Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun.

Book 2

Chapter One-Hundred and Thirteen

Rickard was never sure how he managed to get talked into these things, well, that was a lie as he knew exactly how. He loved them, all of them. And he would do anything for them and this was hardly a struggle or something terrible to endure even though he knew that he would come to regret it in the morning as he often did when he went down into the city with his brothers and friends.

But he had never been able to say no to them, ever since he was a little boy and he had first learned how to walk he had taken his firsts steps to follow Torrhen and Mors and that had been most of his life summed up. In truth, he was lucky that his brothers had never been annoyed with his presence and always managed to include him in whatever games they had thought up that day.

Normally Rohanne had been the princess in their games, when she couldn't play with them it had been Rickard who had been the princess instead, and one of them had been her knight come to rescue her while the other two of them had been dragons or barbarians who were keeping her captive. Those memories were the sweetest, but he had thousands of others along side memories of the babes that had come after them.

In truth even if he had wanted to truly stay behind he would still have followed them anyway as the Queen had asked him to do so, to make sure that they didn't get into any trouble. Queen Elia wasn't his mother, he knew that and she had never pretend to be but she had always been kind to him, more kind than he had any right to expect from hi father's wife, from the queen consort of the realm.

Everyone knew that bastards were sly, full of low cunning and inclined to try and usurp their trueborn siblings of their birth rights. He had heard that plenty of times, never to his face but always at his back whenever he passed by someone in the yard who had come to the Red Keep for a visit, and it had once ended with Rickard punching once of those arrogant lordlings, a son of a knight from the Vale, right in the face, knocking him down into the mud before he carried on his assault.

He had been punished for it, of course but in that moment it had felt good that any punishment would be worth it. His father had made certain that he hadn't been able to sit for a week after that and he had also been ordered to help out in the stables but not before the Queen had asked him what it was that had been said to him to make him do such a thing.

So of course he had told them, father had looked sadder in that moment than Rickard could ever remember him looking and it had been the Queen who knelt down to speak to him, her fingers pushing through his black curls gently and her voice as sweet as a lullaby when she spoke. "People have so many strange ideas about so many things Rickard, but being a bastard does not mean you are a liar or untrustworthy or a thief. You might be all of those things one day but only if you choose to be them, our fates are not laid out for us. You can choose to be more noble than any prince or any hero in any song. You are who you are, because of your choices."

He had never forgotten those words and Rickard had chosen to live his life by them, he would never ever take any of his siblings rights from them. He loved them to much and he was not a thief, he would prove every single one of the people who said that he had bad blood wrong. He had to do it, even if his family would be the first to tell him that he had nothing to prove.

And at least he wasn't alone, two of the Queen' brothers baseborn daughters were always close within the city and it was nice to know that he wasn't the only bastard within these walls. Nymeria Sand had been one off the Queen's maids since before Rickard had been born and she almost never left Queen Elia's side, she attracted the attention of lordlings and landed knights and the fact she was a bastard did not matter to them as so many had proposed though she turned all of them away.

Tyene Sand was the other, quiet and pious and so unlike her older sister in so many ways though she was also one of the Queen's maids as well and always seemed to be close at hand if the Queen needed her for anything. Rickard liked the both of them though it was difficult to spend time with either of them seeing as they were often busy with some task that the Queen had set them and Rickard himself was often busy with his own tasks. But it was good to know that he wasn't alone and it was a relief that the both of them seemed to approve of him as well, considering.

"Are you ready to go or not?" Rickard turned as heard the voice, alongside the sound of the door to his chamber opening, and Aemon sauntered in and threw himself atop his bed, his silver hair spreading out over his pillow and the former heir to the throne acted like he owned Rickard's chambers, which was nothing new considering the fact that the older boy had been acting like that for as long as Rickard had known him.

And so he scooped up a pitcher that was half full of water from the table next to his desk and threw it over him, smirking as he saw the other gasp and splutter and, ironically enough, looking like a fish that had been pulled out of water for a second. "Off of my bed you prick." Rickard said with a laugh as Aemon grabbed the sheepskin blanket and rubbed his eyes with it. "I'm surprised you're going, I heard that you've been going out with Loras Tyrell every night recently."

"Oh, don't you start on that as well." Aemon groaned as he pulled the sheepskin away from his eyes and when Rickard raised an eyebrow at him he continued. "Apparently, my sister went whining to my mother a few days ago and she tried to chastise me for who I choose to spend my time with, like I'm a little boy."

