the sky, the courtyard itself overflowed with natural light, rendering the branches of candles lit along the gallery perimeter obsolete during the day. Slender, shallow-rooted trees and greenery had been planted; benches situated to create a pleasant place to sit on sunny days.
It was a natural place to leave her, should he feel inclined to, near enough to her own quarters to have fulfilled the offer of escort.
Evidently, he was not inclined.
"When His Grace asked for your sword, I did not realize he was being quite so literal," he admitted to her. "I thought he referred to bannermen, or something of the like."
Adjusting the books in her arm, which were just now beginning to tax her tired hands, she shook her head. "I have no house, and so no banners. Only myself."
The look he sent her was disbelieving.
"You have a house. One by blood, another by law and by the loyalty Lord Baratheon owes—"
"Robert would give me nothing but the back of his hand," she said tightly.
Right before I cut it from his arm.
It wasn't as if the bad blood between herself and her half-brother's house was some closely guarded secret. Even had she not been using hyperbole, it would not have been all that shocking of a revelation, and yet she felt him stiffen next to her - at several feet of distance and from beneath armor.
To some, such palpable disapproval might have seemed hypocrisy when he himself had struck at her with a weapon. Yet there was a vast difference between striking amidst agreed-upon contest and striking in anger. He knew it as well as she did.
Neither Robert nor his father had ever raised a hand to her - they had never been near enough to have the opportunity. If they had, there would have been precious little she could have done about it, whatever vicious recompense she would imagine. There was, however, no question in her mind that were her nephew ever to attempt it in front of the knight beside her, it would be his final act in this life. From that single silent reaction it was clear that Arthur took his oaths not only to the crown but to the code of chivalry very seriously.
"I command no one's loyalty," she added, smoothly steering the focus of the conversation away from the subject. "But I have plenty of my own to give."
He said nothing, not for several long moments. He simply walked with her along the length of the gallery, quiet, thoughtful.
"And this is where you choose to give it?"
It would have been a lie to say Visaera hadn't seen a question like this one coming. From the beginning, a confrontation had been inevitable, but she hadn't anticipated it looking quite like this. She had imagined something rigid and tense. She had not imagined him speaking so gently, or with such simple curiosity rather than accusation, and she had not imagined being so tired of wearing faces not her own.
"It is, yes. However unlikely that might seem."
And it probably did seem thus, from where he stood.
For her part, Visaera had far less doubt as to where his loyalties lay than she once had. She had witnessed the shared looks, the moments of silent conversation common only those very familiar and very comfortable with one another, smiles which implied private jokes, and glances from Arthur toward Rhaegar which reflected unspoken worry and great empathy. For this alone she would have been forever grateful to him; her cousin had great need of support he could rely on as his father grew more unpredictable. Yet it wasn't merely this which had swayed her opinion.
During what little she had seen of his interactions with the queen or the princesses, he was consistently gentle, respectful, and attentive. It was evident that he cared for them beyond mere duty, and equally evident that they felt safe in his presence, unafraid and at ease. Which, in a way, spoke more highly of him than did anything else.
In his position, her coming to King's Landing had been the equivalent of allowing a serpent into the beds of his charges - of the prince he viewed as his king more than the one to whom he was sworn. If not because she sought to do them harm directly, then because having her so close threatened to expose secrets as of yet maintained.
She held no grudge for this. He had been no more mistrustful of her than she had been of him. Whether he might once have considered using the knowledge he'd gained from her indiscretion to hurt her, it was plain to her that he possessed no such intention now. As was the case for her. She wasn't sure either of them was capable of completely trusting the other, but they both had far more pressing concerns than nursing any potential contention, and a mutual goal which would be better served were they allied than opposed.
Abruptly she stopped walking and turned to face him, causing her skirts to flare outward and brush the greaves affixed to his boots. He stopped half a second after she did, angling his body to mirror her as he had in the training yard. Meeting her, as he had then, on even ground.
