Reviews make me write faster! - I use the quatermaester interactive game of thrones map when writing.
Renly Baratheon
Loras and I were breaking our fast with Edric Dayne when the door to my solar was opened and the guards announced Jon Snow. The Bastard of Winterfell entered and approached the table nervously, stopping before Loras even as his eyes kept darting to me.
He was sixteen name days and looked it, but I'd forgotten how pretty Kit Harrington was when cleanshaven. And how he'd been cast because Jon was often mocked by Robb and Theon for being the prettiest boy in the North.
"My Lord Renly, Ser Loras. Thank you for this opportunity, it's a great honour." Jon said, bowing nervously.
"Yes. It is." Loras answered coolly, looking down his nose at Jon, who managed to bristle at the implied insult while still looking uncertain at the same time.
"Loras, there's no need to be so cold just because you now have competition for the title of 'prettiest man south of Moat Cailin.'" I jested.
Loras made an insulting face at me before returning to his wine, but I kept my attention on Jon. This Jon hadn't had the benefit of Tyrion's counsel on the way to the Wall, nor the lessons he would have learned there before he officially joined. He was still the boy filled with pride, as prickly as Loras, and with a complete desperation to find somewhere to belong. Everything he had learned from the Imp and his friends at the Wall was something I now had to teach him myself; or arrange for him to learn.
"Tell me Jon; are your sisters jealous of those gorgeous curls of yours?" I flashed him my winning smile and was rewarded by his already noticeable embarrassment at the 'pretty' comment graduating to a full faced blush.
"I cannot say my lord, I have never asked." Jon mumbled in reply, his indignation forgotten.
"I certainly am, they never seem to end! It seems the gods have cursed me to be constantly surrounded by people with hair far nicer than my own." I reached out to trace my hand over Loras' curls, which thankfully seemed to stop the thunder that had been growing on the Knight of Flowers' face.
Loras smiled at me and finally gestured for Jon to join us, as everything had already been served by our pages before Jon arrived.
"So Jon, you're older than usual to begin squiring. What has your education been like so far? Unless I am misinformed I believe that Ned hasn't sent any of his children to out to foster or squire? Or accepted any at Winterfell apart from the Greyjoy boy? Highly unusual for a lord of his stature. But given what happened to his father, brother, and sister, and with his last brother at the Wall? Well, I can understand why he wanted to keep his family so close and simply rely on marriages to strengthen relations with the other houses when the time came."
Older than usual was putting it mildly. Westeros seemed to have a blurred line on coming of age, a combination of the books sixteen and the shows eighteen. Much like how in Britain at age sixteen you could legally have sex, smoke, vote in Scotland and Wales, marry with parental permission, and join the army. But you had to be seventeen to learn to drive, and eighteen to be allowed to drink, or to be able to act independently of your parents in medical, financial, and legal matters.
At sixteen Jon was technically of age already. Which is why he could have left and joined the Night's Watch without his father's permission and why Robb could rule the North without a regent. But they were still both considered boys in truth if not in name. Unless tragedy thrust them into the roles early, they wouldn't be trusted with true responsibility until they turned eighteen. Despite technically being of age.
This was why highborn went out to foster at twelve before returning once they came of age at sixteen. Or for the lower ranks of the highborn, left to become pages at ten, changing from page to squire at fourteen, and then were usually knighted in their late teens to early twenties.
It was a recognition of Loras' amazing blade skills that he'd earned his knighthood at the practically unheard-of age of sixteen.
Speaking of Loras, he was frowning. Obviously not understanding why I was going into such detail with a bastard who had three trueborn brothers.
Jon looked awkward as he answered. "No, my lord, he didn't foster or squire any of us. But all of his sons were taught the blade thoroughly by Ser Rodrik Cassel, Winterfell's master-at-arms. He says my brother Robb is very good and would soon be knighted if we followed the southern traditions. I…. beat Robb in the training yard more often than not."