Ah, Rickard had heard that there had been something of a confrontation between Aemon and his mother awhile back but he hadn't known what it was about until just now. "I see." It was best not to push it, Aemon had always had a temper and it was easy to set off and it took a great deal to finally put it out. "Am I to assume then that Ser Loras will be coming with us tonight then?"

"No, he was invited and he wanted to come but he said that his grandmother and mother wished to have supper with him tonight and he couldn't get away from it." Aemon let out another sigh. "Honestly, gods save us all from interfering women." He groaned again, louder, when he looked down at himself. "Gods damn it Rickard you prick look at me! I'm drenched!"

"Maybe that will teach you to knock and to not just act like everything in the world belongs to you." Rickard responded and his friend put his finger up in the air at him and despite himself Rickard couldn't help but laugh. "Calm down, we aren't going to leave without you and I am sure you can get changed. I'll meet you out there, all right?" Rickard said, patting Aemon on the shoulder as he walked past him and out the door.

His brothers were already waiting at the gates for him, Torrhen was resting against a barrel of something or other and Mors, by contrast, was standing up straight with his head held high. Torrhen did always like to tease Mors about the fact that he could seemingly never relax, there were plenty of references to sticks being lodged into uncomfortable places which often lead to Mors cuffing his older brother on the back.

It wasn't just the twins of course, their cousin was there as well. Jon Stark was taller than any of them and every single inch of him was a Stark, save for his deep blue eyes which had come from his mother. He stood out from the rest of his brothers who had taken more after their father, Lord Arryn. The only thing he could said to have in common with them was being tall, as his brothers had pale blond hair and even paler blue eyes.

Jon had been a part of their lives for as long as they could remember, he was older than all of them and he did everything before them and all of them were desperate to follow him. It settled strange in his stomach, the thought that soon that they would be separated. Torrhen would return to Dragonstone before too long and Mors would remain in in the capital, Jon would be going to the North sooner than any of them to marry Minisa Stark and learn under Uncle Benjen how to be it's lord and Rickard...

He still wasn't sure if he could do it, it was a great honour of course and he was so grateful for it but to be given such a responsibility was something that he had never expected, something that he had never asked for.

It still seemed a dream when he thought back on it when he was summoned to his Father's chambers and he explained his plans for him. "It will be a very different life from the one you have lead so far Rickard, I will not lie to you." Of course he wouldn't, Rickard had never known his Father to lie about anything to anyone even when it would serve his own interests.

Eddard Stark had risen from behind his desk then and walked around it to rest a hand on his shoulder. "But it is something that needs to be done Rickard and I think that I can trust you to do this and so does the Queen," His father had squeezed his shoulder then before carrying on, "But that does not change the fact that Moat Cailin is a ruin, it will be cold and even colder now as it gets closer to winter but your duty will be to have it rebuilt, to be the fortress that I know it can be. Can I rely on you for this?"

Of course he could, Rickard would do anything that his father asked of him but he could not pretend he wasn't confused as to why he had been chosen for this and not Mors instead, their brother was to be king and it would be Mors who would need his own lands and castle in order to support him but he had to assume that his father and the Queen had other plans for him.

And so he had accepted and there had been plenty of whispering in the Red Keep then when it had been announced, and he couldn't pretend he didn't smirk when he heard the same lordlings and knight's sons complaining about the king's by-blow getting a castle, even if it was a ruin.

Mors had been helping him to study up on the castle, it was one of the oldest castles in the realm and much of it's history had been lost to time but there were histories of battles that had been fought there through out the ages, how many great and mighty hosts had broken against it's walls without setting even a single foot inside of the North and that was when it was still mostly ruined. If Rickard could restore it, or if his children could instead as it would probably a life time's work, then he could make the North almost unassailable from the sea.

It would also mean that Jon would be his liege lord but he didn't mind that, it would be nice to know that one of the men he had been growing up with his entire life would be still close by, the lone wolf died after all but the pack survived.

The Queen may have tasked him to keep his brothers and cousin out of trouble but he did at least have a little reinforcement as the Queen's uncle was there as well, garbed in the the black armour of the Queensguard with his burnt orange cloak flowing from his shoulders. The older man had been one of the men who had taught him how to use a sword so Rickard was always glad to see him. Other than him there were a few more men joining them, sons of important lords and the like.

"Took you long enough." Torrhen said as he pushed himself away from the barrel and stretched his arms over his head. "Where's the silver haired twat, any chance he fell down some stairs and broke his neck on the way to come back?"

"No such luck." Rickard answered and couldn't help but laugh when his older brother whined at the answer, and he laughed even harder when Mors slapped him on the back of the head. "He's on his way, he had to get changed."