She noted that rather than resting his left hand upon his sword hilt as he usually did, he stood with it lowered passively at his side, and not for a second did she imagine it to be anything less than intentional. A projection of harmlessness - making it plain that she was safe. With equal intent, she chose not to stare him down. She simply looked him in the eye, and spoke honestly.
"I make no pretense that my relationship to the crown is strained," she murmured, "but the family who choose to see me as such regardless of the reasons they have not to, are not the crown. Whether or not any of them proceed to do so in the future."
To all appearances they were alone in the gallery, yet there was no real guarantee of that, and so she spoke softly enough not to be overheard should there be some unseen mouse or bird lurking in the shadows.
"Think what you like of me, Ser Arthur. But if you can trust nothing else, trust that I would put a knife to every man in this gods-cursed city before I let anything happen to those children."
Tilting his head very slightly to one side, he regarded her steadily, the weight of his gaze so unlike that of the lords who played with and manipulated her future with the same thoughtless glee of a child dressing a doll.
"Forgive my saying so, My Lady," he remarked, voice pitched low to match hers, "but while you are accomplished at masking yourself as other than you are, you have shown me far too much for me to imagine you false."
She lifted her chin, unable (or perhaps unwilling) to tamp down the reflexive swell of pride. "Perhaps," she mused, airily, "or perhaps that's exactly what I want you to see."
Something in his eyes softened almost imperceptibly - at once contemplative and understanding in a way that defied her attempt to identify.
"How are your hands?"
Visaera blinked at him, not having expected such an abrupt change of subject. "I—what?"
"Your hands," he repeated patiently. "I struck you quite hard and you hardly faltered. I would be surprised if you weren't at least a little sore."
She didn't bother to stifle her snort of amusement. "Catching it was like trying to catch a bloody battering ram," she said flatly, less bothered by the cavalier language in this context.
Obviously suppressing a smile, he made a gesture with his own hand. "May I?"
She offered hers, palm up. His fingertips skimmed the back of it, the leather of his gauntlet butter soft to the touch. Gently he turned her hand over, searching for redness or swelling in the joints - of which he would find none.
The lingering soreness was in her muscle. That was how she had been taught: take the initial force to the flesh in order to preserve the joints by delaying a tightening grip by a fraction of a second. Though a bit illustrative, her description of his striking power had not been an exaggeration. She had felt the pangs of the impact all the way into her forearms the first day after.
"In your palms?" he asked, the pad of his middle finger grazing down the center of the palm to which he referred, eliciting a faint tingling in its wake.
Somewhat distracted by the sensation, she nodded silently.
"The maester of Starfall manufactures a balm that does wonders to ease such aches," he murmured, releasing her. "I'd be happy to have some brought to you, if you wish."
Half to give herself something to do, she rearranged her grip about the books in her arm, balancing them in both arms. "Thank you. It's kind of you to offer," she accepted with a gracious dip of her chin.
The sound of armored boots reached her ears, accented by the muted clink of mail.
"Arthur—"
The knight in front of her turned, allowing her view of Ser Jonothor Darry crossing the far side of the gallery toward the stairs from which they had come, beckoning for Arthur to follow.
"It appears you are needed elsewhere after all," she remarked.
"So it seems…" he replied upon a sigh, and once again she noticed the tiredness that he had been concealing so well. "My apologies for not seeing you all the way up, My Lady."
Craning her head, she looked about her in exaggerated examination of her surroundings. "I think we're near enough to say you fulfilled your duty as escort, Ser Arthur. Apologies seem rather silly, do they not?"
Humor flickered across his face the instant before he bowed. "Good day, My Lady."
They parted ways - he for the stairs, she along the rest of the gallery to her chambers.
Visaera read for some time, though the poor sleep she had gotten the night before caused her to drowse, and eventually drift off with a book lying open across her lap. A knock woke her sometime around noon, which preceded one of the maids assigned to her, who entered bearing a tray with a light lunch.
"What's this?" Visaera asked, picking up a small ceramic jar on one corner of the tray that didn't match the other dishes.