"I'll be the judge of how good you are." Loras snapped, his voice as cold as one of the North's infamous summer snows at the mere insinuation that Jon was likely good enough to earn his knighthood only a year later than he had.
Jon just looked awkwardly at the table, pride in his abilities waring with shame in taking pleasure at being better at something than Robb, his father's heir. Catelyn Tully's years of deliberate emotional abuse had clearly been successful.
"Any lordly training?" I asked pleasantly
"No my lord!" Jon replied franticly, "I would never seek that! I would never seek to usurp Robb or my other brothers!
"Peace Jon." I said quickly, holding up my hand to calm the frantic teenager. I had not been expecting the strength of that reaction. Though given that Tyrion had managed to reduce him to near tears by poking at the same wounds, perhaps I should have. "I sought only to know if you have received any instruction beyond your numbers and letters."
Jon shook his head mutely.
"Very well. As for the usurping business, let me offer you a piece of counsel..."
"There is no need my lord. I promise I have no such thoughts!" Jon cut me off in his horror, which only served to darken Loras' expression again.
"Really? Then you're a better man than me. Loras; how often do I rant about how much better things would be if I was King rather than Robert?"
"At least once a week. More, if the fat oaf has done something particularly stupid."
I made sure to give Loras a warning look before continuing. Robert would almost certainly laugh at the insult, but Ned would be offended on his behalf.
"And my nephew, Edric Storm. Despite the love he bears me, how often do you believe he thinks that he should be the Lord of Storm's End not me? Given how rarely I am there, while he never leaves."
"At least once a month I imagine."
"And you? How often have you thought about ruling Highgarden and the Reach?"
"I've lost count."
"And we are both trueborn, and while Edric is a bastard, he has both my love and the love of the entire castle household. Jon here has far more reasons than us to think such things. After all, I'm sure Lady Stark was thrilled to have him under her roof and always treated him as if she were her own." My sarcasm was like a body blow to the young bastard.
"Stop it." Jon whispered, no longer looking at us in horror but instead looking down, hiding his face behind his hair. The guilt gnawed at me as I watched his tears dampen the table.
"My point Jon," I forged ahead, "is that all of us have terrible thoughts in our heads. Unjust, dishonourable thoughts. What matters is that we don't act on them. That's what makes Eddard Stark so remarkable, not that he doesn't have such thoughts, I assure you he does, but that he acts on so few of them. That is his true strength; that his will to resist is much more powerful than the rest of us, not that he is somehow immune to the terrible thoughts that lay in the hearts of all men."
"Truly?" Jon asked in a small voice, looking at me with red rimmed eyes.
"Truly." I said as comfortingly as possible, placing my hand on his back in support. "It doesn't matter what you think in the dead of night, or when your brother holds court, or when Lady Catelyn is especially cruel, or whenever the unjustness of the world suddenly feels like it might choke you. A man can think a hundred terrible things in his mind and never act on any of them. What you do makes you who you are. Nothing else."
A silence fell across the table for a while until Loras locked eyes with me, his expression neutral. It seemed that Jon's tears had melted some of his ice towards the Bastard of Winterfell.
I flicked my eyes towards the door and Loras nodded and stood, breaking Jon out of his brooding.
"Come on Snow. Let's see what these supposedly knight worthy blade skills of yours are actually like."
It was three days later when Loras stormed into my solar so quickly the door slammed into the wall and rebounded.
"That bastard is an arrogant bully with no idea how lucky he is." Loras seethed, pacing in front of me as Jon sullenly drifted in behind him.
I had no doubt that if Loras hadn't taken Jon as his squire as a favour to me he'd have dismissed him there and then. As it was, he was dumping the problem in my lap as this whole thing was my idea.
Given the ugly traits Jon Snow had had before his first few weeks at the Wall had cured him of them, I was only surprised that it had taken this long. Edric Dayne shyly pressed himself back against the wall, trying to appear invisible as Jon reddened at Ser Loras' words.