"Why?" Mors asked with a look that reminded Rickard of their father and normally meant that he was due for a scolding, Mors could always tell if any of them were lying about anything. He always said that being Torrhen's brother meant that he had a lot of practice with it.

"I...spilt something on his doublet." It was basically the truth but Mors only responded with a raised eyebrow and Rickard broke. "Okay fine, I chucked a pitcher of water over him." Torrhen laughed and Mors sighed and Lewyn Martell shook his head, but there was a smile on his face.

"He did the bastard, you know my poor mother made that doublet for my nameday, she practically wore her fingers to the bone to hear her talk about it." Aemon said as he walked over to join them, now dressed in a black doublet to replace the green and gold that he had been wearing as well as black silk trousers and black boots. "Now, are we going to go or what?"

"Well, it looks like we're all here so we might as well." Mors spoke and the group began to make their way through the gate, one of the guards on the wall calling down to them as they walked through and made their way down Aegon's high hill to the city below.

They had a destination in mind but that was for later in the night, for now they simply intended to take in the sights and sounds of the city. King's Landing was never quiet but now, with all the people who had come to the city however it was hard to walk without bumping into someone, plus the fact they were well know in the city meant that it seemed everyone wanted their attention for something or other.

Merchants called out to them, asking if any of them had a lady friend who wished for perfectly cut jewels, swordsmiths offered to make blades just for them and bakers offered up treats from their trays. Rickard did allow himself to be taken in by the baker and he was soon walking down the street with arms full of apples that had been baked with cinnamon, the warmth of them in his arms fighting off the chill in the night air.

Puppet stalls had been set up to entertain the children of the city and their laughter filled the air, a Dornish man was pulling the strings for them and putting on strange voices for the puppets, one made to look like a man in a dress and another looking like a naked woman who was chasing the man with a little wooden pan in her hands who was chasing her wooden husband.

There was dicing in the streets and singing in the air and laughter as well, the smell of meats cooking over fires and spices that Rickard had no names for reached his nostrils and made his mouth water, so he took a bite out of one of the apples that he was carrying, the tartness of the fruit and the sweetness of the sugar and the taste of the cinnamon bursting over his tongue.

Aemon snatched one of the apples from his haul and hitting him would mean letting the apples fall into the dirt and Rickard was not about to let that happen and so he tried to kick out at him but Aemon simply danced out of the way of his attack, laughing as he did so and Rickard was soon laughing as well.

Eric Dustin was one of their friends that had come down with them, he was the eldest child and only son of Lord Willam Dustin and his lady wife Barbrey and he had been sent down from the North to be one of Mors's companions and he pushed himself up to the front of the group so he could speak to Torrhen. "I'm surprised that you decided to come out with us at all, it seems to me that your witch hasn't let you out of your chambers for days now."

Torrhen glared at him, and in that moment he really did look like father. "Don't call her that, she isn't a witch. She's a priestess."

"I've never known a septa to seduce a prince." Eric shrugged his shoulders then and grinned. "Mind you, maybe they would try it if more septas looked like that."

"Shut up Eric, she's not some whore. She's my paramour." All of them knew that, Rickard would not be surprised if by this point the entire realm knew that. It was the sort of story that spread quickly and it was also the sort of story that was slow to die, if it ever did.

A paramour was a Dornish thing, beyond the mountains everyone else would call the red woman that his brother had fallen in love with a whore but Torrhen had been insistent on using the Dornish title for her and no one had been able to sway his mind from it, no one had been able to convince him to even think of sending the woman away either even though Rickard knew that many had tried.

Queen Elia had done her best to change people's minds about the Dornish, and the people within the capital loved her well enough as her charities meant that she was often in the city handing out food and making clothes for the children in the orphanage and her actions and kindness had spread out from the capital meaning that men and women were oft quick to raise glasses for King Eddard and his good and kind queen.

But Rickard knew better than most that didn't mean people changed their ideas about you, Torrhen had a Dornish mother and that meant people would think that he was more lustful than other men and taking a paramour just meant that in their eyes he had proved them right and that would hurt his chances for a marriage with anyone who wasn't from Dorne, which was a marriage that needed to happen as the family knew that they could count on the loyalty of anyone in Dorne or the North.

Eric knew better than to push it and so he drifted back into the main group and the group fell into silence, it had been a good night so far and none of them wanted to risk ruining it as there was still a lot of the night left.

It was the hour of the wolf when they finally reached where they would be spending the rest of the night, the moon was fat in the sky and casting everything in a pale light as the men approached Chataya's, there were candles burning in every single window that made the inside of the brothel warm, there was the smell of a stew bubbling in a pot and soft moans filling the air.