"Don't rightly know, M'lady," the maid answered as she bustled about straightening bedlinens and stoking the fire in the grate. "Found it outside your door., thought it must be something you were expecting."
Lifting the lid, sealed air-tight by layers of wood and cork, Visaera caught a strong whiff of peppermint and something loamy and earthy beneath. Looking inside she found it full of a smooth, pinkish paste. Something warm and delicate gave a soft flutter beneath her breastbone, which she ignored.
Smiling, she scooped up a tiny amount and began to rub it into her hands.
...
"Banefort?"
"Mm," Visaera hummed around a mouthful of cheese, shaking her head and swallowing quickly. "Loyal to Casterly Rock. Where Tywin goes, they go. And as Tywin would sooner carve out his own heart than risk losing even some of the power he has now..."
With a bemused laugh, Rhaegar finished for her. "A no, then."
The prince made a small mark upon the sheet of parchment unfurled beside the book lying open before him.
Arthur had noticed this selfsame book among those Visaera had been carrying from the library two days back - a catalogue of the noble houses of the kingdoms, from lesser to greater. At the time he had been preoccupied with other things, but he realized now she had been conducting research for this exact purpose.
Rhaegar had compiled a rough list of houses that he both hoped and felt reasonably confident would support him. But the prince would have been the first to admit that his knowledge of the kingdoms he sought to rule came primarily from book-learning and hearsay. While Visaera had spent most of her life isolated upon the coast, those with whom she stayed did a great deal of traveling, giving her access to a good deal of more current information upon which to base the manner of decisions that must be made before anything else could be done. Her input was invaluable. Arthur knew it as well as his prince did.
Sorting through every house would be a labor of days. Days that must be scattered across weeks, for if it were noticed that the two of them were spending inordinate amounts of time together, it would inevitably lead to dangerous whispers and attention neither could afford.
But however high the risk, it must be done. They would need every name they could muster from a list already uncomfortably near to split even down the middle.
Even had Arthur not already been committed to remaining inside with them during these meetings for reasons of contribution as asked and to more easily warn of approaching intrusion, he would have now for different reasons entirely. In spite of his friendship with Rhaegar, the king still viewed him with a high degree of trust. His presence within the prince's chambers allowed him to serve as chaperone, should it be needed. It allowed him to better protect them both, which was more than enough to outweigh his current discomfort.
Discomfort which had nothing to do with the business of amassing names to involve in a coup.
Rhaegar's fingers skimmed the edge of the page, turning it to reveal the next name. "Baratheon," he read and glanced up at Visaera, brow raised.
Arthur followed the prince's gaze to where the lady sat on the other side of the desk. She was slouched in the chair, perusing a plate of meat pasty, cheese, and sliced wintergreen pears. Wisely, Rhaegaer had ordered food brought up before she had even arrived, suspecting it would be needed. It had gone mostly untouched up until now, yet considering they had been at it for over an hour and had only barely dipped into the second section of the alphabet, the sustenance had, indeed, been necessary.
"Yes," she said after a moment of consideration. "Robert chafes under service in any capacity. Offer him more time every year to spend at home hunting and he'll give whatever you ask."
Rhaegar made a note on his parchment, longer than a simple tally, no doubt keeping record of this suggestion for future use. He used some form of code - one known only to himself - so that it would seem to be some menial form of gibberish were it to be discovered. Though he would likely work to memorize as much of it as he could and burn the parchment to avoid it being found in the first place.
Visaera sat back in her chair, picking at the pasty cupped in her hand.
From his post across the room, Arthur watched her - perhaps more closely than he ought to.
When he had walked with her up from the library two days back, he'd had the passing thought that she was the perfect union of the Conqueror's sister-wives. At once as gracefully beautiful as legend deemed Rhaenys and as equally comfortable in either silks or fighting leathers as Visenya was said to have been, encompassing both the ferocity and softness inherent to women. A comparison which seemed all the more fitting now.
It had been near to a week now, yet he found he could not keep his mind from wandering back to the training yard. The way she had moved, at once predatory and sinuous…he couldn't get it out of his head. Nor the graze of her thigh, the spark of challenge in the blue of her eyes, the way the brush of her hand against his had made every nerve that touched her burn.