"A bully?! Jon exclaimed, choking on indignation. Clearly, he felt that charge the most unfair. "They are the ones that came after me; four of them!"
"Four of them that you humiliated in the yard." Ser Loras growled. "Against my very clear commands."
"They said I was stealing a trueborn's birth right squiring for you. I simply demanded they face me in the yard and showed them what I can do. They know I deserve it now." Jon shot back defiantly, crossing his arms and matching Ser Loras' angry stare.
"Of course they know what you can do! Loras exclaimed furiously. "They've seen you fight. They know it's not training with you, you're too good, loathe as I am to admit it. Put live steel in your hands instead of a practice blade and they'd all be dead meat. You knew it, I knew it, they knew it. But you just had to challenge them and prove it in front of the entire Baratheon household guard! You humiliated them in front of their brothers in arms and left them with out a single shred of pride. Which is exactly what I commanded you not to do!"
"They were bigger than me, older than me, stronger than me, and there were more of them." Jon retorted still taking a fierce pride in his actions.
"Tell me Jon." I interceded before Loras strangled him. That would have been difficult to explain to Ned. "The man who trained you, Ser Rodrik Cassel wasn't it? He taught you how to fight older, bigger, and stronger opponents, correct?"
Jon nodded angrily.
"And he taught you how to fight multiple men at once?"
Another angry nod.
"When did he start teaching you to do that?"
"On my sixth nameday." Jon answered proudly.
"Ser Loras, when do men-at-arms generally begin their training?"
"Their mid to late teens usually, when they approach adulthood and decide to make their own way in the world rather than work on their parents farms or learn a trade." Loras replied, his expression still thunderous, but trusting me to deal with things.
"So, the guardsmen had three or four years of instruction compared to over eleven for Jon then. And tell me again Ser Loras, do men-at-arms receive personal swordsmanship instruction from a knight?"
"Personal? No. they're usually taught in groups of ten, six at the smallest." Loras answered a vicious smirk growing as he saw what I was doing.
"So, the men you humiliated before their brothers had less training, and no personal attention from their master-at-arms. Of course you beat them Jon, I dare say young Edric over there could beat them. Does it bring you pleasure Jon Snow? Beating and humiliating men so much weaker than you that they might as well be unarmed peasants? Should I have arranged for you to squire with Gregor Clegane instead of Ser Loras?"
The defiance and anger had slowly drained out of Jon as I spoke, to be replaced by shame and guilt. "I….I didn't think."
"Of course you didn't." I spoke harshly. "You know nothing Jon Snow, at least not of the world outside of Winterfell. Which is why Ser Loras gave you commands to stop you embarrassing yourself. Commands you ignored. You told everyone watching, you told my entire household guard, that you feel that Ser Loras is not fit to give you orders, and by extension, that I am not fit to give you orders either since I arranged for him to have that authority over you. Worse than the defiance itself was that you did it before men sworn to follow my every command. Now, when I give them a command they do not like, they're always going to have the memory of a bastard squire disobeying me, encouraging them to do the same. Because if a bastard can defy me why can't they?"
Now Jon was staring at his feet, utterly ashamed. At least he was recognising that he had made a huge mistake rather than continuing to live in denial. I turned to the still fuming Loras Tyrell, who somehow still managed to be beautiful even when furious.
"Tell me Ser Loras, what do you think would be an appropriate punishment?" Loras was not likely to forgive this easily. He had been humiliated by a bastard boy, who he had taken on despite the jeers, deliberately disobeying him in public. And if there was one sure-fire way to awaken the Knight of Flowers' famed temper, it was to strike at his pride.
"The boy's squire-ship is at an end." Loras said firmly as Jon's head shot up so he could plead with me to intercede. "Unless."
"Unless…." I prompted, holding Jon Snow's gaze and keeping my face blank.
"Unless Jon Snow informs Lord Stark of what has occurred, and Lord Stark personally apologises to me on his behalf and requests that I continue to have him as my squire."