"Greetings my lords." Chataya greeted them with a warm smile, the older woman dressed in a flowing green dress with a coloured feathers streaming down from the shoulders. "My, my, such a handsome group of men. My girls are very fortunate tonight, I trust that is why you are here of course? My cook does make a rather lovely stew after all."

"I'll have the stew please Chataya and a flagon of your finest wine, I have another bed which I can crawl into if I wish for comfort and I would forsake it for no other." Torrhen said as he took a reach heavy looking pouch from his sword belt and placed it into her hand. "But my friends can choose whatever they wish for, I trust that will be enough for the night?"

"Oh yes my prince, this will do very well indeed." Chataya gave a command in the tongue of the summer isles and one of her girls, a Dornish girl with almond shaped eyes, ran over and took the pouch from her mistress's hand and carried it out of sight. Another girl, this one very pale with bright red hair walked the group of them deeper into the brothel and lead them them to a large table which was surrounded by a padded bench.

True to his word Rickard's older brother only temptation that night was a bowl of stew and a cup of wine, Mors did not seem to be in any rush either but he turned down the stew and the wine for a cup of blackberry rum instead. Ser Lewyn also received his own invitations as well but the older man simply smiled gently at anyone who approached him and sent them away from him.

Poor Jon was blushing like a maiden and seemed to be wishing that the floor would swallow him up, honest the other man had not so much looked at another woman since his betrothal to Minisa had been announced and it had been a pain to convince him to come out with them tonight according to Mors as he had been writing one of his letters to his future wife when they had finally got him to agree.

Which Rickard supposed he could understand as Jon spent half the year in the North and half the year in the capital with his mother, when he had been very small he had been raised in the North under Lord Benjen which meant he was hardly going into the marriage unprepared for what the North expected off him but it would be still be a change for all of them as he would be in the North for good from now on, as would Rickard himself.

So his cousin seemed to settle for the stew as well, Rickard did have to wonder what the whores were thinking at this group that seemed to be more interested in food than any of them but that did not last long as Harry Karstack was the first to pick a girl and wandering off to one of the brothel's rooms and that seemed to be what broke the dam for the rest of them.

Smalljon Umber picked up two girls with skin the colour of pitch and carried them off, Eric was tempted by a girl with chestnut curls and Aemon rose to speak with Chataya in a hushed tone so he would not be overheard but the older woman smiled at him, patted him on the shoulder and called for one of her girls who lead him off in another direction, moments later the girl came back with a smile.

"Someone wants to see you." A gentle voice with the same accent as Chataya spoke and Rickard looked up and smiled at the younger woman who stood there, though the smile fell away for a moment when she handed him a piece of jade and he was about to ask what it was for but the question died his throat and the smile came back with full force when he saw what the jade had been shaped into.

Rickard rose and bid his brothers and his cousin a good night before he follow Chataya's daughter through the brothel to a room, and his smile grew to the point when it was starting to hurt his cheeks when he saw who was sitting on the bed, her back to him. "How did you know that I'd be here?" Rickard asked as he walked towards the bed, placing the small jade sphinx on the desk in the room as he walked.

"I've been in the city for a week now and I wanted to surprise you., Nym told me that you were all going to be out tonight and I knew that it would end in the brothel and this is the only brothel that anyone of royal blood would use." His love spoke as she rose from the bed and turned to face him, the last time that he had seen her she had shaved away of all her hair but her black curls had grown back to the point of tickling her long neck.

"I've missed you Sarella." Rickard hummed and stepped closer to her and wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her neck and breathed in the scent of orange and sandalwood, having her so close to him made him as hard as a stone but he did have a question that was rolling around in his mind and he wasn't going to do anything before he had an answer for it. "Rella, what are you doing here? You're meant to be in Oldtown, you risked so much to go there. If anyone finds out the truth..." He couldn't finish the sentence as he wasn't sure what they would do to her.

He doubted that they would execute the niece of the Queen, even if she was a bastard but he couldn't help but remember the song of Danny Flint and what her brothers had done to her when they learned the truth and even though Rickard feared for her every single day that she was away in Oldtown he also knew that forging her chain was what Sarella wanted to do more than anything.

Sarella sighed and reached up to cup his cheek and Rickard wanted nothing more than to lean into the touch. "Tyene sent me a letter, about your Father's plans for you," when she looked up at him in that moment Sarella's honey colour eyes were filled with tears. "If you went North and I stayed within Oldtown then I would never see you again, I thought about it for a long time and then I thought that I could not bear that so I came back to be with you. I want to go to the North."