Nor had he been able to forget what she had told him in the upper gallery, quiet, but firm beyond argument.
She had as good as declared fealty to Rhaegar in front of him. In fact, he had little doubts that she would have outright had they been somewhere secure and well clear from potential eavesdroppers. Marking differentiation between the crown and the family might not have seemed a statement of loyalty to some, but he knew better - just as he knew that she had all but vowed to remain loyal even if this endeavor of theirs were met with failure.
"Trust that I would put a knife to every man in this gods-cursed city," she had said, "before I let anything happen to those children."
She had not bared her teeth to hiss it at him, nor had she lifted the imperious chin of a noblewoman who expected to be obeyed. She had not been fierce or challenging, had not delivered it as a threat. It had been stated simply. A fact, which he could either accept or refuse at his choosing.
He had admired the conviction she displayed. And he believed her.
"Blackfyre…"
"Unlikely to rise from the ashes of extinction," Visaera said with a grating, bone-dry gallows humor.
Rhaegar's grin was lopsided. "Or to follow a Targaryen," he added, drawing a line through the next note he made.
Visaera's derisive, indelicate snort was muffled by the pastry as she bit into it. Arthur smothered his smile.
She didn't appear all that fierce just now, either, rather casual to the point of childlike; nibbling at her food, one foot lifted to brace against the edge of her chair while the other was tucked up underneath her, the mossy green of her skirts bunched messily about her. Even still, he found himself entertaining thoughts of lifting the woolen wrap where it had fallen to gather at her elbows, to fold it back up over her shoulders and ensure she was warm.
It had been the same with the examination of her hand. While he had genuinely searched for signs of undue damage, he had primarily used it as an excuse to touch her. Something which he definitely should not have done.
He had caught a hint of mint from her when she had passed him to enter the room, and the distinctive, mossy scent from the flowers which gave the balm he had sent her its bolstered healing properties. That she had been using it should not have brought him quite the amount of pleasure that it did, but he allowed it on the basis that the gift had been in service to his mandate. It was part of his duty to see to the comfort of the royal family, after all. He was somewhat concerned at its presence, however. Were her hands still sore after so many days? Or was she using it to soothe some other hurt?
"Blackmont."
At this name, Rhaegar cast a glance toward him, and Arthur considered what he knew of the old Dornish family.
"A bit of a tumultuous history there," he said slowly, "but loyal to House Martell for the past ten generations."
A nod, and another note.
The back and forth continued onward. Some names were decided quickly, others requiring more laborious debate, such as with House Bolton.
"They're a northern house," Rhaegar noted, indicating something on the page with the end of his quill. "Sworn to the Starks."
"Only barely, from what I hear. Lord Bolton follows his own gain above his liege."
Lifting his eyes from the book, Rhaegar gave Visaera a solemn look. "Do you think enough incentive would sway him? We need every name…"
She contemplated, eyes narrowing as she stared into empty air, eventually shaking her head. "All I know is what I've been told, and I was told that the Bolton allegiances are nothing if not consistently fluid."
"I have to agree with the Lady, Your Grace," Arthur interjected. "I, too, have heard rather unsavory things, and I think it just as likely we end up with a knife in the back as an ally."
Visaera's eyes slid to him, resting upon his face for a handful of seconds before offering a nod of gratitude for the support. It wasn't why he had spoken, at least not directly. He would have been remiss not to make plain what knowledge he had where he had it, but she seemed pleased, her gaze soft and her lips subtly curving at the corners.
Maiden help him but she was lovely.
He watched the motion of her hands as she gathered her hair over one shoulder and began to plait it - quick, tight weaving movements, raking slender fingers through the strands to clear tangles as she worked.
She'd worn a single braid in the training yard, too. Not like this one, tighter, more intricate, more for fashion than to simply secure it out of the way. More than once in the days since he had caught himself in the fantasy of winding his hand into the unraveling base of that particular braid, of coaxing her head back to set his mouth to the soft skin of her throat, lips parted to taste her there. A fantasy as vivid as it was alarming.