As the absolute horror overcame Jon's features, I had to admit that I was surprised by the knowledge that Loras' anger had a cold spiteful rage form. As well as its usual hot burning fury form.
"I suggest you find your father tonight Jon. Take some time to rest first. We will discuss why the men attempted to provoke you and why you should have ignored it at a later date."
"It's because I'm a bastard; an evil, thieving, ambitious, sly…" The teachings of the Seven that Catelyn Tully was so devoted to came pouring out of the Bastard of Winterfell.
"It's because they're jealous of you." Jon was working himself up into a major meltdown and it wasn't clear whether it would be tears or his famous berserker rage at the end of it, so I cut him off.
"Jealous…..of me?" Jon Snow's stunned disbelief reverberated around the room.
"We will discuss it two days hence, when you have had a chance to recover. I will not continue to strike at an opponent when he has fallen."
Jon looked like he wanted to argue, but he had been put through an emotional wringer and had no mental strength left. And he still had to tell his father exactly how he had shamed myself and Ser Loras. He slunk out the door.
Hopefully he would be able to get at least a little rest before having to face Lord Stark this evening. Ned's reaction at Jon shaming one of the best knights in the realm, who had been convinced to grant him an opportunity that was unheard of without legitimization, was likely to be legendary. It would certainly be far more effective than anything I could come up with.
I hoped I was doing the right thing, waiting to explain the others jealousy. Jon had had at least a day to recover from each blow to the darker aspects of his personality at Castle Black, so I thought it best to give him a rest here as well before I went in for the final attack. I didn't want to blunt the effectiveness of the lessons by leaving him numb. Because if John Snow did not have the arrogance, bullying, and self-pitying tendencies burned out of him as he did at Castle Black, he would never survive what was coming. Or command people's respect.
Loras gestured to the door with his head, and Edric gratefully slipped away.
As soon as the door closed Loras pushed me against the wall and kissed me like a man possessed. For once I didn't feel guilty and I tangled my fingers in his beautiful curls as our tongues battled.
"What…brought…this…on..?" I managed to gasp out between kisses.
Loras stopped and looked down. Embarrassed. "I was sure you'd defend the bastard. Tell me to forget it. He's part of whatever battle plan you're putting together, and I didn't think you'd risk losing his favour. Or that of his father."
I placed our foreheads together and gazed into Loras' lively, intelligent, eyes.
"I will always defend you." I swore.
I was stunned how much I meant it. None of the people here were characters to me anymore. They were people; Loras Tyrell was a person, one I would burn the Seven Kingdoms down to protect.
There would be no Great Sept of Baelor for him. There would be no Dragonstone. Not as long as I was alive.
Arya was lucky that Ned had arranged her dancing lessons before he had to personally apologise to Loras for Jon's actions.
After the Hand of the King, the great commander of men, the hero of Robert's Rebellion, the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, had had to apologise to a man of nineteen name days that already had a very high opinion of himself and made no attempt to hide it… It was suffice to say Ned wasn't in an indulgent mood with any of his children.
It took relatively little effort to discover where the younger daughter of the Hand was receiving dancing lessons. Most people at court considered it a good development, that the Hand was finally being firm with his wild child and trying to make her more like their beautiful future queen.
If only they'd known what her dancing lessons actually involved.
Arya stopped her swordplay as soon as I entered the room with Edric.
"Lord Renly!" Arya chirped out happily before suddenly looking at the floor. It seemed that despite her good opinion of me for my verbal attacks on Joffrey and Cersei, she still expected me to berate her for unladylike behaviour.
"Ah so it seems the little wolf isn't satisfied with disarming our 'dear' Crown Prince! She's decided to learn how to disarm me as well Edric!" I commented winking as Arya slowly looked up in disbelief, her hero worship back in full force.
"Oww!" Arya yelped as her dancing master swatted her with his wooden training sword.
"That was not honourable Ser!" Edric blurted out, overcoming his shyness for once.