Rickard's heart hurt at his words and he wanted nothing more than to kiss her again, to hold her tight and never let her go. "Rella, the North isn't Dorne. Father is going to legitimise me as a Stark so I can be Lord of Moat Cailin and I'm going to have to marry a northern girl to have an heir, if you came with me all the lords of the North would see you as is my whore, our children would be bastards."

"I don't care." Sarella hissed through her teeth as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Let them call me whatever they wish, let them call me a whore I do not care what any of them think. Do you swear that you will always love me, that you will never cast me out in the cold?"

"Of course I do, I swear it."

"Then let that be enough, you can have a lady wife. She will be your lady, whoever she is, and I will be your love and I will count myself the victor." Her tears were falling without any stopping them and Rickard wiped every single drop that fell away and leaned into kiss her deeply. He picked her up easily and carried her over to the bed and set her down on it.

"Alright my love, but only if you're sure."

"I'm sure."

Rickard smiled down at her and peeled the cotton shirt she was wearing off and leaned down to take one of her hard nipples into his mouth and gently sucked on it, the soft gasp his love let out urged him on and he sucked it gently for a few moments be pulled away and began to press kisses down her chest, down her smooth belly until he was between her thighs.

Rickard spent him time there, the taste of Sarella was more intoxicating than any wine or rum could ever hope to be and he would not be denied even the slightest taste and so he kept tasting her until Sarella's dark thighs were clenching around his head and she was whining for him.

And that was when the scream happened.

It was loud and bloodcurdling and Rickard was on his feet and moving towards the door before he knew what was happening, even as Sarella called for him to wait for her, and he rushed through the corridors of the brothel until he was back in the main area.

The first thing he noticed was Prince Lewyn who had a young woman on her knees in front of him, her arm was twisting in his grasp and there was a knife in front of her and something was burned on to the back of her hand but Rickard couldn't make out what it was. She wasn't one of Chataya's girls, she was dressed in a roughspun dress with a sty under her eye and she was trying to struggle out of the prince's grasp like a wild animal, she was cursing and screaming about heretics and liars and witch fuckers.

It was Torrhen he saw next, and that was when the world ended.

It had to, surely? How could it not in that moment when he saw Mors bent over his twin, his shoulders shaking from sobs that he could not hold back as Torrhen stared unseeing up at the roof, his white silk shirt that had been under his doublet had been soaked with blood and there were rips in the shirt, rips that were right over his heart.

There was muttering, wailing. How were they going to get him back to the Red Keep, how was he going to tell father? A thousand questions were running from his head and Rickard did not have an answer for any single one of them.

The door to the brothel slammed open and when Rickard turned to look he had to blink, it had to be the tears in his as for a moment all he could see standing in the doorway was a great red shape and when he blinked to clear his eyes the vision did not change but as it stepped through the doorway the shape seemed to turn into lady Melisandre.

The red woman began to make her way through the brothel, over towards the padded bench where Torrhen and Mors were and Rickard was about to stop her from going towards them, to give Mors some more time to grieve for his twin or to stop the woman from seeing what was left of her lover Rickard wasn't sure what was going through his head in that moment but a simple glance from the woman had him stopping in his tracks.

Her eyes were red to, Rickard had never seen anything like it and it made him stop.

Mellisandre seated herself down next to Torrhen's body and muttered something to Mors, the younger brother shook his head but the woman seemed insistent and Mors finally conceded and pulled away from the body, a blood stain on his face.

The red woman gently took hold of Torrhen's face and spoke something in a language that Rickard did not know, a prayer he had to assume. Within moments the woman was done, sitting back with her hands folded in her lap.

And moments later, Torrhen was awake and gasping for air.

And then, their was chaos.

End of Chapter One-Hundred and Thirteen

Well.

So, someone left a review asking for a family tree and I do plan to do one later on but I don't want to do it yet as there are some characters I still want to introduce and doing it now could spoil some things I have planned for later.

But I will say something for this chapter as I know it could be confusing and so I think it needs some clarification.

Rickard Snow is who in cannon would be Jon Snow, Jon Stark is the son of Brandon Stark and Catelyn Tully who is still in the line of succession for Winterfell and is betrothed to Minisa Tully.

Rickard is also a different person to Jon and I wanted to make that clear, he's a little less naïve than in canon and a little more comfortable in his own skin and I wanted to make that come across so I hope that's clear.

Also, Rickard is younger than the twins but about the same age as Rohanne give or take.

Well, that's about it.

With a lot of love,

DiscordantSymphony