None of it was completely alien to him. He had enjoyed the look and the mind of a woman before, had felt admiration for a woman's character or her deeds. He had experienced the tension and heat of lust eliciting a base need to resolve it. But he had never known all three at once for the same woman, not the way he suddenly did for her, and not quite so intensely.
He wasn't certain when exactly this descent into indecorum had begun. It might have been the moment she had struck out like a serpent to slice him for daring to turn his eyes from her. It might have been the moment she relented to discomfort for the sake of the joy of two royal children. It might have been as far back as the moment she had knelt before her mad, spiteful cousin, head bowed as if before an executioner's ax and unafraid to die. It hardly mattered now. Even if he hadn't been so thoroughly blindsighted, he wasn't confident that he could have stopped it.
It was obvious neither he nor Rhaegar had expected there to be much deliberation needed when it came to House Connington, and when Visaera paused, appearing troubled, they each stared - surprised.
"If it were Jon, I would say yes, but…"
Jon. That would be the Lord's only son and heir. It stood to reason that she believed she could count on his support, or that she could persuade him - they had practically been raised together. There was obviously some manner of bond there, and a close one if her casual use of his given name and the subtle inflection of fondness were anything to measure by. Clearly the younger griffin was more a brother to her than her brother by blood.
Weighing her words, Visaera explained: "Lord Connington is a traditionalist. I can't be sure that he wouldn't consider this the grossest form of treason—against the land and the gods as much as the crown."
Understanding entered the prince's pale eyes, evidently remembering some past encounter which gave extra credence to this depiction of the current Lord of Griffin's Roost. Which was interesting.
Generally, more traditionally-leaning lords would not be the sort to approve of young women learning how to wield a sword, yet here she was. Based on that alone Arthur might have thought Lord Connington might possess some amount of extra tenderness toward the girl foisted upon him some sixteen years or so ago. Unless he somehow didn't know?
"You are as much his daughter as you were a ward," Rhaegar said gently, after a moment of thought. "Do you have any influence with him?"
Turning her face to the window, Visaera looked out at the dark water of the bay below, calm as glass in today's temperate weather. She seemed to have an affinity for the water, which made a matter of sense considering most of her life had been spent within eyesight of the sea.
From what his sister had told him, she disliked being shut up inside as she had been here, and Arthur wondered whether at least being able to see the water brought her some kind of ease.
After a long, tense moment, Visaera finally spoke.
"I can't guarantee it, I'm sorry. But," she added, suddenly resolute, "I'll speak to Jon. Between the two of us we might be able to convince him."
She shifted to send Rhaegar a small, reassuring smile over her shoulder. Returning it, the prince lowered his head to make another note.
NOTES:
I wasn't expecting this chapter to give me as much trouble as it did. I'd had it in my head that the conversation between Arthur and Visaera in the first scene was going to be much more volatile and tense (I make reference to this directly in the narrative), but it simply didn't happen that way. And in all honesty, I'm glad. I never really wanted or planned for the contention between them to last very long, and - again, as I said in the narrative - they've got better things to do.
Like pining.
Visaera's taking her sweet time about it, but she'll get there.
I have done SO MUCH research for this fic it's not even funny, and barely any of it is visible. This chapter is one of the rare ones where it does. SO MANY NAMES - hence the chapter title - and so many locations and other fun stuff that took poring over the ASOIAF wiki. That said, I have taken a few liberties. For example, though in the show Yara (Asha) Greyjoy winds up on the other side of the continent, I'm assuming by sailing around south, in order to get to Essos, I don't know whether the Iron Islands ever sail around to do what they do best on the eastern coastal line of Westeros. I didn't find anything definitive, but it seems possible to the point of likely, considering their culture.
I am, truthfully, stunned at how much love this story is getting, especially for a character- and pairing/concept-fandom that is definitely niche and small. And I'm beyond grateful.
For now, I'll leave it there.
Until next time!