"Honour has no place in the water dance!" Syrio Forel exclaimed, striking at Edric who barely dodged the strike in time. I stood well back and raised my hands, briefly making eye contact and nodding with the Braavosi.
"Honour is for when you are dancing in the meadows with your dolls and your kittens." Syrio struck repeatedly at Edric, forcing him to dodge as best he could since he was unarmed and so couldn't block or strike back. But despite his best efforts several strikes still landed on my squires' arms and legs, even though Syrio was going very easy on him.
Arya, clearly still smarting from being dishonourably struck while her back was turned, attempted to do the same to Syrio as he turned his back to her to pursue Edric.
"If you try and be honourable when fighting happens, more trouble for you!" Syrio remarked, simply dodging or blocking all her strikes as he continued to land blows against a franticly dodging Edric.
"The girl is not here. Even when she knows Syrio is dancing, she turns her back to be with her friends. So, the girl is dead." Syrio threw his wooden sword to Edric who caught it and promptly moved in for the attack with Arya.
Syrio Forel moved like water, giving a perfect demonstration of where the Braavosi water dance got its name. Despite working in tandem, neither Arya nor Edric could land a hit.
Syrio span under Edric's slash and snatched the wooden training sword out of his hand.
"Dead." He said simply, holding the wooden blade against Edric's throat.
Arya lunged at him in a piercing attack, but Syrio simply flattened his back against Edric's side and Arya's sword plunged passed him.
Before she could withdraw it and re-establish a defence, his sword flashed out, leaving Edric's neck and suddenly appearing under Arya's chin. Resting against her throat.
"Very dead." Syrio said softly as Arya dropped her sword in defeat.
"You did well Arya." I said encouragingly. "Edric couldn't land a hit either and he's been squiring for two years already."
"Ha!" Syrio exclaimed "Learning the knights dance of the Westerosi, hacking and hammering. The water dance is swift and sudden, the hacking and hammering cannot cause you trouble if you are never there. Fast as a snake, swift as a deer, this is the water dance."
"Which only matters if you can pierce the knight." I retorted from my place against the wall. "If they're wearing full plate and helmet with mail across the joints, you'd have to get very lucky. They'd only have to get lucky once."
"Just so." Syrio bowed to me, his eyes never leaving my hands. "But the First Sword of Braavos, he is a lucky man."
I could believe it. This was the man that took out five fully ringmail and leather armoured Lannister guardsmen with nothing more than a wooden training sword. Before delaying Ser Meryn Trant of the Kingsguard with the same long enough for Arya to get away.
If he'd had a real Braavosi sword, I'd no doubt he'd have found a gap in Ser Meryn's full plate long before that overconfident toad would have ever managed to land a hit on him.
It was not lost on me that Syrio hadn't moved away from Arya, he was still hovering closely and could step between me and her before I'd even covered half the distance.
"And what," Syrio Forel said with a calmness that only fooled Arya and Edric, "is a high lord such as you doing here. I am wondering?"
"I came to see you." I answered casually, sure to keep my distance and remain non-threatening.
"I see you." Syrio intoned. I resisted shuddering as I remembered his lessons on the difference between looking and seeing. "You came not to see Syrio Florel, master of the water dance, you came to see the girl."
"I came to see both." I answered honestly.
"And what interest," Syrio asked, "does a Westerosi knight have in the water dance of Braavos?"
"I wanted to see if it was similar to the sand dance of Dorne." I shrugged. "If you fight anything like Oberyn Martell does, it promised to be a worthwhile stop."
"Ahh, the Red Viper of Dorne," Syrio smiled, relaxing marginally, "he does indeed dance well. I have seen him dance several times on his visits to the Free Cities, a true master of the sand dance."
"So they're similar?" I asked, noting that Syrio had captured Edric's attention especially.
"In some ways. They are both a dance, not the hammering march of the Westerosi. The water dance is a true dance, the dance of evasion and the thrust, fast as a snake, never where they expect, to be suddenly beside them and piercing them, letting the water leak out. The sand dance is a performance, the dance of distraction and the slash. The spear is not part of a sand dancer's arm the way a sword is part of a water dancer's, the spear is the sand dancer's whole body, spinning and twirling, throwing and catching, distracting, until the dancer can get close, until the slash can be made. The slash that cripples before it kills. The sand dance is a performance, made to destroy men before an audience, not just to pierce and kill them like the water dance."
"That's how Dornishmen fight?" Edric whispered.
"The sandy and salty Dornish mainly." I remarked, having looked it up in the history section of the Red Keep's library to be sure. "The stony Dornish fight in the Westerosi style like you, the climate allows them to. But in the desert beyond the mountains, it is too hot for plate armour or a lot of ringmail, even on the coast. The sandy and salty dornish that live there fight mainly in leather with a little mail, the result is a style that focuses heavily on movement and weapons that either keep armoured swordsmen at range, or allow you to strike faster than them, like the spear, the longaxe, and the falchion. They have to fight like that as they're not wearing enough armour to take many hits. Oberyn Martell and Areo Hotah are masters of it, and dornish spear phalanxes are feared for how well their men can fight alone if their formation is broken, better than any of the other kingdom's men-at-arms."
"And I couldn't land a hit, even with the lady's help." Edric remarked shamefully. "How am I going to uphold my family name if I can't fight with a true Dornishman?"
I patted his shoulder. "You'll learn how to deal with a sand dancer in time, you're just not used to having an opponent move so fast. Plate armoured knights like you, Ser Loras, and the stony Dornish, move slower because you can afford to take hits the sandy and salty Dornish just can't. Your armour protects you as much as it slows you. Dornish fighters that have never encountered a knight will have as much trouble fighting you as you would fighting them."
Edric still looked downcast, though he had recovered a little confidence. "I will learn how to fight dancers as well as knights." He pronounced, resolute. "I cannot call myself a Dornishman if I cannot fight east of Skyreach."
"You can learn with me!" Arya spoke up fiercely. The joy of fighting with someone her own age who, rather than immediately dismissing her as a girl, had instead worked with her as a team against Syrio, had seemingly caught her imagination.
She was still the kind, outgoing, girl, longing for a friend under all her wildness, not yet hardened by tragedy and betrayal. Much like how Sansa still believed in a just and honourable world, and that outward appearances showed the truth of someone's character.
"Arya, child, a knight cannot learn the water dance." Syrio spoke softly, looking at me questioningly.
"But they can learn to strike a water dancer, just as a water dancer will need to learn how to pierce a knight's plate." I noted mildly.
Syrio finally smirked. "The boy learns to guard against piercing and slashing, how to strike the swift water or sand, and how to dance as well as he can inside his hard shell. The girl learns to pierce the Westerosi plate, even if the Westerosi expects a water dancer. I am no longer wondering what you want here."
Edric and Arya looked between us, excited.
"Then you will allow Edric to join the lessons?"
"I will speak to Lord Eddard, if he agrees, then the boy will join us. He will do the same training the girl does, in his shell, and he will not complain."
"No ser! I won't!" Edric gushed, smiling at a grinning Arya.
From her grin, it seemed that Arya was looking forward to having someone closer to her own age to practice with and talk to, it had to be quite lonely for her here. I suspected she was still fighting with Sansa and no other lady of the court, of whatever age, would touch her with her reputation for wild behaviour.
Syrio simply raised an eyebrow at me.
"I will, of course, pay you the same as Lord Eddard, dancing master, and I will inform Edric's knightly trainer that he will have to work around your lessons when planning Edric's traditional training in the practice yard."
Loras would be furious at the idea that training with him would come second to anything, let alone training with a Braavosi water dancer. Even if was easy to adjust his training schedule as he had to teach Jon as well as Edric now, it would be the principle of coming second to anyone that would ignite his temper. Fortunately, now I wasn't feeling guilty, I'd just make sure we were riding in the Kingswood when I told him. Re-enacting his and Renly's first kiss should calm him down relatively quickly.